Thursday's Picks (15)

Another week, another set of picks for your viewing pleasure! Welcome back to Thursday's Picks, the weekly feature where I tell you what's the bees knees in books, films and DVD releases for the week! We'll call today's Thursday's Picks the Dental Edition, since I have to endure the dentist chair in a couple of hours. Eeek. You know how we do this: I give you the low down on my favorite book, film and DVD releases for this week, along with summaries, video trailers and pics to grab your attention. You can leave me comments about what books or movies you're more excited about as well! Do you hate my picks? Do you love them? Let me know! You could even make your own post and use the Thursday's Picks button from the sidebar.

Now it's time to get pickin'!

I'm on a horse.

This Week's Movie Pick:
Season of the Witch
Release Date: January 7, 2011
Rated PG-13 (Relativity Media)
Starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Pearlman, Stephen Campbell Moore, Claire Foy, Robbie Sheehan




Summary (Courtesy of Moviefone):

Oscar winner Nicolas Cage ('National Treasure', 'Ghost Rider') and Ron Perlman ('Hellboy', 'Hellboy II') star in this supernatural action adventure about a heroic Crusader and his fellow soldier who must transport a woman accused of being a witch to a remote monastery. The arduous journey across perilous terrain tests their strength and courage as they discover the girl's secret and find themselves battling a terrifyingly powerful force that will determine the fate of the world.

This movie just kind of fell into the pick for this week by default. It was either Season of the Witch or strange foreign films that no one has heard of yet. I'm not particularly fond of Nicolas Cage's work, except when he just lets the crazy go. He's crazy, and if you don't know that yet, see the video "Nicolas Cage Losing His Sh*t" and try to argue the point again. The only movies I like him in are the ones where he's not trying to act, he's just being his crazy self. Like The Sorcerer's Apprentice...crazy Nic Cage teaches a nerdy kid to be a crazy sorcerer. Face/Off...crazy Nic Cage pretends he's John Travolta, making him act even more crazy than normal. I'm hopeful that Season of the Witch will offer a glimpse of crazy Nic Cage. Because, let's be honest. When he tries to actually act, he crashes and burns regularly. Here's the trailer. Oh, PS: It's got that monkey looking fellow Ron Pearlman in it!


This Week's Book Pick:
Across the Universe
Written By Beth Revis
Release Date: January 11, 2011
Penguin Group


Summary (Courtesy of Barnes and Noble):

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.
Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone-one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship-tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next.
Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

This book has gotten rave reviews from my fellow bloggers, and the story description is stand-out among other YA novels. Futuristic dystopian literature is starting to gain a lot of momentum with the success of The Hunger Games series, and it's a trend I can dig. I've always been a little bit of a sci-fi nerd, so to see that secret love of mine get a voice in popular young adult literature is exciting for me. The cover is beautiful, the story sounds gripping, and the community gives it a thumbs-up...you can bet I'm picking this one up.


NOTE: Melissa Marr is also releasing a Wicked Lovely installment in ebook format, titled Old Habits, which follows the events between Ink Exchange and Fragile Eternity. This is a biggie for me, since I'm publicly in love with everything Melissa Marr ever writes. Fangirl squee begins now.

This Week's DVD Pick:
The Social Network
Release Date: January 11, 2011
Rated PG-13 (Columbia Pictures)
Starring Jesse Eisenberg,Justin Timberlake, Andrew Garfield, Rashida Jones, Armie Hammer Jr., Max Minghella and Rooney Mara


Summary (Courtesy of Moviefone):

Director David Fincher (Fight Club, Seven) teams with screenwriter Aaron Sorkin (The West Wing) to explore the meaning of success in the early 21st century from the perspectives of the technological innovators who revolutionized the way we all communicate. The year was 2003. As prohibitively expensive technology became affordable to the masses and the Internet made it easy to stay in touch with people who were halfway across the world, Harvard undergrad and computer programming wizard Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg) launched a website with the potential to alter the very fabric of our society. At the time, Zuckerberg was just six years away from making his first million. But his hearty payday would come at a high price, because despite all of Zuckerberg's wealth and success, his personal life began to suffer as he became mired in legal disputes, and discovered that many of the 500 million people he had friended during his rise to the top were eager to see him fall. Chief among that growing list of detractors was Zuckerberg's former college friend Eduardo Saverin (Andrew Garfield), whose generous financial contributions to Facebook served as the seed that helped the company to sprout. And some might argue that Zuckerberg's bold venture wouldn't have evolved into the cultural juggernaut that it ultimately became had Napster founder Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) not spread the word about Facebook to the venture capitalists from Silicon Valley. Meanwhile, the Winklevoss twins (Armie Hammer and Josh Pence) engage Zuckerberg in a fierce courtroom battle for ownership of Facebook that left many suspecting the young entrepreneur might have let his greed eclipse his better judgment. The Social Network was based on the book The Accidental Billionaires by Ben Mezrich.

I've been waiting patiently for the DVD of The Social Network to come out. My husband has been bugging the crap out of me wanting to watch this movie. Why, I will never understand. He is completely computer illiterate and has never so much as touched a Facebook page in his life. Why he's so interested in the sensationalized version of how Facebook began is beyond me. That being said, it looks like a pretty good film. I like Jesse Eisenberg's work. He's like a funnier, slightly hotter version of Michael Cera. He really works socially awkward sexy in a way that few actors can. The new Spiderman, Andrew Garfield, and the new Lisbeth Salander, Rooney Mara, are also in this film. Add to this that the second love of my boy band life, Justin Timberlake, is in this one and you can't keep me away.