Gooding Public Library

It took over five years for Nathaniel Rich to finish his first novel — maybe because he was writing The Mayor's Tongue secretly, first as a college student, and then while writing film criticism during the day.

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It takes skill to make a movie bad on purpose, but movies that are bad by accident can be a lot more fun. That paradox is the main lesson of “Black Dynamite.”

The documentary “Food Beware” takes a pragmatic, health-based approach.

“The Little Traitor” is a muddled morality tale more interested in coming of age than getting of wisdom.

Several things might strike you as odd about “Believe: The Eddie Izzard Story,” a documentary about the cross-dressing British comedian.

“Opa!” is a sweet, nontaxing movie set in the gorgeous Greek Isles.

“Where the Wild Things Are” is an alternately perfect and imperfect if always beautiful adaptation of the Maurice Sendak children’s book.

The movie “Paranormal Activity” was inspired by unexplained noises in the night and other strange goings-on in the director Oren Peli’s suburban home.

In spite of some attempts at human and neighborhood variety, the stories in “New York, I Love You” have a self-conscious sameness.

The narrative design of “The Maid” is at once simple and complex.

The system fails a family man in “Law Abiding Citizen,” leading him to seek his own brand of justice.

“Black Dynamite,” a loving homage to blaxploitation films, features a gleefully ludicrous plot.

“New York, I Love You” assembles an eclectic collection of directors and actors and let them loose on city streets.

MOVIES.

A French lawyer for the jailed director Roman Polanski said that his client, if released from jail, would promise to remain in Switzerland under house arrest.

Keith Bardwell, justice of the peace in Tangipahoa Parish, said he denied the license out of concern for any children the couple might have. He denied being a racist and said in his experience most interracial marriages do not last long.

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The 6-year-old boy feared lost after a hot-air balloon he was believed to be traveling in came down has been found safe in his home. The balloon was owned by the boy's parents; it was tethered behind their house.

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John Keegan, who is British, puts the Civil War into broad historical context amid history’s great conflicts, from the Napoleonic wars and World War I to Vietnam.

President Obama praised the people New Orleans for not giving up after the city was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. The comments came at a town hall meeting during Obama's first visit to the city after being elected president.

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Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was released Thursday after being hospitalized briefly following a reaction to medication. It was the second time Ginsburg has been hospitalized in the past month.

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