Week of July 30th

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Striking Back

Though the Cobra Commander and Destro have been captured, Duke (Channing Tatum), Roadblock (Dwayne Johnson), Jaye (Adrianne Palicki), and the rest of the Joes are still on high alert in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. Cobra's ninja, Storm Shadow (Lee Byung Hun), is still at large and ready to stage a jailbreak, their master of disguise has replaced the President of the United States (Jonathan Pryce), and soon, the Joes are under attack and on the run as the most wanted fugitives in America. With only one friend left to trust (Bruce Willis), the remaining G.I. Joes have to weather air strikes and ninja attacks to restore the president and clear their names. With Ray Stevenson. On DVD, Blu Ray, & 3DBlu.

Sarah (Kate Bosworth) tries to patch up the rift between her childhood friends Lou (Lake Bell) and Abby (Katie Aselton) by taking them camping in Black Rock. Returning to the island where they vacationed as children, they're surprised to encounter a trio of men (including Jay Paulson) on a hunting trip. Though they all start drinking and telling stories around the campfire, when things turn ugly, the women find themselves running for their lives, chased by armed hunters with brutal intentions.

The Flash (Justin Chambers), faced with an enemy (C. Thomas Howell) that matches his own powers (including the power to run fast enough to travel through time), has to contend with a world he doesn't understand in The Flashpoint Paradox. Because of changes in the past, The Flash is trapped in an alternate timeline where a war between Wonder Woman (Vanessa Marshall) with her Amazons and Aquaman (Cary Elwes) with his Atlatans has caused worldwide damage, a war on the verge of destroying the planet. Though he can't count on his friends being the same-- Batman (Kevin McKidd) carries guns and kills criminals, Cyborg (Michael B. Jordan) is a government lackey, Hal Jordan (Nathan Fillion) never received a ring and became the Green Lantern, and Superman is nowhere to be found-- Flash has to assemble all the heroes he can to find out what was changed, and restore the world to its natural state.

Working as security for a Wall Street firm, Jim (Dominic Purcell) faces one hardship after another in Uwe Boll's Assault on Wall Street. Though his wife's (Erin Karpluk) cancer is being successfully treated, medication is expensive... and Jim's investments vanish in the recent financial crisis. Though his friends (Edward Furlong and Keith David) try and support him, Jim considers it his duty to perform terrorist assassinations and office building shooting sprees to wipe out the corrupt Wall Street operators who only care about their own greed. With John Heard.

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Marriage

Stella (Olympia Dukakis) and Dot (Brenda Fricker) have lived together for 30 years in Cloudburst, but Dot's failing eyesight prompts her granddaughter to send her to a nursing home. Dot doesn't want to go, and Stella has no intention of losing her, so the two of them set out on a road trip together. During their journey, they have to contend with all the current social climate has to offer, but their destination is simple: they'll travel to Canada, where Stella and Dot can legally marry, and no one will be able to separate them.

Old friends reunite in Between Us, a filmed adaptation of a stage play where newlyweds Grace and Carlo (Julia Stiles and Taye Diggs) travel from New York to see Sharyl and George (Melissa George and David Harbour) at their country home to find their family ideal is fraught with more trouble than they could have imagined. The film flips between that night and a night years later, where happy and restored George and Sharyl come to New York to find Carlo and Grace having their own family meltdown. Intercutting the two nights, the story explores the similarities and differences between the couples, and where the friendship that began in art school has led them.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Banshee Season 1	Sheriff Lucas Hood is new to the town of Banshee, PA... so no one in town knows Lucas isn't a cop: he's an ex-con with an assumed name and his own agenda. He's wearing the sheriff's badge, though, and he can only apply his prison yard instincts to the job at hand.		Scandal Season 1	Former White House Communications Director Olivia Pope (Kerry Washington) now works in the private sector, protecting the reputations of the political elite. She and her team have to manage the images and control the secrets of the nation's most powerful operators, keeping their scandals from coming to light.
	House of Cards: Complete Original Series	The acclaimed British political series that inspired the popular American remake follows Parliament member Francis Urquhart, betrayed by his allies, seeking political revenge through subterfuge, manipulation, and subtle maneuvering.

