Flick Picks 2/25/14: Thor: The Dark World, Gravity, Nebraska

New on DVD at the Library This Week

ENTERTAINMENT: The man with the hammer (Chris Hemsworth) revisits Earth and - *spoiler alert* - saves humanity in Thor: The Dark World, the latest in the Marvel Comics string of superhero hits. The imprisoned Loki also has a hand in this film's hijinks while the one woman who can bring Thor down to Earth is again portrayed by Natalie Portman. We've got Thor: The Dark World on DVD and Blu-ray. Turn out the lights and find the biggest tv screen you can for Gravity, the Alfonso Cuaron-directed story of an astronaut trying to make her way back to Earth when her space shuttle is destroyed. This beautiful film received ten Oscar nominations including Best Picture, Best Actress (Sandra Bullock) and Best Director (Alfonso Cuaron) and we've got it on DVD and Blu-ray. Glencoe native Bruce Dern plays crotchety, as he takes his son (Will Forte) on a road trip to claim a million dollar prize in Alexander Payne's family drama Nebraska. Finally, the visually stimulating futuristic Mr. Nobody introduces us to the title character (played by Jared Leto) who seems to be have traveled down multiple life paths at once.

SERIES: The newest foreign language series to hit our shelves is the tough Braquo, about violent cops in Paris whose lives are turned upside down when a colleague commits suicide after being falsely accused. Season 3 of the French cop series Spiral also arrives this week, as does season 3 of the British Above Suspicion and season 4 of the family sitcom The Middle.

SUBTITLED: Two young women in France become romantically involved in the controversial, erotic and well-reviewed Blue is the Warmest Color. You Will Be My Son is a drama about a French wine estate owner who wants to leave his vineyard to the hardworking progeny of his estate manager rather than his own good-for-nothing son.

DOCUMENTARIES: A star-studded group of interviewees (and a soulful soundtrack) help celebrate the famous Muscle Shoals studio where music was recorded by the likes of Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones and Lynyrd Skynyrd. If your taste for snow sports was whetted during the Olympics then you'll want to catch Crash Reel, about professional snowboarder Kevin Pearce's return from a brain-injury.

You can find all of our current and upcoming DVDs in Bibliocommons.

Talking Pictures
Our next Talking Pictures film (hosted by Susan Benjamin) will be Bee Season and will be screened on March 3rd at 1:00 in the library's Hammond Room. Bee Season stars Richard Gere and Juliette Binoche in the story of a young girl in a troubled family who is heading for a spelling bee. Our Talking Pictures programs are open to everyone and are free.

Harold Ramis

Harold Ramis' death at 69 was such a blow to our community and to comedy film lovers everywhere. Ramis had been part of Second City and wrote for and appeared on SCTV before moving to feature films. He wrote or co-wrote the comedy classics Caddyshack, Analyze That, Groundhog Day, Stripes and Ghostbusters I and II, while appearing in the latter three films as well as directing Groundhog Day, Caddyshack and more. More recently he appeared in a small role in Knocked Up. Also worth catching is The Ice Harvest, a little seen noir film that shows that he could direct something other than comedy. Chances are good that you've loved one of his films and can quote from one of his screenplays. His passing is another huge loss for Hollywood.

Flick Picks 2/18/14: Game of Thrones Season 3, Nurse Jackie Season 5

New This Week on DVD at the Library

ENTERTAINMENT: President's Day means it's a quiet week for new releases. Naomi Watts stars as Diana, Princess of Wales, in Diana, which focuses on her romantic relationship with Hasnat Khan. Afternoon Delight is a comedy from first-time director Jill Soloway about a woman (Kathryn Hahn) whose suburban life becomes turned upside down when she decides to invite a stripper (Juno Temple) into her home.

SERIES: The addicting Game of Thrones offers up season 3 with many more surprises about exactly which characters will still be around for season 4. The equally entertaining Nurse Jackie is all the way up to season 5.

SUBTITLED: An Israeli pilot (Stephen Dorff) is shot down over Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War and while imprisoned he bonds with a young boy, in Zaytoun.

Find all of our new and upcoming DVDs in Bibliocommons.

American Presidents on DVD

Looking to get a little smarter about the great and not-so-great men who have held the most powerful seat in this nation? Try one of our presidential DVDs on for size!

