Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Flick Picks 5/28

New This Week
There's lots of quality stuff coming out this week, including season 4 of True Blood. At the end of True Blood season 3 Sookie Stackhouse learned that she is part fairy, thus explaining her special powers. So what new creatures can we expect to meet in Bon Temps, Louisiana in season 4? And just how complicated will Sookie, Eric and Bill's relationship become? Put a hold on the DVD and find out!

Arriving from the big screen, Ralph Fiennes has adapted Shakespeare's Coriolanus for a modern audience and despite being considered a minor Shakespeare play the film received fantastic reviews. It stars Fiennes and Gerald Butler as former enemies who join together to seize their destiny. We Need to Talk About Kevin may not take place on a battlefield but it is perhaps an equally bruising story of a mother's relationship with her evil son.

On a lighter note, if the Hanson Brothers are your favorite hockey players you will want to check out the hockey comedy Goon, about a player drafted solely for his fighting skills. It will make a great double feature with Slap Shot!

Two musical icons are profiled this week in two separate dvds. Carol Channing's colorful career is surveyed with anecdotes from many of her partners-in-performance in Carol Channing : Larger Than Life. Also, Harry Belafonte is profiled, from performance to politics, in Sing Your Song.

If you're looking for new tv series we have two this week. Fans of the series House you should try the BBC medical drama Monroe in which James Nesbitt stars as a cynical neurosurgeon working in Leeds. Or for a series that takes place closer to home, try the AMC series Hell On Wheels, which is a Western set in the time immediately following the Civil War. In Hell On Wheels, a Confederate soldier seeks revenge on the Union soldiers who murdered his wife. AMC has been putting out one quality series after the other, with Mad Men and Breaking Bad leading the pack.

Lovers of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Phantom of the Opera who have longed to find out what happened to the Phantom and Christine after the musical ends will finally have their chance with Love Never Dies. Andrew Lloyd Webber's follow-up to Phantom hasn't yet hit Broadway so the DVD might be your only chance to see it for some time!

Upcoming film programs
We've got a special Monday afternoon Talking Pictures screening of The Chorus, a French film about the power of transformation through song. It will be in the Hammond Room at 1:00 on Monday, June 4th and will be followed by a discussion. Also, Movies on the Green will be back on Friday, June 8th, with The Muppets screening on Wyman Green at dusk.

Get in shape for summer!
Have you gotten your beach body out of storage yet? Why not check out one of our exercise DVDs? All of our informational DVDs are free and older ones check out for two weeks. We've got yoga, zumba, pilates, dance workouts and more!

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Flick Picks 5/21

New This Week
Perhaps the most anticipated release of the week is a BBC series. Last year, the makers of Sherlock tortured us by only offering three episodes of this fun modern take on Sherlock Holmes. In addition, they left us with a cliffhanger that saw Sherlock and Watson facing Moriarty and explosives. Season 2 of Sherlock is finally here and while it's once again only three episodes, it leads towards its own dramatic cliffhanger.

Rizzoli & Isles might be the American Sherlock and Watson...or maybe not. Either way, it's a fun show and season 2 arrives this week.

Also this week, Daniel Radcliffe makes a major break from Harry Potter movies with The Woman in Black, a return to old-fashioned spooky ghost stories. We've got it on DVD and Blu-ray. Or if you like a love story blended with a little action check out This Means War, with Chris Pine and Tom Hardy as CIA agents competing for the hand of Reese Witherspoon.

Hayao Miyazaki, whose Studio Ghibli has brought us the visual splendor of Ponyo, Castle in the Sky and My Neighbor Totoro, has rewritten the story of The Borrowers in the form of The Secret World of Arrietty. Despite being found in our children's department, Studio Ghibli films are always massively entertaining for the whole family. We've got Arrietty on DVD but you may want to get the Blu-Ray, if this is an option for you, in order to see the film in its full hi-res glory!

Next week the vampires, shape shifters and fairies of Bon Temps, Louisiana return, as do the people and creatures who love them (or want to see them destroyed).

One You Might Have Missed
A Lonely Place to Die is a tense action flick set in the Scottish Highlands. A group of mountain climbers come across a young girl, unable to speak English, buried by kidnappers for an unknown reason. The climbers attempt to bring the girl to safety and bad things happen. The movie premiered at Cannes and despite interest from distributers in the United States it was not released here. Luckily we have the DVD to see what we missed on the big screen, including big thrills and gorgeous scenery.

