Flick Picks 5/28/13: New Episodes of George Gently, Doctor Who, and more

New This Week!

SERIES: There's one new series this week and it's a modern western crime drama from A&E. Longmire follows Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire as he returns to work following the death of his wife. It's not long before he's embroiled in a number of crimes.

Fans of the Tardis and its famous navigator will be thrilled to know that this week brings us both Doctor Who Series Seven, Part Two and the Christmas episode The Snowmen. British Inspector George Gently returns for a fifth season and we also have new seasons of the CIA drama Covert Affairs as well as the legal comedy-drama Suits.

DOCUMENTARY: The Rolling Stones are in town so revisit their early years with the HBO documentary Rolling Stones: Crossfire Hurricane, which covers their history through the mid-1970s and brings in all current members and some former members as well.

SUBTITLED: Those of you interested in an unconventional Holocaust film should take home Lore, a German film that follows five German children of SS officers who must make a difficult journey across a devastated Germany to meet their grandmother following the end of the war. Along the way they are exposed to the consequences of their parents' actions.

You can always find our new and forthcoming releases on Bibliocommons.

Talking Pictures
This week Susan Benjamin brings us Kinky Boots, the comedic story of a drag queen who helps a man revitalize his father's failing shoe business. The movie screens at 1:00 on this Thursday, May 30 in the Hammond Room of the library.

Bicycling Movies

The Glencoe Grand Prix takes place on June 2nd and as in previous years it should be a blast! Why not take home one of these bicycle movies and keep the party going?

• Breaking Away is the Academy Award winning of a bike team from a working class town in Indiana.
• The thrill-a-minute Premium Rush is the tale of a New York City bike messenger who is pursued for the contents of the envelope that he has been tasked to deliver.
• An animated bike-themed movie? Sure, why not? The gorgeous film Triplets of Belleville follows a woman who tries to rescue her Tour de France competing grandson who has been kidnapped by the French mafia.
• The definition of Italian neorealism, The Bicycle Thief, follows a poor father in post World War II Italy who searches for his stolen bicycle that he needs in order to make a living.
• And don't forget the great bike cameos in E.T. and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid!

Flick Picks 5/21/13: Stand Up Guys, Side Effects, Parker, The Last Stand

New This Week!

ENTERTAINMENT: An all-star cast featuring Al Pacino, Christopher Walken and Alan Arkin makes the caper comedy Stand Up Guys a movie that you'll want to see just for the performances. In Stand Up Guys, three aging thieves get together for one last job though one of them may have to betray one of the others. Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects is another critically acclaimed film from this eclectic director. It stars Channing Tatum and Rooney Mara as a successful couple whose world starts to turn upside down when they experience side effects from the new drug that their psychiatrist (Jude Law) has prescribed.

You've got your choice of action flicks this week. The Last Stand brings governor Ah-nold back to the silver screen in the tale of a sheriff in a tiny Arizona town who must protect try to stop a Mexican drug kingpin who is headed right towards him. A group of misfits including Johnny Knoxville are around to give him a hand. Also, Donald Westlake's professional thief Parker (written under the pen name Richard Stark) comes to your living room as portrayed by action star Jason Stratham. After being double-crossed and left for dead, Parker teams with Jennifer Lopez to track down the team that betrayed him.

Fans of Twilight, True Blood and other paranormal indulgences will want to see Beautiful Creatures, an adaptation of a best-selling young adult novel. A young woman with strange powers arrives in a small town and becomes involved with a young man who is anxious to leave. Finally, Glee star Chris Colfer wrote and stars in Struck by Lightning, the story of a young man who recounts the last few weeks of his high school life after he is killed by a bolt of lightning. This high school comedy is about seizing the day (and getting revenge on the popular kids!)

SERIES: Sookie, Bill and the rest of the gang of supernatural denizens of Bon Temps, Louisiana return for a fifth season of HBO's True Blood. We've also got two new subtitled series for all of you mystery fans to check out. The French Blood of the Vine follows the adventures of an internationally known wine expert who is recruited to help investigate various crimes in the country's wine regions. Set the years 1938 to 1948 (from the height of Fascist power to post-World War II Italy), Detective De Luca gives us the title character who investigates crimes in Bologna and along the Adriatic coast and riles whomever happens to be in power.

SUBTITLED: Yossi is the sequel to the 2003 hit Israeli film Yossi and Jagger about the love between two men in the Israeli Defense Forces. This film follows Yossi's life as a closeted gay man in Tel Aviv in the years after Jagger's death. The Brazilian Neighbouring Sounds tackles class conflict in urban areas as a wealthy community hires a private security firm following a string of thefts.

DOCUMENTARIES: The PBS American Masters presentation of Mel Brooks: Make a Noise features interviews with Brooks as well as friends Matthew Broderick, Joan Rivers, Carl Reiner and more as it covers his career as well as his personal peaks and valleys.

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

Films for Memorial Day

If you're looking to pay tribute to those who gave their lives defending this country then we've got some excellent suggestions. The best war films are both provocative and entertaining with truth always peeking through. The films on the list below capture these qualities.

• Directed by Clint Eastwood, Flags of Our Fathers recounts the Battle of Iwo Jima and features a cameo from the Glencoe Metra station.
• Steven Spieberg's Saving Private Ryan is set during the Normandy invasion and follows a group of soldiers who are trying to rescue a paratrooper who is the last surviving sibling of a group of four.
• The Academy Award winner for Best Picture in 1986 was Oliver Stone's Platoon, which is a brutal look at the realities of Vietnam.
• The Messenger tells the story of two Army officers who have the job of telling civilians when a loved one has died in combat.
• The thrilling Black Hawk Down captures the intensity of combat in the retelling of the true story of a desperate battle in the streets of Somalia.
• Three World War II veterans return to very different lives at home in Best Years of Our Lives.
• One of the greatest films about returning to civilian life is All Quiet on the Western Front, though it's told from the perspective of post World War I Germans, rather than Americans.
• One of the great films about the absurdity of war is Stanley Kubrick's Paths of Glory.

