11-9-12: Watch This, Skip That

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movieMAYHEM-1109.mp3

Take this week's weather as a sign to invest in some quality indoor activities. Here to help you is Tom Hall, Jed Deitz and Mike Sragow, with the November films that will keep you glued in front of the big screen.

Topping their shortlist this month is Lincoln, a biographical drama that takes us back to the carnage of the Civil War and the tense decision that would transform the nation. If the Steven Spielberg name isn't enough, watch it for lead actor Daniel Day-Lewis' eerie resemblance to good old Abe.  Also up for the discussion is The Sessions, Ben Lewin's drama of a man in an iron lung (John Hawkes) and the professional sex surrogate (Helen Hunt) hired to help him lose his virginity.

You can also check out Savages, Oliver Stone's crime thriller on a drug business gone sour in Languna Beach.  The Maryland Film Festival is hosting a conversation with John Travolta, one of the stars of the film, on Saturday, November 10, at the MICA Brown Center.  Tickets available here.

And on Tuesday, the WYPR Maryland Film Festival Spotlight will hold a free screening of the documentary The Interrupters.  Tom Hall will interview the film's director Steve James at the Johns Hopkins University, Homewood Campus at 7:00pm.  This will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by State's Attorney Gregg Bernstein with Steve James, Michael Hanchard of the JHU Center for Africana Studies, and Patrick Wright or MICA Film and Video Chair.  Details here.

Meanwhile, the latest in the James Bond franchise, Skyfall, is out today.  It's the 50th anniversary of the franchise, and Mike Sragow interviews Roger Moore for The New Yorker, who played Bond between 1973 and 1985.  Moore says "Now they've found the Bond--Daniel Craig."