Flick Picks 7/23/13: Trance, Ginger and Rosa

New This Week

ENTERTAINMENT: A thief (James McAvoy) receives a blow to his head during a robbery and cannot remember what happened to the $27 million dollar painting that he had stolen in the exciting Trance. The wonderful French actor Vincent Cassel is his partner and Rosario Dawson is the sexy hypnotist who tries to uncover the secret. Director Danny Boyle brought us Slumdog Millionaire and 127 Hours so he knows his way around tension and action. Our indie pick this week is Director Sally Potter's Ginger and Rosa, the story of two best friends growing up in London who are affected by the potential of nuclear war in different ways. The movie has a fantastic cast that includes Elle Fanning, Timothy Spall, Oliver Platt and Annette Bening.

SERIES: From Canada, the drama The Border follows the Canadian Immigration and Customs Security Squad as it deals with a post-9/11 Toronto.

DOCUMENTARIES: Defiant Requiem tells of a group of Jews in a concentration camp who were recruited by an imprisoned Czech conductor to sing Verdi's Requiem for fellow prisoners and eventually for high-ranking SS officers. The Terezin concentration camp is also the site where years later a performance of the concert drama The Defiant Requiem would be presented in memory of those original performers.

SUBTITLED: The French-Canadian Starbuck is the story of a 42-year old man who, just as he is getting his life in order, finds out that he has fathered over 500 children through sperm donation, many of whom have filed a suit in order to discover the identity of their father. Years after a young girl was murdered another girl is murdered on the same spot, in the gripping German police procedural The Silence. From the Phillippines, Graceland is a thriller about political corruption and child trafficking, as a chauffeur for a politicians must try to rescue his daughter from kidnappers.

INFORMATIONAL: A new celebrity travel series arrives this week, as one half of the Absolutely Fabulous duo - Joanna Lumley - travels 4000 miles using various types of boats in Joanna Lumley's Nile.

You can find all of our new and upcoming DVDs and Blu-rays in Bibliocommons.

2013 Emmy Nominees

The nominations for the 2013 Emmy Awards were announced a few days ago and you don't want to go into the show without being educated! Make sure you check out these Emmy-nominated series and see what the buzz is about!

American Horror Story
The Big Bang Theory
The Big C
Breaking Bad
Downton Abbey
Enlightened
Episodes
Game of Thrones
Girls
The Good Wife
Homeland
House of Cards
Louie
Mad Men
Modern Family
The Newsroom
Nurse Jackie
Parks and Receration
Scandal
30 Rock
Veep

Flick Picks 7/16/13: 42, Evil Dead, Solomon Kane

New This Week!

ENTERTAINMENT: Harrison Ford plays Branch Rickey, the Brooklyn Dodgers' team executive who decided to integrate baseball, in 42. Rickey would carefully select Jackie Robinson from the world of talented African-American baseball candidates based on both skill and Robinson's perceived ability to deal with the challenges of playing in a segregated and often racist environment. Little known Chadwick Boseman does an excellent job as Robinson in this powerful drama. We've got it on DVD and Blu-ray. Also out this week is the horror remake Evil Dead, in which an unseen power makes bloody things happen in a cabin in the woods. If you enjoy swords and sorcery flicks then Solomon Kane, which features James Purefoy and Max Von Sydow, might be your cup of tea. Based on a character by Conan creator Robert E. Howard and set in 1600s England, this film follows the title character - a formerly ruthless killer who has changed his ways - who is brought of retirement out to fight demons. Our indie pick for the week is Wild Bill, a working class British drama with plenty of comedic splashes that follows a recently paroled drug dealer who reluctantly agrees to play dad to his two children.

SERIES: The United Kingdom comes through once again with two very worthy new titles. If you were curious about what Inspector Morse was as a young man then you'll want to check out Endeavor, which follows him soon after he joins the Oxford police force. Orphan Black is a sci-fi mystery series in which a woman assumes another woman's identity, which turns out to be a poor decision. The series is full of twists and turns so the less said here, the better. Not to ignore American tv as we now have the fifth and final season of the Glenn Close legal drama Damages as well as the second season of AMC's western series Hell on Wheels.

DOCUMENTARIES: One of the great pleasures of the series Mad Men is its concern for period accuracy, so why not check out Bert Stern: Original Mad Man and see where this is all coming from? Bert Stern was a photographer on Madison Avenue who was not only a great influence on advertising but also produced many iconic photos.

You can see all of our new and upcoming releases in Bibliocommons!

Talking Pictures
Our next Talking Pictures program will be The Words, starring Dennis Quaid, Bradley Cooper and Zoe Saldana in the story of a novelist who makes it big with a book that he didn't write. The film will screen on Monday, July 22nd in the Hammond Room at 1:00 and will be followed by a discussion.

DVDs that never go out of fashion!

Are you a fashion aficionado, a.k.a. a clothes-hound? There's no shortage of videos to satisfy your craving for distinctive and unusual outfits!

