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.