Week of August 5th

Website is best viewed at RecklessVideo.com.  Pop-up credits links are inactive on Blogger.

Challenging Fate

Beatrice (Shailene Woodley) grew up in Abnegation-- a faction of humanitarian helpers-- with her family in the rigidly segmented future of Divergent, but she dreams of being more than what her class allows. Shortening her name to Tris, she joins the Dauntless faction: prized for their bravery, she's trained by stern Four (Theo James) and brutal Eric (Jai Courtney) to fight, shoot, and live without fear. Tris' abilities make her an exemplary Dauntless soldier, but she's more than just one attribute: she is Divergent, and her ability to think for herself and see things from other perspectives frighten her regimented society more than anything else. As the leader (Kate Winslet) of the knowledge-controlling Erudite faction works to reduce the factions to their most basic, obedient functions, Tris and people like her fight for their humanity, freedom, and right to diverge from their pre-ordained paths. With Ashley Judd and Tony Goldwyn. On DVD and Blu Ray.

As a boy, brilliant physics student Erol's (Haley Joel Osment) entire life changed when his father Gabriel (Rufus Sewell) vanished in I'll Follow You Down. When Erol was 9, his physicist father never returned from a business trip; his mother (Gillian Anderson) never emotionally recovered from the disappearance, but his physics professor father-in-law (Victor Garber) suspects Gabriel's disappearance is the result of a time travel experiment. Pooling their knowledge and studying Gabriel's notes, the believe they can recreate the experiment and bring him back... but while Erol wants to re-write history and erase his father's disappearance, changing the events of the last 12 years could erase his present reality.

Outside

Down-on-his-luck driver Tobey (Aaron Paul) gets involved with a shady race that lands him in jail in Need for Speed. Released from prison, Tobey wants revenge on Dino (Dominic Cooper), the villainous driver who shattered his life. Dino's a well-financed, former-NASCAR professional while Tobey is a poor garage owner who doesn't have much of a chance in the De Leon, the underground race from New York to San Francisco, without a fast car. Acquiring a custom Mustang from Julia (Imogen Poots), an exotic car dealer, Tobey might be able to beat Dino, win the race, and earn his revenge... but Julia's not going to trust him with one of her show cars alone. She's riding with him. On DVD and Blu Ray.

Hospitalized for 11 years after the murder of his parents, Tim has reconciled the horror of his childhood with the real world in Oculus. Reunited with his sister Kaylie (Karen Gillan), she takes him to their childhood home to fulfill the promise they made as children: before he was taken away, Tim promised he'd help destroy the haunted mirror that possessed their father and drove him to murder. Tim has accepted that their childish imaginations invented a story in the face of a tragedy they couldn't comprehend, but Kaylie refuses to accept the reality that institutional therapy forced on him. She's acquired the mirror, set up video cameras, and rigged a self-destruct device, but as Kaylie fights to convince Tim of their shared supernatural horror, reality starts to bend around them. Their present lives blend with the turbulent history of their parents (Rory Cochrane and Katee Sackhoff), but is the distortion of time and reality the effect of a haunting or simply two damaged children losing their minds? On DVD and Blu Ray.

Smaller

The story of a prolific photographer who never published her own work, the documentary Finding Vivian Maier began when historian John Maloof purchased an unlabeled box of photo negatives at an auction. As he explored and scanned the photographs, the body of work became popular and gained acclaim, but there was no information on the photographer, Vivian Maier. Working to tell her story, the film tracks down the people that knew her: working as a nanny, Maier shot mostly on the streets of New York, bringing her camera with her everywhere, and creating a body of work that is only now coming to light.

Fresh from France's top public administration college, Arthur (Raphael Personnaz) sets out to make his mark in government in The French Minister. Beginning as a speechwriter, Arthur finds himself working under minister of foreign affairs Alexandre Taillard de Worms (Thierry Lhermitte), a political force of nature that blows through meetings, speeches, and negotiations like a hurricane. Because Alexandre's speeches are incomprehensible blasts of cliche, hyperbole, and charged language, Arthur's efforts to rewrite them into something that make sense are going to need some help. At best, he's got the level headed chief of staff (Niels Arestrup), at worst, he's subjected to the whirlwind of Alexandre's wordplay and manic slapstick.

Trip to Bountiful
Now & Then

Elderly Carrie Watts (Cicely Tyson) lives in a cramped Houston apartment with her overprotective son (Blair Underwood) and bossy daughter-in-law (Vanessa Williams) in a new adaptation of the classic play The Trip to Bountiful. Carrie wants to return to her rural home town of Bountiful and, because her son doesn't think she can travel alone, she plots a way to escape. She heads downtown only to discover trains don't go to Bountiful anymore, and finds herself on a bus, on a road trip that frees her to open up for the first time in years. With Clancy Brown.

New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Community Season 5		With the return of series creator Dan Harmon, the cast of Community comes back after the "gas leak year" none of them can quite remember, finding a new rhythm in a Greendale where Jeff has a job as a teacher.
	Californication Final Season		Putting a cap on writer/playboy Hank's long running series of affairs as he tries to put his life in order, the series concludes as he finally comes to terms with his career, his womanizing, and the people who are truly important to him.