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.