• A great place to start is The Ultimate Guide to the Presidents which looks at how the position has changed over the years.
• We've also got a series made just for kids: The American Presidents series.
• Mandate: The President and the People takes a historical look at the relationship between the president and mass media.
• The American Experience series The Presidents has features on Ronald Reagan, LBJ, Harry Truman and many more!
• There have been a number of excellent dramatized versions of Presidents, from the recent The Butler, to the award-winning Lincoln, to the HBO series John Adams and the entirely fictionalized West Wing. Stop by the library and we'll find you something suitably presidential!

Flick Picks 2/11/14: Ender's Game, Austenland, The Counselor

New on DVD This Week at the Library!

ENTERTAINMENT: If you're looking for a thinking person's sci-fi film that's a cut above many others in dealing with moral complexity, Ender's Game might be your thing! It also has a lot of cool space lasers! It stars Asa Butterfield as a boy who could be our best defense against aliens who attacked Earth many years ago. Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley are the military commanders who are helping him realize his potential. We've got it on DVD and Blu-ray. Also this week, if your idea of the perfect vacation is a Jane Austen theme park then Austenland might be the film you're looking for! Keri Russell goes looking for love at the amusement park of the title and Jane Seymour is there to help her out. Ridley Scott directs, Cormac McCarthy writes and Michael Fassbender, Penelope Cruz, Cameron Diaz and Brad Pitt act in The Counselor, about a lawyer who gets involved in drug trafficking. Teenager Saoirse Ronan must survive in a war-torn UK landscape in director Kevin MacDonald's (Touching the Void, One Day in September) How I Live Now.

SERIES: One of the best reviewed series in recent history is a creepy French import. Aired on The Sundance Channel, The Returned shows us a small town in France where the dead ancestors of the villagers inexplicably return. Also returning this week is the BBC's Sherlock, which is now up to season 3. Finally, The Americans is a fun new series on FX about a pair of KGB agents (Keri Russell and Matthew Rhys) posing as a married couple in the US during the 1980s.

SUBTITLED: The exciting Filipino thriller On the Job is about two former prisoners enlisted to carry out assassinations and the cops who try to track them down.

DOCUMENTARIES: Director Alex Gibney's documentary about Lance Armstrong's return to cycling took an unexpected turn when Armstrong admitted to using performance-enhancing drugs, thus bringing us The Armstrong Lie. Another athlete is presented in Mike Tyson: The Undisputed Truth, which brings us his one-man stage show, as directed by Spike Lee. For those of you who prefer the athletics of cooking, Spinning Plates presents three very different restaurants and the chefs (including Grant Achatz) who keep them running. Pulling together interviews and reenactments, The Summit brings us the story of climbing expedition up deadly K2 that went horribly wrong.

Monday Night at the Movies
On Monday, February 17 at 1:00 and 7:00 we will screen The Spectacular Now, a fresh and touching coming of age film that is showcase for two talented young actors, Miles Teller (Rabbit Hole) and Shailene Woodley (The Descendants). It is rated R and runs 95 minutes. All of our Monday Night at the Movies screenings take place at the Woman's Library Club at 325 Tudor Ct. Our screenings are free and open to everyone.

The Olympics

Perhaps you don't want to watch the Olympics and you'd prefer to watch feature films. Luckily we've got plenty of ones about the Olympics (both summer and winter).

• Miracle - Kurt Russell stars in the story of the 1980 Winter Olympics hockey team that did the unthinkable by beating the Russians.
• Downhill Racer - Before Robert Redford was lost at sea, he was a skier trying to make the U.S. ski team in this exciting 1969 film.
• The Other Dream Team - The Lithuanian basketball team was brand new after the breakup of the Soviet Union and this film tells how they were able to make the 1992 Olympics (with the help of the Grateful Dead).
• Chariots of Fire - Revisit the classic story of two runners competing to win the Olympics.
• Twenty Twelve - Take a look back at the preparation for the 2012 London Olympics with this hilarious import.
• The Real Olympics - This documentary takes a look back at the Olympics' Greek origins.

Flick Picks 2/4/14: Dallas Buyers Club, About Time, Escape Plan

What's New on DVD at the Library This Week!