The Rise of the Female Anti-Hero

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With Walter White and Dexter Morgan retiring this year, there seems to be void in the Anti-hero T.V. shows available. Granted Nurse Jackie and Nancy Botwin (Weeds) gave Carmellla Soprano a run for her money, they still did not rule the world with an iron fist like Walter and to some degree Dexter.

Until recently Patty Hewes (Damages) is about the only true villain on T.V. But I have just watched two shows that are going to give a post Walter White/Patty Hewes world a real boost.

Let’s talk about Scandal. A show that I chose not to bring into the store until just recently. I owe you all an apology. It is a fast talking cousin once removed from West Wing. It is about a political fixer who happens to tell it like it is and pretty much solve every mess her clients make. She is not a CSI-er, she doesn’t take on cases to solve the murder/mystery/mess. She takes on clients based on her gut feeling, and then she gets them off/away/fixed. Her clients and the Capitol Hill movers and shakers she is involved with are a cornucopia of bad decisions made by smart powerful people. And when I say bad decisions I mean bad decisions. The women in her circle are powerful, the men are led mostly by their anatomy, and the stories are not always what I expected. I was so addicted that I watched all 7 episodes this weekend. (which those of you who know me know that is not a big thing, but it was sunny and beautiful and I try to go out more on days like that.) I am Jones-ing for the second season, which comes out soon (September 3rd). I really recommend you jump in the pool on this one. It lives up to its name.

The other show, which has been out for a few weeks, is Hit & Miss. Another show I was apparently too snooty to bring in. Here is the premise: a pre-operative transgender woman finds out that she has fathered a boy who is now eleven. She goes to meet her son and discovers three other children and that the mother has recently died. She reluctantly takes over as head of the house. Oh, and she makes her money as a hit man. Too much? Possibly. I was reluctant to watch it. But I got hooked on this one too. A very morally ambiguous woman who has life and death in her hands. She is played with humor and heart, and is tough as nails. Again, I apologize for not bringing it in sooner.

I hope that as Breaking Bad and Dexter tie things up, that more and more “morally ambiguous” (also read: “human”) characters keep cropping up.

If you need other suggestions for T.V. with spectacular women, don’t forget Luther’s Alice Morgan, Game of Thrones’ Cersei Lannaster, Justified’s Mags Bennet, Enlightened’s Amy Jellico. A lively crop of deeply flawed women. The kind that you love to watch.

--Zoe

More Reckless Reviews

Week of July 23rd

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Criminal Activity

Simon (James McAvoy) gets hit in the head during an art heist in Danny Boyle's Trance, and he can't remember where he stashed the stolen painting after his head injury. Franck (Vincent Cassel), the gangster who planned the heist, can't kill Simon, so they hire a hypo-therapist (Rosario Dawson) to get inside Simon's head, unlock the lost memories, and find the missing painting. Once they're in there, though, Simon's mind is more tangled than they could have imagined: he's obsessed with his doctor, afraid of being killed by gangsters, and has a few clashing realities in his mind: brightly surreal worlds where he might be lover or killer, thief or avenger. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Also starring McAvoy, Welcome to the Punch is British crime thriller where Detective Max Lewinsky (James McAvoy) is haunted by the criminal who slipped through his fingers when he was just a rookie. When that criminal, Jacob (Mark Strong), returns to London, Max might be too jaded to return to the hunt, but his ambitious young partner (Andrea Riseborough) drives him into the chase. Jacob's not the man he used to be-- a retired expatriate, he's come to London looking for answers... answers that may involve Max, forcing them to work together and find out why they were thrown together all those years ago. With David Morrissey. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Jod is a small-time hood on the streets of Bangkok in the 1960s in The Gangster, running with gangs because he believes it's better to do the beating than to get beaten. As the years go by and Jod climbs the gangland ranks, the code of honor between the gangsters starts to fray, and the life he chose as a means for survival starts to have fewer and fewer benefits... not only is Jod burdened with regrets from the things he's had to do, the safety his gang life offered him is slowly slipping away.