• Fashion in Film follows designers who discuss how fashion has influenced movies and vice-versa.
• If you're a Vogue magazine lover then you'll want to see The September Issue, which focuses on Anna Wintour as she tries to put together the next issue of the magazine.
• Bill Cunningham New York presents the quirky photographer responsible for chronicling fashion trends in his columns.
• Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel focuses on this writer who greatly influenced fashion and society in the 20th century.
• There are also three feature films focusing on different aspects of the life of Coco Chanel: Coco Avant Chanel (with Audrey Tautou as Chanel), Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky, and the made-for-tv Coco Chanel (Shirley MacLaine in the title role).

Flick Picks 7/9/13: Admission, The Host, Dead Man Down

New This Week!

ENTERTAINMENT:  It's hard to imagine a better comedic couple than Tina Fey and Paul Rudd and Admission teams them up and lets them do what they do best. The film is about a Princeton admissions officer (Fey) who reconnects with a former college acquaintance (Rudd) who is a teacher who feels that one of his unconventional students is Princeton material. It was directed by Paul Weitz who also brought us About a Boy and Being Flynn. Also this week, the Stephenie Meyer book that's not part of the Twilight series comes to your home entertainment system. The Host stars Saoirse Ronan in the sci-fi tale of humans who must resist alien invaders that want to invade their bodies. We've got it on DVD and Blu-ray.

Colin Farrell is the man looking for revenge against the mob and Noomi Rapace is also looking for her own brand of vengeance in Dead Man Down, the first American film for the director of the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. The controversial Spring Breakers, which features young stars Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and Ashley Benson in more mature roles, brings us the story of four girls who become involved with a rapper (James Franco) while on vacation in Florida. Debauchery, decadence and violence ensue. Our indie pick this week is the feel-good comedy Boy, a film set in rural New Zealand about a kid who idolizes Michael Jackson and his soon-to-be released from prison father. It's both hilarious and insightful about Kiwi culture.

SERIES: This week brings us a third season of the hipster comedy Portlandia.

DOCUMENTARIES: Six former heads of Shin Bet - the agency charged with running Israel's war on terror - are interviewed in the fascinating The Gatekeepers.

You can find all of our new and upcoming releases in Bibliocommons.

Monday Night at the Movies
Our next Monday Night at the Movies program will feature the film Happy People: A Year In The Taiga, a documentary by Werner Herzog and Russian co-director Dmitry Vasyukov about indigenous people living in the heart of the Siberian Taiga.  The film lasts 94 minutes and is unrated. All Monday Night at the Movies films screen at 1:00 and 7:00 at the Women's Library Club at 325 Tudor Ct. Admission is free.

Movies on the Green
On Friday, July 12th the movie The Lorax will be shown as part of the Movies on the Green series. All Movies on the Green films are screened on Wyman Green and begin at dusk.

Filmic College Knowledge

This week sees the release of Admission and Spring Breakers, two different looks at college kids. We also had a great turnout at our college essay program so it seems like a good time to look at some of the great movies that are set in the world of higher education.

• Sorority girl Reese Witherspoon leaves Los Angeles for Harvard Law School in Legally Blonde.
• The classic coming-of-age film The Graduate follows recent graduate Benjamin Braddock as he decides what to do with his life.
• Based on the Michael Chabon book, Wonder Boys details the various complications entering the life of English professor Michael Douglas.
• Ronald Reagan is the Gipper for whom Pat O'Brien implores the Notre Dame football team to win in Knute Rockne, All American.
• Colin Hanks dreams of going to Stanford and brother Jack Black tries to help in the comedy Orange County.
• Good Will Hunting features Matt Damon as a janitor at MIT with a gift for mathematics and a love of apples.
• Some kids party in college while others, as in the case with The Social Network, invent Facebook.

Flick Picks 7/2/13: 56 Up, The Girl

It's a slow week this week due to the 4th of July holiday but there are still a few new releases that you won't want to miss.

ENTERTAINMENT: Abbie Cornish stars in the heartfelt drama The Girl, the story of a Texas mother who begins smuggling illegal immigrants over the border after losing her daughter to foster care.

DOCUMENTARIES: The (mostly) Michael Apted-helmed series that began in 1964 with Seven Up! reaches its latest installment  (the 8th in the series) 56 Up. Every 7 years, Apted revisits a number of British men and women to see how their lives have changed since they were 7 years old. The pleasure of this film series comes from seeing how these people change over the years, so be sure to pick up the previous installments if you haven't seen them.

SERIES: The critically acclaimed Sundance series Rectify arrives this week. This drama follows a man whose death sentence is vacated due to new DNA evidence as he attempts to reenter society after 19 years.

You can find all of our new and upcoming DVDs and Blu-rays on Bibliocommons.

It's Also Canada Day!

You'll  be out celebrating Independence Day in full force but why not give our northern neighbors a little love this week too? Canada Day occurs on July 1st and honors the anniversary of the day in 1867 that three colonies were united into the country called Canada. Enjoy a film by great Canadian directors David Cronenberg, Jason Reitman, Ivan Retiman, Sarah Polley and James Cameron. For a great tv option try Slings and Arrows, a comedy set at a fictional Canadian Shakespeare festival, or The Newsroom, a dramedy that takes place at a news station (and which is not to be confused with the HBO series of the same name).