ENTERTAINMENT: Matthew McConaughey continues his career renaissance by giving another powerful performance in Dallas Buyers Club, the true story of a Texan who finds himself unable to purchase the drugs that he is hoping will help him beat the disease, since they are unapproved in the U.S. He teams with a doctor (played by Griffin Dunne) and a transgender fellow HIV patient (Jared Leto) to try to get his hands on these potentially lifesaving drugs. On the lighter side, About Time is a romantic comedy from the director of Love Actually about a man who can travel through time and the girl that he loves (Rachel McAdams). For something a little more testosterone heavy, Escape Plan gives us Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone as a pair who must break out of a seemingly escape-proof prison.

The BBC offers up Burton and Taylor, which focuses on the 1983 production of Noel Coward's Private Lives that teamed Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor onstage. Though divorced for many years at this point there is both attraction and bad blood between the two. It stars Dominic West and Helena Bonham Carter. The Lady Vanishes is a BBC remake of the Alfred Hitchcock thriller about what happens when an elderly lady disappears from a train and nearly everyone insists that she was never there. For the kids this week we've got Free Birds, an animated film about a pair of turkeys who travel back in time in an attempt to get themselves off of the Thanksgiving menu. Another animated film this week, Moon Man, tells the story of the man on the moon's vacation on earth, as his absence makes the children of the world unable to sleep.

SERIES: Based on the works of Philippa Gregory, White Queen focuses on three women who compete for the English throne during the Wars of the Roses. Also, shows may come and shows may go but Midsomer Murders is seemingly eternal, dropping off season 23 at the library this week.

DOCUMENTARIES: Blood Brother is about a young American who decided to dedicate his life to helping HIV-infected children in India

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

Philip Seymour Hoffman

By now you've surely heard of Philip Seymour Hoffman's passing at the age of 46. There have been many tributes written about Hoffman in the last few days that capture his skill much better than I ever could. What strikes me is the sheer number of quality films that the guy contributed to, in both showcase and smaller roles. Take a look at his Rotten Tomatoes profile and you'll see that Hoffman was almost incapable of choosing a role in a poorly made film. We've got many of his great roles available for you to enjoy again or to see for the first time.

• Capote - Hoffman's Academy Award-winning turn as Truman Capote, as he forms a relationship with Perry Smith, one of the killers who becomes the subject of his book In Cold Blood.
• The Master - Hoffman was nominated for an Academy Award in this challenging look at a drifter who hooks up with a cult leader.
• Charlie Wilson's War - Another Academy Award nomination for his small but nicely showcased role as a free thinking CIA agent.
• Doubt - A tough character study of a priest accused of improper relations with a student at his school.
• Before the Devil Knows You're Dead - A downbeat but extremely well-made little film about two brothers who decide to rob their parents' store, leading to tragic results.
• Synecdoche, New York - Roger Ebert called this the best film of the decade and while it's a challenging film, it's also an astonishing look at a theatre director's lifelong attempt to create a replica of New York City in order to stage a play.
• Jack Goes Boating - Probably one of the smaller recent films that Hoffman made, it was also his directorial debut. It tells the story of two New York couples.
• Owning Mahowny - An earlier showcase role that features Hoffman as a man with a gambling problem.
• The Big Lebowski - An early, small role that nonetheless is worth viewing just for the scene where he shows off his boss's wall of awards.

Flick Picks 1/28/14: Rush, Last Vegas, Downton Abbey Season 4

New on DVD at the Library This Week

ENTERTAINMENT: Looking for a movie that will provide you with...a RUSH??? Luckily we've got the perfect movie for you this week! The Ron Howard directed Rush is the adrenaline-filled true story of the 1970s Formula 1 rivalry between an English and an Austrian. It stars Thor himself (Chris Hemsworth) and Olivia Wilde and we've got it on DVD and Blu-ray. Also this week, Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman and Kevin Kline get crazy in Sin City when one of their group finally decides to get married, in Last Vegas. In Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2, the crew from the original must deal with their legacy of food/animal hybrids in order to save humanity. We've got it on DVD and Blu-ray.

Bad Grandpa, which features Jackass' Johnny Knoxville as an 86-year old man who travels across the country with his 8-year old grandson, was the surprise hit of the year, raking in over $100 million at the box office. It's gentler than the Jackass world though, as it serves up its comedy by having Knoxville and grandson prank unsuspecting bystanders. Sherlock's Benedict Cumberbatch portrays WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in The Fifth Estate, which focuses on the dilemma of whether some secrets are too important to not let loose. Our indie pick this week is Concussion, about a married lesbian housewife who frees her urges when she leaves suburbia and moves to Manhattan.