Flick Picks 5/14/13: Cloud Atlas, Dexter Season 7

New This Week!

ENTERTAINMENT: This week's big release has a name cast (with Tom Hanks and Halle Berry leading the way), not just one but two major directors in Tom Twyker (Run Lola Run) and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix trilogy), and was based on a popular book. Perhaps Cloud Atlas was a little too off-the-wall to pick up a major audience at the theaters - also it's almost three hours long - but now that it's out on DVD and Blu-ray it's a great opportunity for you to give it a try! Hanks plays six characters from the past and future and many other actors portray multiple roles as well in six interwoven stories. It's a unique, fanciful, visually exciting film that may turn out to be right up your alley! Our indie pick this week is Leonie which stars Emily Mortimer in the true story of Leonie Gilmour, an independent woman whose unconventional lifestyle shook up Japan in the early 20th century.

SERIES: How long can Showtime's Dexter continue to hide his "dark passenger"? Will he at least be able to keep it hidden through season 7, which comes out this week? Also, PBS series The Bletchley Circle follows four women who use their World War II code-breaking skills to solve a series of murders in London.

SUBTITLED: The Rabbi's Cat is a French animated film about an Algerian Rabbi's cat that gains the ability to speak after eating a parrot. The movie is a fascinating look at Jewish, Arab and French culture in 1930s Algeria.

DOCUMENTARIES: Joel Grey narrates Broadway Musicals: A Jewish Legacy, a PBS that highlights the contributions that Jewish performers such as Irving Berlin, The Gershwins, Stephen Sondheim and more have made to the Broadway musical. It features performances by Matthew Broderick, Barbra Streisand, Nathan Lane and Zero Mostel as well as interviews with many other greats. If you are a fan of Susan Benjamin's musical theater programs then you will definitely want this DVD. Rock and rollers will want to see Beware of Mr. Baker, a look at the cranky but incredibly talented and groundbreaking Ginger Baker, the former drummer of Cream.

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

Monday Night at the Movies
We will be screening Gerhard Richter Painting at 1:00 and 7:00 on May 20th at the Women's Library Club, 325 Tudor Court. It's a film that lets your learn about it's subject - German abstract artist Gerhard Richter - as well as explore his creative process. All of our Monday Night at the Movies screenings are free.

Focus on American Schools

The closing of public schools in the Chicago school system has been in the news lately. As your child's school year wraps up why not pick up one of these stimulating looks at various aspects of the American education system?

• Waiting for "Superman" advances the idea of charter schools as the solution to many of the challenges facing failing public school systems.
• The problems of a pressure-filled testing environment leaving kids unprepared for college is the issue addressed in Race to Nowhere.
• Including Samuel focuses on one man's attempt to integrate his cerebral palsy afflicted son into all activities of life including schools.
• The Hobart Shakespeareans tells of an inspiration inner-city Los Angeles teacher whose fifth grade students perform a Shakespeare play every year.
• American Teacher shows us the challenges faced by four teachers in different parts of the country.

Flick Picks 5/7/13; Jack Reacher, Mama, Barrymore

New This Week!

ENTERTAINMENT: Lee Child's ex-military character Jack Reacher arrives on the screen in DVD and Blu-ray format this week in the film of the same name. Tom Cruise portrays the title character who is brought in to investigate what seems like an open-and-shut case involving multiple shootings by a former Army sniper. Robert Duvall co-stars and Werner Herzog is eccentric in the villain role. Also this week, if you enjoy the dark visuals of director Guillermo del Toro's films such as Pan's Labyrinth you might also like the horror Mama, which del Toro produced. It stars Jessica Chastain as a woman who takes in two young girls who are found in the woods after five years of somehow surviving on their own. Finally, our first indie pick this week is Barrymore, with Christopher Plummer bringing his Tony award-winning portrayal of actor John Barrymore to your living room. Another wonderful little movie worth discovering is Starlet, about the relationship between two women - ages 22 and 85 - who live in the San Fernando Valley.

SERIES: We've got the final season of the still hilarious 30 Rock and season four of the set-in-The-Hamptons USA Network doctor series Royal Pains.

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

Playoffs on our mind

It's always a special treat when we have multiple Chicago sports teams in the playoffs. The beat up Chicago Bulls have made it to the second round and the Blackhawks are looking strong against the Minnesota Wild. What what is a poor sports lover to do on a night when the playoffs are not on or (heaven forbid) one of the Chicago teams loses? Luckily we've got some excellent basketball and hockey documentaries to help keep you focused on the important stuff.

• More Than a Game follows the Akron St. Vincent-St. Mary high school team that featured five future NBA players, including LeBron James.
• Hoop Dreams is the classic Chicago documentary that follows two high school players as they face challenges in their lives as they try to make it to the pros.
• The inspirational The Heart of the Game focuses on Seattle's Roosevelt High Schools girl's basketball team which faces challenges as it attempts to win a state championship.
• The Other Dream Team tells the story of the Lithuanian basketball team that emerged from Communism and would compete in the 1992 Olympics (with help from the Grateful Dead).
• Learn about the disappearing world of hockey's enforcers in The Last Gladiators, with particular focus on Montreal's Chris Nilan.
• Celebrate the Blackhawks last Stanley cup with Stanley Cup Champions 2009-2010.