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Vampires in the art house

Struggling pulp horror writer Hall Baltimore's (Val Kilmer) book signing tour stops in a creepy, tiny town in Francis Ford Coppola's Twixt. Though the town is too small to have a book store (Hall sets up his table by the book rack at the hardware store), it does have one thing he might need: the kind of mystery that could put him back on the bestseller list. Though the sheriff (Bruce Dern) is willing to walk him through the town's murders, his greatest inspiration comes from the dreams where the ghosts of a little girl (Elle Fanning) and Edgar Allan Poe (Ben Chaplin) walk Hall through a gothic ghost story. From his ghostly dreams to the sheriff's vampire conspiracy to the strange teenagers across the lake, Hall becomes mired in a story that begins to echo his own tragic story. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Djuna (Josephine de La Baume) tries to live as conservatively as a vampire can in Kiss of the Damned, not leaving evidence and not creating progeny, until she meets someone she can't live without. Though she tries to push Paolo (Milo Ventimiglia) away, the two are passionately drawn together, and she can't help but turn him. Djuna teaches Paolo the intricacies of being undead, introducing him to vampire society (Anna Mouglalis), but their new happiness is disrupted when her reckless, hedonistic sister Mimi (Roxane Mesquida) turns up on their doorstep. Mimi follows none of Djuna's rules, killing and seducing indiscriminately, and could destroy the new homestead Paolo and Djuna are trying to start. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Activism in the 1960s

Teenage Ginger (Elle Fanning) is an introspective poet, a sharp contrast to her wild best friend Rosa (Alice Englert) in Ginger & Rosa. As the girls grow and change-- Rosa becoming more sexually adventurous, Ginger, the daughter of an activist (Alessandro Nivola), becoming involved in pacifism and protests-- they both have to contend with the changing world of 1962. In the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis and forced to consider that the end of the world could come at any moment, Ginger and Rosa both begin pushing at the boundaries of their lives, even if it pushes them apart. With Christina Hendricks.

On leave from Viet Nam, Dalton Joiner (Austin Stowell) returns home to reclaim the heart of his girlfriend Jane (Aimee Teegarden) in Love and Honor, but he discovers Jane is now "Juniper," an anti-war activist. Dalton and fellow soldier Mickey (Liam Hemsworth), join Juniper's circle, claiming to be AWOL, defying the army and standing up against the war... they're hailed as heroes by the activists and Joiner impresses Juniper, but their R&R has to come to an end. When they're due to return to Viet Nam, the soldiers both have to choose what's truly important to them. With Teresa Palmer.

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Quirky Outliers

An ensemble film that tracks four story lines all occurring at the same time, The Power of Few follows a teenager (Devon Gearhart) who walks into a dangerous situation while trying to get medicine for his family, an sudden romance between a courier (Q'orianka Kilcher) and a man on the run (Jesse Bradford), suspicious operatives (Christian Slater and Nicky Whelan) raiding houses looking for contraband, and a homeless man (Christopher Walken) with a past that keep drawing attention. As the stories unfold, all at the same time, going to the same place, they all overlap as the characters are finally thrown together.

David (Patrick Huard) is a 40-something loser in the French-Canadian Starbuck, barely able to support his pregnant girlfriend and pursued by gangsters for his debts. Worse, his extra cash scheme, frequent donations to a sperm bank under the name "Starbuck," has caused a class-action suit: 142 of Starbuck's children are pushing the courts to reveal David's identity. Though his troubles still follow him, the suit inspires David to start tracking down and observing his children.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Hit & Miss Season 1	Mia (Chloe Sevigny) is an preoperative transgender woman who is shocked to learn that she has fathered a son, and has to juggle her new family responsibility with an unusual job... Mia is an assassin.		MST3K Volume 26	Mike, Joel, and the bots mock a new crop of bad movies from their perch on the Satellite of Love, including The Deadly Mantis, Village of the Giants, Rocket Attack USA, and Slime People
	Superjail Season 3	The day-to-day operations of the mega-prison are constantly disrupted by psychedelic flights of fancy, the warden's bizarre whims, and overwhelming cartoon violence.

