Week of March 4th

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Oscar Winners

Here's the quick fix on this year's Oscar Winners, and where you can find them at Reckless Video.

Best Picture	12 Years a Slave
Director	Alfonso Cuaron Gravity
Lead Actor	Matthew McConaughey Dallas Buyers Club
Lead Actress	Cate Blanchett Blue Jasmine
Supporting Actor	Jared Leto Dallas Buyers Club
Supporting Actress	Lupita Nyong’o 12 Years a Slave
Animated Feature	Frozen Coming March 18th
Documentary Feature	20 Feet from Stardom

Struggling Against Adversity

This year's Best Picture Oscar winner, Steve McQueen's 12 Years a Slave is the story of Solomon Northrup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free, black man in pre-Civil War New York, who finds himself chained, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in New Orleans. Renamed "Platt" by a slave trader (Paul Giamatti), he's taught that arguing with slave owners is futile: he has to conceal his education and work the fields if he wants to survive. His time under a relatively kind plantation owner (Benedict Cumberbatch) comes to an end when he stands up to an abusive white carpenter (Paul Dano), and the only way to keep Solomon alive is to transfer him to plantation owner Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). Epps believes slaves are his property, and that it is his right to do whatever he will with his property, no matter how cruel or brutal. Though he meets a range of people, some who can see him for who he is and some who believe all slaves are no more than animals, he is forced to see slavery as it exists in the antebellum south: a common truth of life that no one is willing to challenge. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Katniss (Jennifer Lawrence) and Peeta (Josh Hutcherson) have survived their competition in the Hunger Games together in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire, but their triumph has made them a symbol to the oppressed people of the 12 Districts and a enemies of President Snow (Donald Sutherland). Snow wants them to tour the Districts with their mentor (Woody Harrelson) and chaperone (Elizabeth Banks), but instead of acceptance, Katniss inspires revolution wherever she goes... so the new games master (Philip Seymour Hoffman) concocts a new plan: the next Hunger Games will pit previous champions against one another. With a field full of legends, the revolutionaries can't make a champion of Katniss if she's killing their heroes, and President Snow has no intention of letting her survive twice in a row. On DVD and Blu Ray.

A new telling of the story of Ip Man, Wong Kar Wai's The Grandmaster stars Tony Leung Chiu-Wai as the Wing Chun grandmaster. Beginning his tale from the age of seven, when he studied under his master (played by kung fu legend Yuen Woo-Ping, the film's choreographer), the film recalls his life as he maintains the truths and teachings he refuses to abandon-- through challenges from the Japanese-occupied north, to tests against those who believe kung fu is measured by control (Zhang Ziyi), to basic survival during wartime, Ip Man remains dedicated to the solid, immutable spirit than made him a legend. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Captain Brunel (Elias Koteas) and his team are nearly finished with their Mars expedition when they discover what may be bacterial life in one of their soil samples in The Last Days on Mars. When the scientists who went to explore the site return, they attack Dr. Aldrich (Olivia Williams) like animals-- surviving the Mars atmosphere without their helmets, and attacking everyone around them. At first, the remaining crew are skeptical, but as their fallen comrades rise to attack them, pilot Vincent Campbell (Liev Schreiber) tries to keep them safe until they can be evacuated... but with an infection this dangerous, he knows he can't let it be carried back to Earth. With Romola Garai and Johnny Harris. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Oldboy
Now & Then

Joe Doucette (Josh Brolin) is a drunken lout-- a jerk to the people around him, neglectful of his family-- until someone decides to teach him a lesson in Spike Lee's Oldboy. After passing out drunk, he wakes up in what looks like a motel room... but there's no way out: the door doesn't open and the windows are picture screens. He's kept there for twenty years, with only a television to tell him that he's suspected of murdering his wife and that his daughter has grown up in an adopted household, until he's suddenly, mysteriously released. He has two goals: find out who ruined his life, and reconnect with his daughter, but the world has changed in twenty years, almost no one remembers him, and his confidant is a young nurse (Elizabeth Olsen) who believes his story. With nothing to lose, Joe does everything he can to destroy everyone involved with his imprisonment, killing everyone who gets in his way, but his real trouble starts when he's forced to ask: why was he released back into the world? With Sharlto Copley. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Chloe (Alice Eve) is struggling to make enough money running her small-town hotel to start a new life for her daughter (Ursula Parker) in Cold Comes the Night, but she's drawn into a life or death situation when she rents a room to Topo (Bryan Cranston). With Topo's jeep towed, and the package he's sworn to deliver in the hands to the town's corrupt police (Logan Marshall-Green), Chloe is his only link to the town, his jeep, and his property... and Topo is the kind of man who will execute anyone that stands between himself and his objective.

Nolan Hayes (Paul Walker) is in a New Orleans hospital when Hurricane Katrina hits in Hours. With his wife (Genesis Rodriguez) lost to complications during childbirth and his infant daughter kept alive by a respirator, Nolan is with his newborn baby when the power goes out. Forced to stay by her side and keep the respirator running, Nolan is trapped in a deserted hospital as New Orleans succumbs to chaos, but all he can do is make sure his daughter survives.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	The Venture Brothers Season 5	Hank and Dean are growing up... now that there aren't an endless supply of clones to replace them. Though they'll never escape the Venture family's legacy, the boys are each finding their on way through a world filled with villains, super-science, secret leagues of heroes, and the kinds of impossible adventures they're forced into simply because they are The Venture Brothers.		Spies of Warsaw	The BBC miniseries stars David Tennant as Jean-Francois Mercier, a veteran of the First World War undercover as a diplomat in 1937 Poland and operating as a spy in a land caught between Stalin and Hitler.
	Doctor Who Time of the Doctor	Answering the distress call of an isolated planet, the Doctor arrives to save the world's inhabitants and assume the role of their protector, a task that will end the story of the 11th Doctor and push him towards his next regeneration.		Guess How Much I Love You	Adapted from the popular book series, Little Nutbrown and his father Big Nutbrown Hare play in the meadows and enjoy the bonds of friends and family.