Staff Picks 2/26/13: The Master, Breaking Dawn Part II, Oscar Winners

New This Week!

ENTERTAINMENT: One of the more challenging of last year's major releases - The Master - arrives this week. The Master tells the story of a veteran (Joaquin Phoenix) who becomes involved with a charismatic religious leader (Philip Seymour Hoffman). Amy Adams also stars and the film was directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, the director of Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. We have it on DVD and Blu-ray. Also, we can finally discover whether Bella and Edward live happily ever after in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, also available in both DVD and Blu-ray. For something a little quieter, Gael Garcia Bernal stars in The Loneliest Planet, about an engaged couple whose backpacking trip through Georgia (the country, not the state) makes them examine their relationship to each other and the world.

DOCUMENTARIES: A diagnosis of AIDS used to mean an automatic death sentence. The Oscar-nominated How to Survive a Plague tells the story of activists who were able to encourage pharmaceutical companies to quickly move new drugs from research to testing in order lessen the deadly threat of AIDS.

SUBTITLED: The makers of the animated Persepolis bring us Chicken With Plums, a whimsical story of a man waiting for death in pre-revolutionary Tehran. In the intimate Madrid 1987 a male journalist and a female journalism student end up locked in a bathroom with no clothes on. Their wide-ranging conversation over the next 24 hours is both personal and political. A Simple Life tells the story of a family's servant in Hong Kong who has a stroke, after which the family becomes the caretaker. The beautifully filmed Silent Souls takes you to West-Central Russia, where a man decides to dispose of his wife's remains according to his ancestors' traditions. Finally, the 1958 epic French version of Les Miserables is generally considered one of the best versions committed to film, staying adapted to the original novel.

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

Talking Pictures
This Thursday, February 28th, Susan Benjamin will host a showing of The Help at the library, followed by a discussion. The screening takes place at 1:00 in the Hammond Room.

Oscar Mania!

Hopefully Sunday night's Academy Awards ceremony has you revved up to see some excellent movies, most of which we own or have on order. Here's the list of winners:


Best Picture: Argo
Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, Lincoln
Actress: Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
Supporting Actor: Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained
Supporting Actress: Anne Hathaway, Les Miserables
Directing: Ang Lee, Life of Pi
Foreign Language Film: Amour
Adapted Screenplay: Chris Terrio, Argo
Original Screenplay: Quentin Tarantino, Django Unchained
Animated Feature Film: Brave
Production Design: Lincoln
Cinematography: Life of Pi
Sound Mixing: Les Miserables
Sound Editing (tie): Skyfall, Zero Dark Thirty
Original Score: Life of Pi, Mychael Danna
Original Song: "Skyfall" from Skyfall, Adele Adkins and Paul Epworth.
Costume: Anna Karenina
Documentary Feature: Searching for Sugar Man
Documentary (short subject): Inocente
Film Editing: Argo
Makeup and Hairstyling: Les Miserables
Animated Short Film: Paperman
Live Action Short Film: Curfew
Visual Effects: Life of Pi