Week of July 16th

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Standing Up

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Meredith reviews
42

42 is the story of Jackie Robinson (Chadwick Boseman), the first baseball player to break baseball's "color barrier." Recruited for his obvious talent, Robinson is hired by a Brooklyn Dodgers executive (Harrison Ford) to make the Dodgers major league baseball's first integrated team. Facing opposition at every step, from the teammates who petition not to play with Robinson, to the suspending of the manager (Christopher Meloni) that forces the Dodgers to accept their new teammate, to the racism of opposing team's coaches (Alan Tudyk), Jackie Robinson has to endure the racism and intolerance of America's 1940s to become one of the greatest players in the sport's history. With Nicole Beharie and Lucas Black. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Bill (Charlie Creed-Miles) hasn't been much of a father-- he's barely had a chance to be a father at all, returning to his sons after finishing an 8-year prison sentence in Wild Bill. 16-year-old Dean (Will Poulter) and 11-year-old Jimmy (Sammy Williams) have been fending for themselves and aren't sure how they feel about their father's return, already seduced by a low-level drug dealer (Leo Gregory) and life on the streets of East London. To keep his boys from making the same mistakes he made, Bill has to stand up to the boss (Andy Serkis) that threatens Dean and Jimmy's safety.

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Possession Corrupts

Evil Dead
Now & Then

Though he's been away for years, David (Shiloh Fernandez) joins his old friends Eric (Lou Taylor Pucci) and Olivia (Jessica Lucas) for a getaway in a remote cabin in the woods in Evil Dead. When they arrive, they tell David and his girlfriend (Elizabeth Blackmore) why they're really there: to keep David's drug addicted sister Mia (Jane Levy) from relapsing, like she's done many times in the past. When Mia's behavior turns destructive, they all assume it's withdrawal symptoms... but Eric suspects it might be related to the passages he read aloud from the demonic, flesh-bound tome in the basement. Adapting the first (and least comedic) movie from the classic Evil Dead series, the film plays its demonic possession and hard-R buckets of gore straight, piling on mayhem, bloodshed, and copious de-limbings without the slightest trace of irony. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Based on the character by classic pulp adventure novelist Robert E. Howard, Solomon Kane stars James Purefoy as the puritan warrior, eradicating evil from the 17th century English countryside. Disowned by his noble, land-owning father (Max von Sydow), Kane was a mercenary scoundrel until the devil came for him. Sworn to peace to save his soul, Solomon Kane returns to the way of the sword when an evil sorcerer (Jason Flemyng) begins conquering the land and possessing brigands to form an army... killing the pious wanderer (Pete Postlethwaite) that took him in and abducting the man's innocent daughter (Rachel Hurd-Wood). To rescue the girl, Kane endangers his soul and forgoes his vow, waging bloody war on the mystics and demons ravaging the countryside. On DVD and Blu Ray.


Romeo is leading an elite team into an underground research facility in the Australian Crawlspace, with one mission: shoot to kill any prisoners they find. The team doesn't ask questions, but when Romeo encounters Eve, one of the facility's prisoners, he hesitates: he knows her, and Eve's presence is a mystery he can't let go. Disobeying his orders, Romeo protects Eve, but his team members begin dying off one by one-- they all experience the danger in the compound differently, but they have to uncover what's really happening to have any chance of making it out alive.

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Armed Professionals

New Orleans hit-man Bobo (Sylvester Stallone) finds himself on the wrong side of a contract in Walter Hill's Bullet to the Head. His partner dead, he saves the life of Detective Taylor Kwon (Sung Kang), and the only person he can trust is his daughter (Sarah Shahi)... but Bobo and Kwan have to become unlikely partners to survive. They have different styles-- Kwan's by-the-book, Bobo prefers to execute his enemies-- but they have to work their way up to the businessmen (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Christian Slater) who've conspired against them, and the unstoppable assassin (Jason Momoa) hunting them. On DVD and Blu Ray.


