Arcadia Public Library

"Willis Wu doesn't perceive himself as a protagonist even in his own life: He's merely Generic Asian man. Sometimes he gets to be Background Oriental Making a Weird Face or even Disgraced Son, but he is always relegated to a prop. Yet every day he leaves his tiny room in a Chinatown SRO and enters the Golden Palace restaurant, where Black and White, a procedural cop show, is in perpetual production. He's a bit player here, too, but he dreams of being...

"In this sweeping, eloquent history of America, one of our sharpest observers, Kurt Andersen, demonstrates that what's happening in our country today--this strange, post-truth, 'fake news' moment we're all living through--is not something entirely new, but rather the ultimate expression of our national character and path. America was founded by wishful dreamers, magical thinkers, and true believers, by impresarios and their audiences, by hucksters...

In MEF's powerful new release, The Bro Code, filmmaker Thomas Keith takes aim at the forces in male culture that condition boys and men to dehumanize and disrespect women. Keith breaks down a range of contemporary media forms that are saturated with sexism -- movies and music videos that glamorize misogyny; pornography that trades in the brutalization of women; comedy routines that make fun of sexual assault; and a slate of men's magazines and cable...

America's preeminent columnist presents his penetrating and surprising reflections on everything from embryo research to entitlement reform, from Halley's Comet to border collies, from Christopher Columbus to Martin Luther King, from drone warfare to American decline. Features a special, highly autobiographical introduction.

This documentary pulls back the curtain and takes a look at the cultural climate surrounding MoMA’s now famed exhibition, “High & Low: High Art and Popular Culture”. Opening in the fall of 1990, the show placed a spotlight on the rapid merging of consumerism and the artistic avant-garde. Curated by Kirk Varnedoe and Adam Gopnik and featuring work from artists such as Jeff Koons and Roy Lichtenstein, “High & Low” ignites conversations of...

The wickedly mesmerizing story of the ten grueling years before Twisted Sister broke out of gigs at suburban clubs and became the biggest glam rock band of the 1980s, recounted by the band themselves, their managers and their biggest fans. “*Fascinating...A comprehensive and sometimes harrowing portrayal of the grind a working bar band in the 1970s had to endure to get by.*” - Gleen Kenny, ***The New York Times***

For all of the achievements of the womens movement over the past four decades, misogyny remains a persistent force in American culture. In this important new documentary, Thomas Keith, Professor of Philosophy at California State University-Long Beach, looks specifically at misogyny and sexism in mainstream American media, exploring how negative definitions of femininity and hateful attitudes toward women get constructed and perpetuated at the very...

Featuring Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Amy Schumer, Kevin Hart, Bob Saget, Jamie Foxx, Sarah Silverman, Jerry Lewis, Steve Coogan, Bobby Lee, & the late Garry Shandling, DYING LAUGHING is a candid look inside the agony and ecstasy of making people laugh for a living. A stand-up comedian must be the writer, the director, and the star performer. There is no rehearsal, no practice, and no safety net when you’re in front of a live audience. For most...