My co-workers and I enjoy keeping up with movie streaming channels so that we can choose the best titles for our DVD collection. We strive to get all the popular titles, award winners, PBS hits, British favorites, great documentaries, other non-fiction, and patrons’ choice. Here are a few new additions to check out and enjoy!
We Have Always Lived in the Castle
This movie is a 2019 adaptation of the wonderful, classic 1962 novel of the same name by Shirley Jackson. Jackson is renowned for establishing a feeling of dread, the uncanny, and mystery within domestic settings. In this work, “The Other” is examined in an entirely different way, to great effect.
Merricat and Constance Blackwood live with their Uncle Julian in a stately manor. They are ostracized by the local villagers who feel the Blackwoods are a blight on the community. The three are the only survivors of an arsenic poisoning that killed everyone else in the family five years prior. Now, Constance remains in the house, afraid to face the outside world and the persecution she suffered as a suspect for murder. Merricat dares to venture into town regardless of public opinion, and protects the vast family property with a series of totems, charms and incantations. Despite being hated and feared by the townspeople around them, the two sisters and their uncle live a somewhat idyllic life - that is until Charles, a family cousin, arrives. Charles offers to help the sisters manage the house, but he also inquiries about the family s financial affairs and interferes in Merricat’s daily routine. As Constance grows closer in confidence and friendship with Charles, Merricat resists this demon who has violated their perfect world. Charles and Merricat battle for control, and tragedy strikes again. This movie explores a different take on the “villagers and pitchforks” theme.
Check AvailabilityWoman at War
Halle is a fifty-year-old independent woman living in Iceland. But behind the scenes of her quiet routine, she leads a double life as an aggressive environmental activist. Known to others by the alias “The Woman of the Mountain,” Halle secretly wages a one-woman-war on the local aluminum industry. As Halle's actions grow bolder, from petty vandalism to outright industrial sabotage, she succeeds in pausing the negotiations between the Icelandic government and a corporate giant. But as she begins planning her biggest and boldest operation yet, she receives unexpected news that changes everything – her application to adopt a child has finally been accepted and there is a little girl waiting for her in Ukraine. Halle will joyfully fulfill her dream of becoming a mother, but 1st she will plot one final attack on her nemesis, Iceland’s aluminum industry.
Check AvailabilityStrawberry Flavored Plastic: The Making of a Serial Killer
Defying the norm of the traditional horror genre, this 5-star “mockumentary” is shockingly suspenseful – “a masterpiece in character study.” Amazon editors’ review: When two aspiring documentarians embark on their first feature, they hear back from Noel, a man who has just been released from prison after a nine-year incarceration for a crime of passion. After several weeks of shooting, they inadvertently discover that Noel's story is fabricated: he has never been to prison. They soon find out he is an at-large and very active serial killer who has never been apprehended by authorities. Now, too entangled and implicit in Noel's horrific crimes, the duo are stuck between doing the right thing and possibly making the most infamous documentary ever made...
Check AvailabilityCassandro the Exotico!
This stirring, multi-award winning movie follows the life of lucha libre star Cassandro in his waning years in the wrestling ring. “Famed as much for his flamboyant drag and sky-high pompadour as for his show-stopping kicks and flips, Cassandro's trailblazing ascent as one the industry's first openly gay wrestlers has resonated internationally for a quarter century.” The director captures the colorful paradox of this legendary figure with her talent for gaining trust and highlighting her subject’s unique personality. Cassandro, a prize-winning fighter who reinvented a “macho” sport, is the personification of resilience, with an ability to revisit past trauma and cope with the scars of a body pushed to its limits. “Cassandro's story - of an underdog and a queer icon, simultaneously fragile and mighty is ever more evocative as it unfolds on both sides of the Mexican-American border.”
Check AvailabilityAbout the Author
Cary's idea of a perfect day is a complete stereotype: reading or watching British crime fiction with a cup of hot tea close at hand, her favorite quilt, and her cats Clio & Junie on her lap.