August 2012 Archives

You've probably seen the blockbusters (or at least you're on the hold queue.) Here are a few selected titles that may have slipped under your radar.

Pearls of the Czech New Wave, Criterion Collection
 
Of all the cinematic New Waves that broke over the world in the 1960s, the one in Czechoslovakia was among the most fruitful, fascinating, and radical. With a wicked sense of humor and a healthy streak of surrealism, a group of fearless directors--including eventual Oscar winners Miloš Forman and Ján Kadár--began to use film to speak out about the hypocrisy and absurdity of the Communist state. A defining work was the 1966 omnibus film Pearls of the Deep, which introduced five of the movement's essential voices: Věra Chytilová, Jaromil Jireš, Jiří Menzel, Jan Němec, and Evald Schorm. This series presents that title, along with five other crucial works that followed close on its heels, one from each of those filmmakers--some dazzlingly experimental, some arrestingly realistic, all singular expressions from a remarkable time and place.

Boardwalk Empire: the complete Season 2
 
Season 2 of the acclaimed HBO series. Set in Atlantic City, New Jersey, follows the story of Enoch "Nucky" Thompson who controlled the city during the Prohibition period of the 1920s and 1930s.Starring Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Michael Shannon and Kelly MacDonald.

Assault on Precinct 13, restored Collectors edition, by John Carpenter
 
Not the goofy remake but the 1976 John Carpenter original. Cops and gangsters band together in a remote LA police station to fend off an even tougher band of thugs. You may have seen this at the drive-in when you were a kid. This cult masterpiece gets a facelift. 

Bonsai, directed by Cristián Jiménez
 
Julio tells his girlfriend he has a job transcribing a novel, when he's actually writing his own work. Looking for inspiration, he revisits an old romance and gets involved again. Based on an internationally acclaimed novella, Bonsai is a study of the lies we tell ourselves. A Cannes Film Festival official selection.

Out, directed by Jim Goddard
 
After an eight-year prison stint for a failed bank heist, Frank Ross returns to his old gangland haunts to find the snitch who sent him to jail. The smooth, streetwise ex-con quickly adjusts to the new attitudes of the disco-tinged '70s but discovers that although neighborhoods change, old grudges never go out of style.Filmed on location in South London, this series, which originally aired in 1978, depicts a world where gritty pubs and dingy pubs teem with high-living mobsters and corrupt cops. 6 episodes on 2 discs.

Women on the 6th Floor, directed by Phillipe Le Guay
 
Paris, 1960. Jean-Louis lives a bourgeois existence with his neurotic socialite wife Suzanne while their children are away at boarding school. The couple's world is turned upside-down when they hire María, a Spanish maid who introduces Jean-Louis to an alternative reality a few stories up on the sixth floor servants' quarters. Befriending a group of sassy Spanish maids, the women teach him there's more to life than stocks and bonds, and their influence on the house ultimately transforms everyone's life.

Below are a selection of new fiction titles recently received by the Greenwich Library.

Lionel Asbo: State of England, by Martin Amis
 
Although some major critics have not been kind to this book, the joke is ultimately on them. Amis's novel is a satiric look at the media's fascination with celebrity. The book's anti-hero, Lionel Asbo is an uncouth petty criminal who wins millions of pounds in the lottery. He becomes a "celebrity" over night, thanks to a gullible media. The book is hilarious, as you might expect but by the time it nears its end, the Amis offers up plenty of thoughtful moments.

The Orchardist, by Amanda Coplin
 
At the turn of the 20th century in a rural stretch of the Pacific Northwest, a gentle solitary orchardist, Talmadge, tends to apples and apricots. Then two feral, pregnant girls and armed gunmen set Talmadge on an irrevocable course not only to save and protect but to reconcile the ghosts of his own troubled past. 

Office Girl, by Joe Meno
 
In the last months of the twentieth century, art school dropout Odile and her companion Jack, who spends his time capturing the sounds of the city on his out-of-date tape recorder, decide to start their own art movement. "The talented Chicago-based Meno has composed a gorgeous little indie romance, circa 1999 . . . A sweetheart of a novel, complete with a hazy ending." --Kirkus Reviews

The Twelve Rooms of the Nile, by Enid Shomer
 
Imagines shared encounters between Florence Nightingale and Gustave Flaubert before their famous achievements, in a dramatic account inspired by their 1850 journey up the Nile during which they overcame considerable differences to forge a bond of intelligence, humor and passion.

We're flying : stories, by Peter Stamm ; translated from the German by Michael Hofmann
 
an anthology of stories that employ the acclaimed Swiss author's use of direct prose, deceptively simple narratives and deep psychological insights into the existential dilemmas of contemporary life.

Battleborn, by Claire Vaye Watkins
 
A debut collection of ten short works reimagines the mythology of the American West and includes stories of a foreigner's arrival at a prostitution ranch, a hermit's attempt to rescue an abused teen, and a woman's role in a friend's degrading Vegas encounter.