Former CIA operative Ben Logan (Aaron Eckhart) is living in Belgium, reconnecting with his daughter (Liana Liberato), and working a civilian job testing security systems in Erased... until he goes to work one day to find an empty office. His contact numbers don't work, his employer has never heard of him... and he soon discovers all his co-workers have turned up dead. With his teenage daughter in tow, Ben has to find out who erased his entire team and why, and explain to his little girl why he's so good at killing the people chasing them. With Olga Kurylenko. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Documentary

The story of the unlikely friendship between New York artist Jackie Sumell and 70-year-old convicted murderer Herman Wallace, Herman's House focuses on Jackie's attempt to design Herman's "dream house." Sentenced to solitary confinement in a 6'x9' cell, Herman has described his dream home to Jackie, and Jackie has created a model to his specifications, believing that only by dreaming of freedom can Herman achieve it.


Filmed by his former model and muse, photographer Bert Stern's life is explored in Bert Stern: Original Mad Man by possibly the only person he'd allow to film and photograph him so closely. Following his rise from Look Magazine's mailroom to the most iconic ad photographer of his generation and a portfolio that put him in the path of the largest photographable people of the 1950s and 60s.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Orphan Black Season 1	Small-time con artist Sarah sees a woman that could be her twin commit suicide, sees an opportunity, and assumes her identity. Replacing her lookalike, Sarah is drawn into a situation beyond her control, and forced to discover why there's more than one person that looks exactly like her.		Damages Season 5	With her own law firm, Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne) takes a WikiLeaks-style client, putting her in direct opposition to her mentor Patty Hewes (Glenn Close) in the show's final season
	Misfits Series 3	With their new powers, and without Nathan, the probation group of superpowered juvenile delinquents have to contend with zombies, doppelgangers, time travel, and Hitler.		Alphas Season 2	The Alphas, a team of government agents, each with their own X-Men-like superpower, have to regroup after the existence of the superpowered Alphas were exposed to the world.
	Hell on Wheels Season 2	Doc Durant (Colm Meaney) is spearheading the late 1800's western expansion of the Union Pacific railroad, confronting the wild west and the rugged men working on the frontier.		Endeavour Series 1	Before he became the inspector in Inspector Morse, young Endeavour Morse leaves Oxford to join the police and begins solving the mysteries that will go on to define his career.
	Regular Show Seasons 1&2	Best friends Mordecai the blue jay and Rigby the raccoon want to have regular, boring days... but their attempts to slack off at work always lead to magic, ninjas, unicorns, and other animated weirdness.		Word Girl The Rise of Miss Power	Wordgirl and Captain Huggy Face have a lot in common with Miss Power and Colonel Giggle Cheeks... but Miss Power's friendship might not be all it seems.
	Bubble Guppies On the Job	Nick Jr's Bubble Guppies discover different kinds of jobs, from zookeepers to dentists.

Week of July 9th

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Rooting for the Underdog

Read the Review

Meredith reviews
Admission

Portia (Tina Fey) is a Princeton admissions officer competing for her boss' (Wallace Shawn) job in Admission. To earn the promotion, she has to bring in more applicants... which is the only reason she accepts John's (Paul Rudd) invitation to his "alternative" school. Portia and John had been college classmates, but he has an ulterior motive in bringing her out to the school: John wants to introduce her to Jeremiah (Nat Wolff). Jeremiah is an unconventional student, without the kind of transcripts that would catch Princeton's attention, but he's also the kind of student that could really use a chance... and he might be Portia's long-lost son. With Lily Tomlin. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Four college friends want to leave their boring dormitory life for the adventure of spring break in Harmony Korine's Spring Breakers, and they'll do anything to get there. Faith, Candy, Britt, and Cotty (Selena Gomez, Vanessa Hudgens, Ashley Benson, and Rachel Korine) don't have enough money to get to Florida, so they hold up a restaurant. They're having the spring break of their dreams-- dreams fed by Lil Wayne videos and reality television-- until one wild party lands them all in jail. When low level gangster Alien (James Franco) pays their bail, how much of his hustler bravado will the girls be able to handle? As their spring break drifts from hotel parties to drug mansions, some of the girls will see the end of the ride, but others will see Alien's lifestyle as a dream come true. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Almost all of humanity has been possessed by alien "souls" in Andrew Niccol's The Host, adapted from the novel by Twilight author Stephenie Meyer. Melanie (Saoirse Ronan), one of the few remaining humans, is caught by Seeker (Diane Kruger) and given an alien soul called Wanderer, but Melanie is still alive in the back of Wanderer's mind. As Melanie struggles to get back to her brother (Chandler Canterbury) and the man she loves (Max Irons), she convinces Wanderer to help her... but when Wanderer appears in William Hurt's human resistance camp, all the humans see is an enemy. Even if she wins over the humans (Jake Abel), Seeker is still after her, and won't rest until all of humanity is under alien control. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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A documentary about the Israeli national security agency Shin Bet, The Gatekeepers interviews one of the most active security forces in the world of counter-terrorism. Interviewing six retired heads of security, the film confronts them about the drastic actions of Shin Bet, collateral damage, and where the lines are drawn in their constant war on terrorism.

