Week of June 18th

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Beanstalks, Legends, and Curses

Jack (Nicholas Hoult) is an orphaned farmboy who comes home from town with magic beans (and no money) in Bryan Singer's Jack the Giant Slayer, but quickly learns that the stories he heard as a boy are actually true: beanstalks grow to the sky, and giants live in the clouds. With the princess (Eleanor Tomlinson) already at the top of the beanstalk, the king (Ian McShane) sends her prince-to-be (Stanley Tucci) and the captain of his guard (Ewan McGregor) after her... but Jack is going with them. Though he's just a simple peasant, Jack will have to embrace his hero's journey, face impossible odds, and become the kind of white knight that can rescue princesses and save kingdoms. On DVD and Blu Ray.

As it turns out, Nell (Ashley Bell) may still have haunted, demonic problems in The Last Exorcism: Part II, negating the title of the previous movie. The only survivor of the previous exorcism, she's recuperating in Muse Watson's shelter for girls and trying to get on with her life, making friends (Julia Garner) and even beginning to form a relationship with a boy (Spencer Treat Clark). The darkness has followed her, though, and a pair of exorcists (Tarra Riggs and David Jensen) are called in-- it seems Nell's last exorcism wasn't her last exorcism.

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Suspenseful

India's (Mia Wasikowska) 18th birthday turns tragic when an accident kills her father in Park Chan-wook's Stoker. Unsure of how to be alone with her debutante mother (Nicole Kidman), her household shifts when the uncle she's never met returns to the family from his travels. At first, India isn't sure how to take Uncle Charlie (Matthew Goode), her father's brother-- his reappearance seems to upset her aunt (Jacki Weaver), and her mother seems a little too happy to have him around-- but it seems that India and Charlie share a very strong bond... a bond her father (Dermot Mulroney) always tried to suppress, along with the secret that ensured the two of them never met. On DVD and Blu Ray.

When a 19-year-old Korean-American girl (Jamie Chung) from New Mexico uses a fake ID to get into a bar, the guy (Scott Mechlowicz) who gives her a ride home throws her in his trunk in The Abduction of Eden. Based on a true story, she is renamed "Eden" by her captors and kept in a remote facility with other girls and sent out to service clients by a US Marshall (Beau Bridges) who runs a sex trafficking ring outside of Las Vegas. In order to survive an industry that eliminates girls that outlive their usefulness, she has to work within the system of drug dealers and sex slaves to find her chance for escape. With Matt O'Leary.

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Humor

Serious and thoughtful Reginald (Tom Courtenay), energetic and flirtatious Wilfred (Billy Connolly), and flighty and cheerful Cissy (Pauline Collins) are former opera singers living their lives in a a British retirement home for gifted musicians in Dustin Hoffman's Quartet. Their home is about to lose its lease and the performers for their yearly gala each year, but the director (Michael Gambon) sees an opportunity when opera legend Jean (Maggie Smith) arrives on their doorstep-- Jean, Reg, Wilf, and Cissy were a world-renown quartet in their day, and their years apart have taken their toll... but if they can reunite their quartet, their combined status would be a real event for the music world. On DVD and Blu Ray. 

When their best friend Jeff (Justin Chon) turns 21, his best friends Casey (Skylar Astin) and Miller (Miles Teller) head up to his school to throw him a crazy, over-the-top birthday bash in 21 & Over. Filmed on the University of Washington campus and throughout Seattle's University District, the three friends wander through the bars on University Ave until Jeff can't even form sentences, and Casey and Miller have to get him home. Jeff has an important interview in the morning, but now he's too drunk to even tell them his address. Now they have to track down a variety of leads (including Jonathan Keltz and Sarah Wright) to get Jeff home, and navigate frat house party challenges, angry sororities, and aggressive male cheerleaders to learn their friend's address and get him home. On DVD and Blu Ray. 

In the tradition of The Kentucky Fried Movie and Amazon Women on the Moon, Movie 43 is an anthology comedy film, stringing together a group of comedy shorts with some of Hollywood's biggest stars. Kate Winslet gets set up on a blind date with an almost-perfect Hugh Jackman, Robin (Justin Long) can't catch a break at speed dating because Batman (Jason Sudeikis) always interferes, Johnny Knoxville captures a leprechaun (Gerard Butler) as a birthday present for a friend, Elizabeth Banks can't commit to her boyfriend (Josh Duhamel) until he gets rid of his evil cartoon cat, and many more comic shorts. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Off Kilter

"You know, I never went to Europe.
Never. Not once. I never even went to
Montreal, which I hear is very European.
I never went scuba-diving, I never went
to the ballet, I’ve never been in love.
I’ve never even watched The Wire."

"All of those things are overrated.
Except for The Wire, that’s really good."

Tracy (Julia Stiles) brings Glenn (David Cross) to her friends' regular Sunday brunch in It's a Disaster, but this Sunday, the usual tensions between friends are the least of their issues. None of them pay much attention to all the sirens going by or the cable going out, but soon they're taping up the doors and windows and preparing for the worst. Hosts Emma and Pete's (Erinn Hayes and Blaise Miller) dissolving marriage takes a back seat to the catastrophe, free-spirited Lexi and Buck (Rachel Boston and Kevin M. Brennan) are too lost in casual partying to notice, and while Shane (Jeff Grace) is trying to grasp who the terrorists are, chemistry teacher Hedy (America Ferrera) knows what's coming and would rather just have a good time with their last few hours... though even with the apocalypse upon them, they still can't quite get past their own petty issues. On DVD and Blu Ray.

People expected great things from Alice and John (Juno Temple and Michael Angarano) after highschool, but as twentysomethings they're barely scraping by in The Brass Teapot. When Alice is compelled to pick up an ornamental teapot, it seems frivolous, until she gets hurt and the teapot produces hundred dollar bills. With a magical object that rewards pain, a dentist's visit, tattoo parlors, and waxing appointments buy them a house beside their successful former classmates (Alexis Bledel)... but the high life has costs, and the teapot evolves to only reward more and more sinister behavior. When a stranger (Steve Park) offers to remove the teapot from their lives, they reject him, but as they become worse and more selfish people, he could be their only hope. With Alia Shawkat.

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Documentaries

The legendary drummer of Cream, Ginger Baker, was a towering figure in 1960s rock music, though the documentary Beware of Mr. Baker suggests he's as likely to punch an interviewer as he is to talk to one. Though he was an acclaimed figure in the music world, Ginger Baker was an incendiary figure with the musicians he played with, consistently causing strife and tension with his family and bandmates, and found his later life in turmoil.

Spearheaded by genetic research, PBS' The Journey of Man traces humankind's spread across the globe. Opposing the archeological theories that contend otherwise, The Journey of Man suggest mankind's spread began 60,000 years ago, radiating from a single location in Africa and beginning the species' outward migration, and tracks the divergent physical and linguistic traits as they changed across humanity.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Wilfred Season 2	Though everyone else sees Wilfred as a normal dog, depressed, borderline-suicidal Ryan (Elijah Wood) still sees him as a man in a dog suit... and Wilfred isn't shy about telling Ryan what to do, and forcing him into situations that escape dog-logic.		Call the Midwife Season 2	A new midwife in a nursing convent in 1950s London learns the realities of women's health in a poor neighborhood.
	Workaholics Season 3	Three roommates (wild goofball Blake, vain and immature Adam, and good-natured but gullible Anders) continue to share a cubicle at their wage-slave telemarketing job.