Bloom Activity Library

This touching family movie depicts curiosity of an Irish immigrant family trying to settle in a chaotic New York apartment. Their curiosity is packed with challenges, dangers, weirdness, as well as hopes and charm of a place where anything could happen.

Faced with the task of solving a murder, three police officers must use their very different standards of justice and morality to find those responsible. This movie explores the nature of corruption and integrity as they relate to leadership, government, and individual relationships, and leaves the viewer with several conflicting examples to reconcile.

Forest Gump is a man of low intelligence but great heart who finds himself accidentally present for many of the historic events of the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s. Through it all he remains true to his own simple standards of human decency. The film follows this unassuming man’s travels through life in search of his childhood love, who follows a much different path than he does.

A compelling drama set in the backdrop of the dissolution of a marriage. The story shows the integrity and honesty of a person who is accused of lying.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love. It doesn’t interest me how much money you make. I want to know if you have touched the center of your soul. It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty even if it is not pretty every day. I want to know if you can live with failure…yours and mine. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair and do what needs to be done. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and shrink back.

This is a classic business tool used to keep meetings and workshops focused on track. During discussions, questions will often emerge that are important but not fully relevant to the focus at the moment. These questions or issues are “parked” on a flipchart, to be addressed and answered later. This practice helps ensure that important questions do not get lost and that the group can stay focused on the most relevant things.

Homer is a youth residing at an orphanage in Maine. He becomes a favorite of the director, Dr. Larch, who teaches him about both medicine and the value of kind actions over blind deference to rules. Homer’s life lessons in caring continue as he leaves the orphanage to work at a farm, only to find himself alone with the farmer’s wife in the midst of the Second World War.

Iris Murdoch, a brilliant academic teaching at Oxford, falls in love with fellow professor John Bayley. Though they seem an unlikely pair at first, they enrich each other’s lives over the course of decades. The movie concludes with Iris living a life ravaged by Alzheimer’s disease, under the constant care of her frustrated yet devoted husband.

Patch Addams commits himself to a mental ward and finds joy in helping his fellow patients. Disturbed by the staff’s cold and mechanical approach to their patients, he vows to change the system and enrolls in medical school. His unorthodox blend of medicine a humor brings him both praise and condemnation as he helps his patients by breaking the rules of established medical practice.

Lester Burnham, a middle-aged businessman trapped in his own misery, undergoes a rapid transformation after meeting the teenage boy living next door. Though Lester’s rediscovery of his youthful passion throws his neighborhood into turmoil, he ultimately comes to realize what is truly important in his life.