Coming Distractions March 30th, 2010

An Education
Sherlock Holmes
Der Baader Meinhof Komplex

In order for us to continue bringing you the best video selection in this area, all our movies prices have gone up by $0.25.

We also have a whole slew of new deals:

Rent 2 new releases and get 1 free has been extended from Sunday through Thursday.

7 Days a week: rent any 4 or more non-new releases at $2.50 each for 5 nights.

All Adult titles are now $5 a piece, and if you rent 2 any day of the week you can get a 3rd for free.

We are in the midst of a lot of exciting moving projects that are aimed at freeing up some space (for merry& easy movement) and integrating the VHS and DVD shelves. We have several new categories: these include new Biography, Jane Austen, & Shakespeare sections.

Coming Distractions March 23rd, 2010

Seraphine: I think we've gotten more questions about this in the past 6 months than any other title we didn't have. Based on the life of French painter Séraphine de Senlis who worked as a maid while plying her art on the side.







Fantastic Mr. Fox: The Oscar-nominated animated film by Wes Anderson, based on the story by Roald Dahl. With voice acting by the likes of George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman, Bill Murray, & Willem Dafoe, etc.


Twilight: New Moon


The Blind Side: Sandra Bullock won the academy award for best actress for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy. This is based on the story of Michael Oher, a homeless boy, who played in the NFL with the help Tuohy and her husband.
Brothers: A remake of the Danish film (2004) of the same name, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Natalie Portman, and Tobey Maguire, in a love-triangle that begins after one brother goes missing in Afghanistan.


Red Cliff: New John Woo two-parter.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

Mad Men - 3rd Season

Coming Distractions & Oscar Contest Review

New Movies March 16th, 2010:

Broken Embraces: Director Pedro Almodovar revisits and reshoots some scenes and themes from his earlier films.

Brief Interviews with Hideous Men: John Krasinski took the money from the pilot episode of The Office and bought the rights to this collection of stories by David Foster Wallace.

Armored
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
The Fourth Kind
Ninja Assassin
The Princess and the Frog
Astro Boy
Wonderful World
Breaking Bad - 2nd Season
South Park - 13th Season


This year our Oscar contest resulted in an unprecedented 7-way tie and our winner by lottery is Earl Wright, so congratulations to all 7 of our customers who correctly predicted 14 out of 24 Academy Award Winners!


Let's see how the rest of us did. Winners are bolded and red:

Best Picture

Avatar - 63%
The Blind Side - 0%
District 9 - 0%
An Education - 0%
The Hurt Locker - 16%
Inglourious Basterds - 5%
Precious - 10%
A Serious Man - 3%
Up - 0%
Up in the Air - 3%

Director

Avatar - 39%
The Hurt Locker - 45% - congratulations to Kathryn Bigelow - our first ever female best director!
Inglourious Basterds - 3%
Precious - 10%
Up in the Air - 3%


Leading Actor

Jeff Bridges - 63%
George Clooney - 13%
Colin Firth - 8%
Morgan Freeman - 8%
Jeremy Renner - 8%





Leading Actress

Sandra Bullock - 29%
Helen Mirren - 5%
Carey Mulligan - 13%
Gabourey Sidibe - 24%
Meryl Streep - 29%




Supporting Actor

Matt Damon - 8%
Woody Harrelson - 21%
Christopher Plummer - 16%
Stanley Tucci - 0%
Christoph Waltz - 55%





Supporting Actress

Penelope Cruz - 0%
Vera Formiga - 0%
Maggie Gyllenhaal - 21%
Anna Kendrick - 3%
Mo'Nique - 76%




Animated Feature

Coraline - 8%
Fantastic Mr. Fox - 18%
The Princess and the Frog - 3%
The Secret of Kells - 3%
Up - 68%

Coming Distractions March 9th, 2010

Up in the Air: The heavily Oscar-nominated film (Best Picture, Best Director, 2 Best Supporting Actress noms, Best Adapted Screenplay) starring George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, & Anna Kendrick takes on both our current economic crisis and one man's inability to connect with others. Apparently, in preparation for this film Jason Reitman was concerned with being unable to write believable dialogue for characters who had recently been laid off, so he went and conducted interviews, which were so successful & moving he ended up using these "real" people in the final film.

Precious: An Oscar favorite (Best Picture, Best Director, Leading Actress, Supporting Actress, Film Editing, Adapted Screenplay) about an abused teenager struggling to find any self worth, and any one thing she can be good at. Mo'Nique's performance is singularly terrifying. Even if Up in the Air and Precious may not be frontrunners for Best Picture in the expanded 10 nominee category (I've seen all except 1, and enjoyed most), but these two may very well be my personal favorites & the films I am most likely to watch a second time.



Capitalism: A Love Story: The new Michael Moore.
Old Dogs
Hachi: A Dog's Tale: Richard Gere in a tearjerker of a dog movie by Lasse Hallström (director of such disparate dramas as What's Eating Gilbert Grape & Dear John). I would have felt really satisfied if they had named it A Dog's Tail. It's a shame to just let a pun of a title go like that, right?
The Stoning of Soraya M.




Here is a list of the Oscar-nominated films we currently have for rent:

Coco Before Chanel (Costume Design)
Coraline (Best Animated Feature Film)
The Cove (Best Documentary Feature)
District 9 (Best Picture, Film Editing, Visual Effects, Adapted Screenplay)
Food, Inc. (Best Documentary Feature)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Achievement in Cinematography)
The Hurt Locker (Best Picture, Best Director, Leading Actor, Original Screenplay, Cinematography, Film Editing, Original Score, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects)
Il Divo (Makeup)
Inglourious Basterds (Best Picture, Best Director, Original Screenplay, Supporting Actor, Cinematography, Film Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing)
Julie & Julia (Leading Actress)
A Serious Man (Best Picture, Original Screenplay)
Star Trek (Makeup, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects)
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (Sound Mixing)
Up (Best Picture, Original Screenplay, Original Score, Best Animated Feature, Sound Editing)
Wallace & Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death (Best Animated Short Film)

The ballots for our Oscar contest will be collected mid-afternoon Sunday so be sure to get your picks in tonight or early tomorrow! Big winnings!