Memorial Day Documentaries
This Memorial Day you can pay tribute to those who have sacrificed their lives while also learning our country's history by taking out one of our well-made documentaries about war. Ken Burns' The War tells the story of how the Second World War affected the lives of ordinary Americans on the home front and overseas. Or for amazing color footage of World War II check out WWII in HD. We've also got the American Experience production of Vietnam: A Television History as well as more incredible footage in Vietnam in HD. The Tillman Story is a heartbreaking look at a soldier who walked away from a career in professional football only to be killed by "friendly fire" in the Gulf War. Or if you'd like to get a look at all of our military conflicts from the Revolution to the Iraq War, give America at War a try.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Flick Picks 5/14

New on DVD:
There are movies for the whole family this week! If you're looking for action, you won't be disappointed as Liam Neeson battles hungry wolves in the exciting thriller The Grey, which is available in DVD and Blu-ray. Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum sees her film debut in One For the Money, starring Katherine Heigl. The Oscar-nominated Albert Nobbs, with Glenn Close in a powerful performance as the title character, also comes out this week on DVD.

The Avengers are not the only folks with superpowers as you'll discover when you watch the well-reviewed Chronicle. In Chronicle, teenagers acquire new abilities when exposed to an alien discovery...but how will they deal with such powers? If you are looking for quality, thought-provoking science fiction, Chronicle is your flick. It's available on DVD and Blu-ray.

If you're interested in seeing one of the top acting performances of last year you'll want to check out Rampart, with Woody Harrelson as a complex, corrupt LA cop. The movie was co-written by James Ellroy, whose crime writing is tops and whose hard-boiled crime fiction served as the basis for the excellent L.A. Confidential and more.

For a moving foreign film try Kinyarwanda, which follows various characters and stories across a chaotic Rwandan landscape.

Finally, if you're looking for a rarity - a fair and balanced environmental documentary - give Windfall a shot. It tells the story of the small town of Meredith, NY, which was approached by a wind developer looking for a location to put wind turbines. However, the town soon learned the downside of what appeared to be a no-brainer environmentally friendly technology. This film won raves across the political spectrum, with positive reviews coming from Salon.com, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal -- unusual for a film about this type of hot button environmental issue.

Our newest and forthcoming films can always be found in Bibliocommons.

Upcoming Film Program
Come by the Women's Library Club on Monday, May 21st at 1:00 or 7:00 for our Monday Night at the Movies program. This week we'll be screening Today's Special, a charming slice of life set among New York City's Indian community. Samir, an aspiring chef, reluctantly takes over his family's restaurant in Queens when his father takes ill.

In the Mood for Art?
Our Roy Lichtenstein program will surely make you want to grab one of our documentaries about unique artists and collectors. In My Kid Could Paint That is young artist Marla Olmstead a future Jackson Pollock or a young fraud? Or check out Herb and Dorothy, a utterly charming documentary about a couple with modest incomes who have acquired one of the premier modern art collections in the world.  In Marwencol you can get a fascinating look at a unique figure in outsider art.

Monday, May 7, 2012

Flick Picks 5/7

New This Week
It's a slow week for new releases but the filmed-in-Chicago The Vow is sure to please you romance lovers. Rachel McAdams wakes up from a coma with severe memory loss and Channing Tatum has to win her love back. Bring lots of kleenex!

There's good news for lovers of Showtime's dramedy The Big C, as the second season hits dvd. Golden Globe winner Laura Linney returns as melanoma survivor Cathy Jamison, who finds support from family and friends as she examines her life.

Next week's new releases feature Liam Neeson vs. wolves, a pack of kids with superheroes who aren't the Avengers and a woman who dresses as a man. You can put holds on our new and forthcoming releases through our Bibliocommons catalog.

Mother's Day is Coming Up
Why not show mom a family-themed movie she loves?


Interesting People Make For Entertaining Films
Charlotte Rampling: The Look talks to the actress and her friends and acquaintances in order to form a portrait of her nontraditional approach to a successful film career. Paul Goodman Changed My Life provides a fascinating portrait of the poet, pacifist and counterculture figure and the New York he inhabited. Garbo: The Spy tells the story of Juan Pujol, a Spanish double agent during WWII who was one of the few to receive decorations from both sides. Three great profiles of three compelling people!