by James McClure
Library Cards: Dann and Raymond Are a Dynamic Duo
Call me wild at heart, but one of the closest places to my heart is always the local public library. In fact the first thing I do when I move to a new town is get a library card. While I like to think my life has had more than a few adventures, I know that many of them began between the binders between the walls of the local emporium of books.
The Arlington Heights Memorial Public Library is no exception, a wonder-filled treasure trove of books, computers, music and movies. A wonderful facility in every aspect, from its cozy underground parking to its staffed drive through drop-off, it also has a remarkable collection of regular activities.
My personal favorite is Dann and Raymond’s Movie Club, a truly remarkable pairing of two gentlemen who are both entertainers and enthusiasts, experts and storytellers. Every third Thursday of the month in Arlington Heights, and every first Thursday in Schaumburg, the pair of Dann Gire and Raymond Benson pick a topic and tickle your fancy with a two hour long review of the best films of that particular genre.
Gire, a film critic for suburban Chicagoland’s Daily Herald for 30 years, and Benson, a James Bond novelist who just happens to live in Buffalo Grove, give you the chance to enjoy the vignettes of your favorite movies and get their insights as they share clips of moviemaking in exploring a topic.
As they present to a room full of northwest suburban movie buffs, you get a bit of comedy routine and community theater to boot. It’s clear that both men enjoy the subject matter as well as playing off each other in the course of introducing the evening’s collection of clips. You’ll find yourself learning and laughing.
As men who write for a living there is just enough ham in each of them to serve up a considerable slice of wit and wisdom on what makes a movie a film worth remembering. The monthly topics run from politics to comedy, Spielberg to sports, and Hitchcock to sci-fi.
Bond, James Bond is the common link that drew Benson and Gire together. The movie critic met the Bond novelist when both were invited to the downstate digs of Doug Redenius, a collector of all things from Her Majesty’s secret servant. It didn’t take long for the movie buffs to see a match made in suburbia.
Both reviewers have several decades of their own adventures beyond what they’ve written and talked about connected to the silver screen. Dan Gire has experienced the strange doings of Jerry Lewis showing him the handgun that he routinely carried on his person to the humbling experience of being lectured by Charlton Heston on how a newspaper movie reviewer should interview a movie star.
Gire says that in 30 years as the local movie critic he has learned two qualities that separate a good movie critic from a hack, especially in an era when blogs and critics are proliferating. “First of all a good critic gets people to think about what they see,” says Gire, who feels strongly that movie punditry and newspaper journalism as a whole ain’t what they used to be. Secondly? “A true reviewer helps you gauge the value of the film… that’s a much deeper analysis than whether he simply likes it or not.”
For Benson, whose Bond novels and short stories include novelizations of three of the Pierce Brosnan-era films, his adventures have included playing piano in Europe alongside the legendary John Barry, composer of soundtracks for many a 007 film. Like Gire, he’s met his share of movie stars along the way.
Both men teach college classes in addition to their day jobs when not meeting up for their movie magic moonlighting at the library.
Each evening at the movies starts with a thoughtfully annotated lineup of the dozen or so movies to be discussed. It ends invariably with a interesting discussion of the many movies left out but considered. They’ve been doing this routine for a little over a year. In Arlington Heights the two fifty-something movie experts reprise the role they played last year in Schaumburg in their debut year.
November brought a look at the presidency and December a jovial look at holiday classics.
If you see the two-man team in action you may forever associate the library with laughter. Along with audience participation, they offer up fun with perhaps a bit of family Irish wit. Bond author Benson is Irish on his mother’s side and newspaper man Gire says “marrying an Irish American woman is the best thing that ever happened to me… she keeps me centered!”
I give both “Scholars with a Smirk” four stars, two thumbs up and a standing ovation for offering a great evening out that leaves the audience members with all smiles as they leave the auditorium.
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