Learning in Focus

Ab Snopes (Tommy Lee Jones) is a Southern tenant farmer whose unrelenting and violent nature proves to be his undoing in William Faulkner's Barn Burning. Snopes sets his employer's barn on fire when he thinks he's been treated unfairly. His son, Sarty, is horrified. Snopes escapes justice for lack of proof, but he and his family are told to move on. No sooner do they move than Snopes is offended by his new rich employer. Torn between trying to win his father's acceptance and his aversion to what his father will do, Sarty must make a decision and act quickly. Adapted by Academy Award winning screenwriter Horton Foote, Faulkner's complex world of class divisions and hostile family relationships comes to life through a boy's attempt to liberate himself from hatred and poverty.

Charley Tate is an old windbag, often a braggart, but somehow always lovable. Married over fifty years to his ever-patient wife Lucy, the two of them are on their Golden Honeymoon in Florida. Everything goes perfectly... until Lucy meets her former fiancee who's also vacationing with his wife. Suddenly there's a comic competition between Charley and the old boyfriend for Lucy's attention. After fifty years, cantankerous Charley has to win his girl all over again!

Captures the essence of Willa Cather's haunting story of Pittsburgh circa 1900. Lost in a world of fantasy, young working-class Paul dreams of escaping his dreary existence in turn-of-the-century Pittsburgh. As fate would have it Paul gets his chance by stealing some money and subsequently running off to glamorous New York City.

A mysterious stranger descends on the small town of Hadleyburg to teach its deceitful residents a lesson.

Expatriate Spencer Brydon returns to his now-empty childhood home, and finds himself obsessed with what his life would have been, had he not left America.

Traveling from town to town during the summer of 1919, young Andy (Ron Howard) has left his Ohio home in search of adventure and romance as a horse trainer on the country fair racing circuit. Ashamed of his occupation, Andy leads Lucy to believe he's wealthy. Soon one deception leads to another... until there is no way to tell Lucy the truth.

A conscientious but driven Polish refugee disrupts the hierarchy of power on a Georgia farm in the 1940s.

This film adaptation of James Baldwin's celebrated novel tells the journey of a family from the rural South to "big city" Harlem seeking both salvation and understanding and of a young boy struggling to earn the approval of a self-righteous and often unloving stepfather.

Nebraska in the 1880's: bleak, lonely, and far from what you'd expect The Wild West to be. But for a naive Swedish immigrant, the frontier parlor of THE BLUE HOTEL represents the quintessential western fantasy. No one can convince The Swede that his dime-store notions about The West are foolish. He sees murderous intentions all around him and in his terror he turns everybody against him. Inevitably, the Swede attracts tragedy. However, who is responsible? The negative Swede? Or the cliquish hotel guests? Jan Kadar directs this timely story of how society punishes outsiders for being different.

Tommy Wilhelm (Robin Williams) is a salesman. An honest, hard-working guy who has lost his job, his girlfriend, and left part of his sanity behind as he heads to New York to pick up the pieces of his life. He's always been able to sell, but caught in a downward spiral, he must, in addition, face the father who never really understood him, while trying to balance his newly precarious existence.

Harold Krebs went off to fight in World War I, "the war to end all wars." But when he comes home, Harold finds that he doesn't fit in any more. He needs peace and quiet to figure out what has happened to him and who he has become, but his mother pressures him to rejoin society.

Set in 18th Century Italy, RAPPACCINI'S DAUGHTER is the tale of a young scholar named Giovanni (Kristoffer Tabori) who falls in love with a beautiful, yet forbidden, girl who tends her father's poison garden. However, the strange and unearthly beauty of Beatrice (Kathleen Beller) masks a terrifying curse which Giovanni must tragically discover. Her father, the mysterious Dr. Rappaccini, has made her the subject of a diabolical experiment. In Giovanni's attempt to free Beatrice from the control of her father and to escape the poisonous effect she begins to have on him, he unwittingly destroys her. From the short story of master American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, two quintessential Hawthorne themes are explored: the sins of interfering with another's soul and the futility of trying to tamper with nature.

This version of James Thurber's tale tells the story of a young amateur pilot who beats Charles Lindbergh's feat of nonstop flying around the world--with his own unique ways of conserving fuel and energy.

Granny Weatherall (Geraldine Fitzgerald) is a spunky old lady of eighty who bosses around her doctor and her children. She seems so strong and in control, and yet she has never had the upper hand in her destiny. One morning, a flood of long-forgotten memories bring her to the realization that of all her accomplishments, she cannot console herself for the shame-filled day she was left standing at the alter. Still, her indomitable will to live and act independently infuses the last day of her life. Adapted from the short story by acclaimed writer Katherine Anne Porter ("Ship of Fools"), The Jilting of Granny Weatherall reminds us of the plight of many women who wait for life to claim them, rather than seek life out for themselves.

From the pen of Pulitzer Prize winning author John Updike ("Witches of Eastwick," "Rabbit Run"), comes the story of a young man's search through the questions of life and death, and the wondrous discovery of living in the soaring beauty of one of nature's simplest creations. A family returns to life on a farm and finds some answers to the paradox of living.

From Ernest J. Gaines, author of "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman," comes a deceptively simple, yet emotionally complex tale of a young boy's discovery of what it's like to be black in Louisiana during the 1940's. James, the boy in question, has a raging toothache that necessitates a trip to the dentist. His mother (played by Emmy-winner Olivia Cole), accompanies James to town on an eye-opening odyssey where the boy gains valuable insights into poverty, racism - and his own sense of pride. With an exciting musical score by Webster Lewis, this multi-award winning film explores a child's discovery that the world is a complicated place... where things are never truly black or white... only shades of gray.

Although Dave (LeVar Burton) and his family are poor sharecroppers in the Deep South in the 1930s, this 15-year-old's problem is shared by teenagers today: he stands with one foot in adulthood and the other in childhood. "Almos' A Man", yet still treated like a child, he struggles for an identity. There's one thing, one symbol of manhood, Dave thinks, that could guarantee him instant respect: a gun.

This drama is based on a John Updike story and is narrated by the author. It is the tale of an angst-filled hero attending music school.

Father is going to build a new barn. Mother (Academy Award nominee Amy Madigan) wants the new house she's been promised. A simple story, yet one that reveals so much about love and respect and the often difficult times between those who strive and work to build a life together. Set against the beautiful rustic backdrop of farming life in 1890 New England, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman's poignant story brings us two hard-working people of the land. Sometimes the most difficult thing to see may be the needs of those who are closest to you.