Each film will be introduced by Mark Hasskarl, Danbury Library Director, who will lead an optional discussion after the showing.

 

October 5, 7:00 p.m. - PLATOON (1986)
WCSU, Midtown campus, Student Center Theatre

Director/screenwriter Oliver Stone based his harrowing Vietnam epic on his own experiences there. Charlie Sheen is Chris Taylor, who arrives in Vietnam in 1967 after dropping out of college to volunteer. His psychological and moral progress are influenced by two of his sergeants, Barnes (Tom Berenger) and Elias (Willem Dafoe), who are, respectively, a ruthless, animal-like soldier and a "water-walker" who believes that things have gone too far after a merciless attack on a village where Vietcong have been sighted.

October 14, 7:00 p.m. - THE HURT LOCKER (2008)
Danbury Library, Farioly Program Room

Based on the personal wartime experiences of journalist Mark Boal, director Kathryn Bigelow's Best Picture Oscar-winning Iraq War thriller presents the conflict from the perspective of soldiers. The members of an elite Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal team face the constant threat of death from incoming bombs and sharp-shooting snipers in Baghdad, as well as the danger of dismantling improvised explosive devices. Jeremy Renner, Guy Pearce, and Ralph Fiennes star.

 

October 23, 10:00 a.m. - A SOLDIER'S SWEETHEART (1998)
Bethel Cinema, Bethel, CT

Thomas Michael Donnelly directed this Vietnam drama, adapted from Tim O'Brien's short story, "Sweetheart of the Song Tra Bong," about a group of Vietnam army medics. Rat (Kiefer Sutherland) narrates the tale, seen in flashbacks, of his buddy Fossie (Skeet Ulrich), who manipulates the black-market to import his hometown girlfriend, innocent teen Marianne (Georgina Cates). But Marianne finds the war carnage fascinating, and she becomes involved with a group of Green Berets.