SERIES: Season 4 of Downton Abbey sees some new characters joining the show while some are no longer with it...but we've already said too much! Check it out to find out more! The fourth and final season of HBO's New Orleans jazz-infused Treme also arrives this week as does season 3 of the Brenda Blethyn detective show Vera.

DOCUMENTARIES: It's Better to Jump brings us the ancient walled Israeli city Akka, which serves as a home for residents of many religions, though economic and social pressures are now forcing many Arabs to leave.

Chicago History on DVD

On Thursday at 7:00 we will have part one of our Chicago's Movers and Shakers series, where Hy Speck will tell you about some of the more colorful characters in Chicago's history. We also have a great many DVDs telling the story of our city, from its early days to its recent past.

• Chicago: City of the Century is a multi-part American Experience documentary that tells the story of Chicago's rise.
• Geoffery Baer has filmed many interesting tours of Chicago, including Chicago by Boat, Chicago's Loop and Chicago's North Shore.
• WTTW offers Remembering Chicago, Remembering Chicago Again and Remembering Chicago & World War II for more looks at our city's past.
• And This is Free is a colorful snapshot of Maxwell Street and its various characters.
• Tom Palazzo: Four More Films shows us various events of the 60s, including the unveiling of the Picasso in Daley Plaza and the end of Riverview Amusement Park.

Flick Picks 1/21/14: Captain Phillips, Blue Jasmine, In a World

New on DVD at the library this week!

ENTERTAINMENT: Nominated for 6 Oscars including best film, Captain Phillips stars Tom Hanks in the gripping story of an American cargo ship that is hijacked by Somali pirates. The film focuses on the relationship between Hanks' title character and the lead Somali pirate, played by Oscar-nominated newcomer Bakhard Abdi. Paul Greengrass, who directed two Bourne films, is behind the camera for this one and we've got it on DVD and Blu-ray. Woody Allen received an Oscar nomination for screenplay while Cate Blanchett and Sally Hawkins were nominated for actress and supporting actress respectively, for Blue Jasmine, the story of a New York socialite trying to make a fresh start in San Francisco after her businessman husband is sent to prison for fraud. It has another great Allen cast that includes Alec Baldwin, Peter Sarsgaard and Louis C.K. No Oscar nominations but a hilarious supporting cast that includes Demetri Martin, Rob Corddry, Ken Marino and Nick Offerman for In a World, a romantic comedy featuring rising star Lake Bell as a woman trying to make it big in the movie-trailer voiceover business. Our indie pick this week is Sunlight Jr., which tells the story of the relationship between a working class store clerk, played by Naomi Watts, and her wheelchair-bound boyfriend Matt Dillon.

SERIES: If you'd like to see what has been referred to as one of the greatest political dramas of all time, you should pick up the Danish series Borgen, season 3 of which arrives this week.

SUBTITLED: The Prey, the newest white knuckle thriller to come out of France, arrives this week and tells the story of a bank robber who must break out of prison before his former cellmate commits crimes against his family.

DOCUMENTARIES: The subtly titled Greedy Lying Bastards takes a look at why there is so little progress being made in the fight against climate change despite evidence that it is upon us.

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

DVDs celebrating Martin Luther King's legacy

The third Monday of January every year is marked in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, the official date of which is January 15th. We have a great selection of videos that both honor Dr. King and the principles for which he stood.

• Ely Landau's King is a documentary of his life that includes much archival footage and was only screened theatrically for a single night.
• The 1963 March on Washington, where King made his "I Have a Dream" speech is the focus of the PBS documentary The March.
• The History Channel documentary King is another excellent look at the life of the man.
• The civil rights activists known as the Freedom Riders get their due in the PBS documentary Freedom Riders.
• March On! is a civil rights DVD made just for kids and it includes Martin Luther King's sister's story of hearing her brother deliver his "I Have a Dream" speech.

Flick Picks 1/14/14: Lee Daniels' The Butler, Enough Said, Riddick, Carrie

New at the Library This Week on DVD!