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Iris (Brittany Snow) can't afford to have her brother's leukemia treated, and they're still struggling with the debts left from the death of their parents, when she's offered a life-saving proposition in Would You Rather. A wealthy beneficiary (Jeffrey Combs) invites Iris to dinner where she and the other dinner guests (Enver Gjokaj, Charlie Hofheimer, Sasha Grey, June Squibb, Rob Wells, Eddie Steeples, and John Heard) will play a game; the winner will have all their problems resolved in a wash of money and influence. The game starts out harmless, offering vegetarian Iris $10,000 to eat a steak, but quickly becomes more dangerous, until it becomes obvious: the game's winner will be the last dinner guest left alive.

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Victor (Colin Farrell) is a ruthless hitman and fixer in Hoyt's (Terrence Howard) criminal organization in Dead Man Down, but Victor's got a secret: he's infiltrating Hoyt's crew to take revenge for the murder of his family. When Beatrice (Noomi Rapace) enters Vince's life, she complicates everything: she knows what he is, and she has proof. Beatrice, like Vince, wants revenge-- if Vince will kill the man who disfigured her and ruined her life, Beatrice will get rid of the evidence, but being involved with Vince drags her into a more dangerous world than she could have imagined. With Dominic Cooper. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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A cautionary tale of infidelity, Tyler Perry's Temptation is the story of Judith (Jurnee Smollett-Bell), a successful therapist who married her high-school sweetheart (Lance Gross). Though her husband wants to wait until they're more financially stable, Judith is eager to start her own marriage counseling business, and gets her chance when handsome, wealthy internet entrepreneur Harley offers to invest. Though her husband obviously loves her and her mother (Ella Joyce) urges her to keep to her values and morals, Judith is tempted by Harley, who seems to offer everything she wants. With Brandy Norwood.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Avatar Legend of Korra Book 1: Air	Seventy years after the events of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Korra, Ang's successor, travels to Republic City to learn airbending and complete her Avatar training.		Portlandia Season 3	Fred Armisen and Carrie Brownstein continue to mine the foibles of personalities in the Pacific Northwest for comedic sketches.
	Warehouse 13 Season 4	After the destruction of the warehouse at the end of Season 3, Pete, Myka, and the crew have to set their world to rights and continue safeguarding dangerous, supernatural artifacts.		Dan vs. Season 1	Someone is always on the wrong side of Dan... and Dan is always planning revenge. Whether they've stolen cookies or scratched his car, Dan sets out to destroy his "enemies," whoever they may be.
	Robot Chicken DC Comics	Robot Chicken's stop-motion sketch show take on the Justice League, with Batman, Superman, and the rest, as animated action figures.		Haunting Hour Volume 1	R.L. Stine's series collects dark supernatural tales of witches, ghosts, monsters, and aliens and the kids who face the things that go bump in the night.
	Word Girl vs the Energy Monster	Super-powered Wordgirl and her sidekick Captain Huggy Face protect the world with super strength, flight, and good grammar.

Week of July 2nd

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Documentaries

Zoe's Corner

Film has been around for over a hundred years. The first Academy award winning picture was "Wings" and it won the 1927/28 award for best picture. But as anyone with any film history knowledge knows, there have been moving pictures since the 1880's (yes, I know there were earlier ones, but this is the date I am choosing.)

