The 2002 novel “Miracle at St. Anna” by James McBride was made into a 2008 movie directed by Spike Lee. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Contributed photo

The Westport’s Library’s annual WestportREADS program is underway with this year’s selection the 2002 novel “Miracle at St. Anna” by author and musician James McBride.

It is a powerful and heartfelt book of an orphaned Italian boy befriended by a black American soldier in Italy during World War II.

The book choreographs the sacrifices of the four members of the all-black 92nd Infantry Buffalo Division as they and the boy are trapped in the Italian village of St. Anna di Stazzema as the German army closes in

According to Library officials, WestportREADS aims to strengthen the community via shared experience of a book and its author.

By Susan Granger

In “The Danish Girl,” Eddie Redmayne follows up his Oscar-winning performance as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything” with an amazing transformation, becoming Lili Elbe, the first transgender woman.

While 2015 marked Caitlyn Jenner’s transition and Amazon’s TV’s “Transparent,” along with the Supreme Court’s legalization of same-sex marriage, back in 1926 in Denmark, the transgender concept frustrated and bewildered psychiatrists who considered it a perversion.

Which is why when renowned landscape artist Einar Wegener (Redmayne) starts to wear makeup and clothing belonging to his ambitious-but-struggling portrait-painter wife Gerda (Alicia Vikander), Copenhagen’s traditionally tolerant artistic community is stunned.

Married for six years, Einer enjoys a lusty conjugal life with Gerda - until, one day, she asks him to don stockings, tutu and satin slippers to fill in for a missing model. Sensing his delight posing in feminine finery, she suggests he attend a party, masquerading as a cousin named Lili.

WestportNow film critic Susan Granger compiled her list of 10 BEST for 2015. They are listed alphabetically:

PICTURE:

“Bridge of Spies” - Fact-based spy-swap story, set during the Cold War.
“Creed” - Re-birth of the “Rocky” legend for another generation.
“Ex Machina” - A scientist creates a remarkably life-like cyborg.
“Inside Out” - Pixar Animation delightfully details how our minds work.
“Mad Max: Fury Road” - Explosive, post-apocalyptic action epic.
“The Martian” - A rousing sci-fi adventure about an astronaut stranded on Mars.
“Son of Saul” - Holocaust drama set in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.
“Spotlight” - Boston Globe reporters expose the Catholic Church’s pedophilia cover-up.
“Star Wars: The Force Awakens” - Revival of the galactic, good vs. evil adventure.
“Trumbo” - Screenwriter Dalton Trumbo battles the Hollywood blacklist.

TEAM (Together Effectively Achieving Multiculturalism) and the Westport Library today announced its third annual high school essay contest on diversity.

The 1,000-word contest, open to all ninth through twelfth graders who reside in town, asks students to make sense out of the troubling, racially charged incidents from Charleston to Chicago over the past year.

Applications can be downloaded at http://www.teamwestport.org on Jan. 4, and completed essays are due Feb. 26.

Winners will be announced at a ceremony at the Westport Library on April 4, officials say, and first prize is $1,000, second prize $750 and third prize, $500.

By James Lomuscio

There are the partyers and there are those who eschew all the hoopla for a quiet evening as the ball drops. And there are those who will be in bed before midnight, preferring to see the start of the New Year as just another mark on the calendar.

Angelo Capponi, co-owner of Pane e Bene Italian Restaurant, 1620 Post Road East, points to a special New Year’s appetizer, Cotechino e Lenticchie (Lentils and Cotechino Sausage) in which he says lentils represent money, and the sausage, prosperity. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Dave Matlow for WestportNow.com

A survey of Westport restaurants shows that local restaurateurs are catering to all of these customers this New Year’s Eve.

A few establishments are serving up evening meals and closing shop long before midnight, letting their customers revel in the midst of First Night of Westport and Weston celebrations. And a few others conversely are pulling out the stops.

Either way, choices abound, and regardless of one’s hoopla meter, and reservations are encouraged since it remains restaurants’ biggest night of the year.

By Susan Granger

In “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” writer/director J.J. Abrams has successfully revived George Lucas’s original sci-fi concept, a space Western that captivated global audiences some 30-plus years ago, bringing back Han Solo (Harrison Ford), Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), Chewbacca (Peter Mayhew), R2-D2 (Kenny Baker) and C-3PO (Anthony Daniels).

It opens with John Williams’ familiar musical fanfare, along with that rolling scroll, explaining that Luke Skywalker has disappeared and the evil First Order has taken power.

Enter Stormtroopers, led by Kylo Ren (Adam Driver), whose black mask and cape make him look just like Darth Vader. They’re searching for a map that can lead them to where Luke is hiding; it is hidden within spherical droid BB-8 that belongs to hotshot pilot Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac).

When conscience-stricken Stormtrooper FN-3182, nicknamed Finn (John Boyega), defects, he joins up with Poe and Rey (Daisy Ridley), the feisty Jakku desert ‘scavenger’ who is protecting BB-8, as they steal an aged freighter, the Millennium Falcon, belonging to legendary smuggler Han Solo. 

Academy Award-wnning director Michael Moore talks with Westporters Kimberly and Mark Shapiro tonight at the Vespa restaurant in Westport following the screening of Moore’s film “Where to Invade Next.” Shapiro, chief content officer of the IMG unit of talent and event management specialist WME/IMG, said he was so impressed with Moore’s script that not only did his company back the project but he signed on as an executive producer. Shapiro, best known for his turn running programming at ESPN, joined the firm in September 2014 in the newly created role aimed at identifying new revenue opportunities across IMG’s businesses, which encompass sports, fashion, model representation and events. He was most recently CEO and an executive producer at Dick Clark Productions and prior to that was CEO at Six Flags Entertainment Corporation. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Photo by Chris Greer