ENTERTAINMENT: One of the most highly acclaimed films of 2013 comes to DVD this week in the Forest Whitaker and Oprah Winfrey vehicle Lee Daniels' The Butler. The Butler uses the tale of the title character, who serves eight presidents over three decades, to tell its real story of how American society changed between the 1950s and the 1980s. It also features Robin Williams as Dwight D. Eisenhower, James Marsden as John F. Kennedy, Liev Shreiber as Lyndon B. Johnson, John Cusack as Richard Nixon and Alan Rickman as Ronald Reagan. Also this week, the late James Gandolfini shines alongside Julia Louis Dreyfus in the romantic comedy Enough Said. If action is your cup of tea then you'll want to see Vin Diesel's latest addition to his Riddick saga, which features the title character fighting off bounty hunters and alien creatures on a deserted planet. Horror fans will want to check out the remake of Carrie, which features the always interesting Chloe Grace Moretz as the telekinetic teenager who you don't want at your prom.

The powerful Fruitvale Station won the Grand Jury Prize for dramatic film at the Sundance film festival as it follows a day in the life of a 22-year-old African American who ends up getting shot by officers at a subway station. If that film isn't disturbing enough for you then we also have Blue Caprice, telling the true story of the relationship between the two men who became the Beltway snipers, killing 10 people in 2002. Our indie pick this week is Short Term 12, which features Brie Larson as a supervisor at a home for troubled children who tries to get a young girl to open up.

SUBTITLED: The colorful Pedro Almodovar returns with I'm So Excited, a hilarious look at flight attendants who must deal with a mid-air emergency. Terraferma is about an elderly Italian fisherman who takes in a family of illegal North African immigrants. Two disparate stories - one set in Paris and one in Montreal - are connected by the subject of love in the dizzying Cafe de Flore. The Austrian Paradise: Hope tells the story of an overweight 13 year old who is sent to a diet camp and experiences first love.

DOCUMENTARIES: Three of Richard Nixon's aides kept Super 8 footage of their time in the White House and it is on display in Our Nixon, after being filed away by the FBI for 40 years.

All of our new and upcoming films can be found in Bibliocommons.

Talking Pictures
Our next Talking Pictures program is Flight, with Denzel Washington. It will be screened in the library's Hammond Room on Thursday, January 16 at 1:00 and will be followed by a discussion led by Susan Benjamin. All of our film programs are free and open to everyone.

Monday Night at the Movies
Our next Monday Night at the Movies screening will take place on Monday, January 20 at 1:00 and 7:00 and will feature the film Twenty Feet From Stardom. Twenty Feet from Stardom chronicles some of the unsung heroines of American popular music over the last 50 years and the perils of trying making the transition from backup singer to star. Long-time music luminaries like Mick Jagger, Bruce Springsteen, Bette Midler and David Bowie attest to the irreplaceable contribution of these often overlooked artists. The film is 89 minutes long as is rated PG-13. All of our film programs are free and open to everyone.

Golden Globes

Beyond the comedy, fashion (good, bad and ugly) and strange behavior that they offer, the Golden Globe Awards are increasingly being seen as a weather vane for the Oscars. Here's a list of last night's winners, with links to our library's catalog.

Motion Pictures
Best Drama - 12 Years a Slave
Best Musical/Comedy - American Hustle
Best Director - Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)
Best Actress in a Drama - Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)
Best Actor in a Drama - Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyer's Club)
Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy - Leonardo Di Caprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)
Best Actress in a Musical or Comedy - Amy Adams (American Hustle)
Best Supporting Actress - Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)
Best Supporting Actor - Jared Leto (Dallas Buyer's Club)
Best Screenplay - Spike Jonze (Her)
Best Foreign Language Film - The Great Beauty
Best Animated Feature - Frozen

Television
Best TV Comedy or Musical - Brooklyn Nine-Nine
Best TV Drama - Breaking Bad
Best Actress in a TV Drama - Robin Wright (House of Cards)
Best Actress in a TV Comedy - Amy Poehler (Parks and Recreation)
Best Actor in a TV Drama - Bryan Cranston (Breaking Bad)
Best Actor in a TV Comedy - Adam Samberg (Brooklyn Nine-Nine)
Best Miniseries or TV Movie - Behind the Candelabra
Best Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie - Elisabeth Moss (Top of the Lake)
Best Actor in a Miniseries or TV Movie - Michael Douglas (Behind the Candelabra)
Best Supporting Actress in a TV Show, Miniseries or TV Movie - Jacqueline Bisset (Dancing on the Edge)
Best Supporting Actor in a TV Show, Miniseries or TV Movie - Jon Voight (Ray Donovan)