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Continuing the series that began with interviewing children in 1964, Michael Apted's 56 Up maintains the every-seven-years check up with the Up series' fourteen original subjects... With only Charles (who hasn't participated in Apted's films since 21 Up) abstaining, and Peter returning after a decades-long absence (not seen since 28 Up) to promote his band, 56 Up follows the progression and development of a cross-section of Britain from their childhood dreams and ideals to their current day realities.

Looking at both sides of the war on drugs, Eugene Jarecki's The House I Live In tells the story of the origins of America's drug war and its effects on today's culture. Detailing the political system that rewards punishment over treatment, the culture of police that promote small-time non-violent offenses above criminal investigations, and inner-city environments where drug dealers are the only employer in a "company town," the film is an elaborate dissection of the police, exploding prison population, and jailers that all know they're in a failing system.

Spending a year with the tennis superstars, the documentary Venus & Serena explores the life, story, and relationship of Venus and Serena Williams. Trained to play tennis by their father at a young age, the sisters rose to the top of their sport and have been superstars for over a decade; the film examines their careers, controversies, and hardships, and the love they have for one another even when they are in direct competition.

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Cara (Julianne Moore) is a psychiatrist skeptical of multiple personalities in 6 Souls, but her father (Jeffrey DeMunn), also a doctor, asks her to visit a patient that could change her mind. When she meets wheelchair-bound David (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), she conducts standard tests... and then David transforms into Adam, who isn't just a different person from Adam, but can also stand and walk. Though Cara's still not sure, she begins looking into Adam and the many personalities he displays, but the deeper she digs, the more she learns he's not just real, he could be more dangerous than anything she imagined. With Brooklynn Proulx and Nathan Corddry. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Though Adib (Alexander Siddig) always wanted to protect his family from his past in Inescapable, his daughter went to Syria to understand her father's homeland... and disappears. Adib immediately leaves Canada for Damascus: if anyone discovers who his daughter really is, who he really is, their whole world could collapse. With the help of his ex-fiance (Marisa Tomei), Adib begins upsetting the already volatile Syrian status quo, receiving little help from the Canadian ambassador (Joshua Jackson) that could know more than he lets on and an old friend (Oded Fehr) who has risen to a high military position. In a dangerous situation, surrounded by people who won't help him-- people who have a lot to lose-- Adib proves that his secret past is as powerful as any weapon they can use against him, and he's willing to use it mercilessly. On DVD and Blu Ray.

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Picking up where Tai Chi Zero left off, Tai Chi Hero rejoins Lu Chan after saving his master's (Tony Leung Ka Fai) village from the imposing, steampunk machines poised to destroy their homes. Now engaged to his master's daughter, Lu Chan has been adopted into the family, into the community, and into the secrets of Tai Chi... but when he destroyed the western machines, he made a powerful enemy (Peter Stormare) that can never ignore the country folk that would stand against him. Now Lu Chan must put both his kung fu skills and steampunk contraptions to use to stop the invading westerners once and for all.

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Ashley (Abbie Cornish) has done everything ask of her to reclaim the son that was taken from her and placed in foster care in The Girl, but nothing she does earns her son's return. She has a house and a steady job, but Ashley's life still looks too low-income to child care professionals, and she can't imagine a way to make more money... until she discovers her father (Will Patton) makes extra money trafficking Mexican immigrants across the border. Though she does start making money, Ashley's life is slowly changed when she transports Rosa, a young girl, and Rosa won't leave her side. Ashley is fixated on getting her son back, but seeing Rosa separated from her own mother inspires Ashley to help the girl in the ways no one would help Ashley herself.

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9-year-old Saige is a talented young painter who is shocked to learn her school is cutting art class in An American Girl: Saige Paints the Sky. With the help of her grandmother (Jane Seymour), Saige rallies her love of art to put together concerts, parades... anything she can do to save her school's art program.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Rectify Season 1	Proven innocent after serving two decades on death row, Daniel returns to his sleepy southern town to contend with the prejudices and social mores of his dark, Southern Gothic home.		Shakespeare Uncovered	The PBS series invites Shakespearian actors to explore the classic works that remain popular as the centuries roll by.
	Bubble Guppies Sunny Days	Nick Jr's Bubble Guppies have six kid-friendly underwater adventures.