BOOK 'EM!.......... EMILIO THE LIBRARIAN DEALS WITH "THE PUBLIC"

The Public (2018)      Could hardly ignore this one, given that it mirrors Beloved Daughter's trials and tribulations as a big city librarian......

                       No quibbling.......I love this movie from writer-director Emilio Estevez.......it's the kind of film that once flourished in theaters before they clogged up with the lethal cholesterol of superhero/sci-fi/Disney reboot/super-dumb action movies.......

                        Hugely ambitious, with an expansive ensemble cast who all get a chance to shine, Estevez casts a withering gaze on the most incendiary of societal ills........

                         Any random minute of this movie is more incisive, sad,  humorous, uplifting and entertaining than 700 hours of spandexed Marvel heroes tossing each other around like volleyballs.......

                         Estevez plays one of  the most under-appreciated of today's civil servants - a librarian whose vast facility (the Cincinnati library) plays daily host and daytime refuge to the city's homeless population......as well as a wide, diverse variety of humanity seeking entertainment, enlightenment, and the answers to impossibly arcane reference questions............

                       .........which is why libraries, more than ever, stand as outposts of civilization in a world overrun with lies, liars and savagery....

                         And from the countless bizarre stories I've heard from Beloved Daughter as well as my own first hand observation of her library, all the stuff depicted here rings painfully true........an urban city library is a snapshot of everything in the culture.......the best, the worst and everything in between......

                        In the film, a brutal cold snap is literally freezing Cincinnati's homeless to death, due to a shortage of shelters.  In desperation, they occupy the main library, and find a unlikely ally  in Estevez's calm, subdued librarian....... who himself has a backstory as tortured as the poor souls seeking enough warmth to save their lives.......

                       I'm not going to eat up a lot of space cataloging all the fine actors and riotous, explosive situations (and yes, some of them funny) that come teeming through this film........you all need to experience them for yourselves.......

                       So please, BQ visitors, do yourselves a favor and do just that.......

                        More incentive?  Okay, how 'bout this.......5 stars (*****), a FIND OF FINDS.  Turn off the superheroes for a couple of hours and experience a real film for a change.......You might even like it better than watching the usual CGI Halloween Shop volleyball match.......