Week of February 18th

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Long-Form

After the Siege of Blackwater, Tywin Lannister (Charles Dance) takes charge of his grandson-king Joffrey and the kingdom, pushing aside Cersei (Lena Headey) and Tyrion (Peter Dinklage) in the third season of Game of Thrones, while his prodigal son (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) is in the hands of the Starks. Though Robb Stark is winning every battle against the Lannisters, his armies are troubled and his family is scattered: no one knows that Arya is alive, the Lannisters have Sansa, Jon has infiltrated the wildlings north of the wall, his younger brothers are assumed dead, and only his mother (Michelle Fairley) remains with him. As the Starks and Lannisters clash, Daenerys Targaryen and her dragons gather power and gain support to overtake everyone who would claim her family's throne. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Out of rehab and putting her life back together, Jackie (Edie Falco) is trying to keep connections to her daughters and estranged husband in season 5 of Nurse Jackie. She still keeps the hospital on its feet, letting Dr. O'hara (Eve Best) do her work, but her home life is a complicated web of meetings, divorce complications, and her new roommate Zoey (Merritt Wever).

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Smaller Budgets

Rachel (Kathryn Hahn) lives a comfortable life in a nice neighborhood, but she's unhappy and detached from everything in Afternoon Delight. She doesn't pay enough attention to her little boy, and she constantly deflects her husband's (Josh Radnor) advances, but her visit to a strip club introduces her to McKenna (Juno Temple), a free-spitted "full-service sex worker." Rachel invites McKenna to live in their unused maid's room and work as a nanny, but Rachel's invitation to have a wild young woman live in her home is a symptom of all the problems her therapist (Jane Lynch) has been warning her about.

"You're in here for some gluttony,
pretty constant mas... um, just all
sorts of stuff, but nothing serious."
"I'm a woman and you're a
Catholic. Everything I do is a sin."

The Augustine Interfaith Order of Hellbound Saints serve a specific purpose in the service of God in Hellbenders-- to sin and be tainted enough to take on demons. Led by hedonistic Lutheran priest Angus (Clancy Brown), the black sheep of the religious community include Presbyterian anti-authoritarian alcoholic Larry (Clifton Collins Jr), Roman Catholic minor rule-breaker Stephen (Andre Royo), foul mouthed Unitarian Elizabeth (Robyn Rikoon), Southern Baptist deviant Macon (Macon Blair), and Polish Catholic pothead Erik (Dan Fogler), tarnished clergy sent in to perform exorcisms and do battle with the forces of evil. With the choosing of a new Pope, their order is on the verge of being shut down by a bureaucrat (Stephen Gevedon) just as a Scandinavian demon called Surtr is loosed on the world. With Surtr destroying every soul it touches and planning to wage war on God and all the angels in Heaven, the Hellbound Saints are the only ones who can stop him.

Constructed like an early 80s documentary, Computer Chess captures an annual convention where early computer programmers pit their chess programs against one another. Filmed with the kind of vintage, black and white video cameras that would have been used to record an event at the time, programming teams from companies, universities, and independent start-ups compete to prove whose chess-logic program is more effective, but one of the team's computers won't play against other programs... as if it just doesn't want to. With Wiley Wiggins.

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Documentaries

City planners discuss the changing nature of the world's urban areas in The Human Scale. As the world develops and cities grow, along with citizens buying more cars, the flow of automotive, bicycle, and foot traffic changes, and cities like New York or Beijing have to adapt the way their citizens move through them and their growing number of inhabitants.

Spending time in three different restaurants, the documentary Spinning Plates explores what it takes to keep a restaurant in business in the world today. Focusing on a 150-year-old country diner in Iowa, a roadside Mexican restaurant in Arizona, and a high class Chicago restaurant with a 3-star Michelin rating, the film explores different styles of cooking, business, and dining, that informs the life of each eatery.