Down Memory Lane in the DVD Collection

The AV News blog is back with a round-up of recently added DVDs. Enjoy!

Remember the 1970s? If you were around then and anywhere near a tv, you'll remember Alice. (You might even remember the spin-off, Flo.)Take a trip down memory lane with this collection of six episodes, and share fond moments with trash-talking Flo and her signature line: "Kiss my grits!"

Reserve this DVD in the catalog.

And then there's Chico and the Man. Set in an east L. A. garage, this series from the mid-70s was the first U.S. series set in a Mexican-American neighborhood and starred Freddie Prinze as a wise-cracking street kid who forms a warm bond with crabby garage owner Jack Albertson. Though the show was a hit into its third season, breakout star Prinze was unable to shake his personal demons. This collection of episodes includes the last episode filmed with Prinze, "Ed Talks to God."

Click here to view this DVD in the catalog.

Though best known for the classic I Love Lucy series, Lucille Ball had another hit series in The Lucy Show, which ran for six years in the 1960s. Due to cast and production changes over the years, the plot moved the series from upstate New York to California, and the focus of the plot from two divorced widows and their kids to an office-based comedy, with Lucy as secretary to banker Mr. Mooney (Gale Gordon). The show, however, was in the top ten most-watched shows for CBS during its entire run.

Click here to reserve this DVD.

New in DVDs This Week

The Andersonville Trial --  originally presented as part of PBS's Hollywood Television Theatre program, this adaptation of the famous Saul Levitt Broadway play is based on the trial of Henry Wirz, commander of the infamous Andersonville prison, where thousands of Union prisoners died of malnutrition, exposure and disease. Directed by George C. Scott, and counting William Shatner and Buddy Ebsen among the cast, this production won several Emmys and a Peabody award. Reserve this DVD.

The Bedford Incident -- starring Richard Widmark as the captain of a USS destroyer and Sidney Poitier as a reporter who, assigned to write a story on a routine patrol in the north Atlantic, instead becomes witness to a tense and deadly game of cat-and-mouse when the destroyer comes upon a Soviet submarine. Click here to see this DVD listing in the catalog.

The Desperate Hours -- a trio of escaped convicts invade a suburban home and hold four members of a family hostage. This 1955 movie, starring Humphrey Bogart and Fredric March, was the first b&w film using Paramount's new "Vistavision" widescreen process. Click here to reserve this DVD.

Computer Center Is Now Open

The library's computer center opened today in its newly renovated downstairs location. The technical services department's new computer center team (at left) spent the last couple of weeks working feverishly to get things up and running in accordance with the schedule, and we have to say, they did a fantastic job. Good work, everyone!

Area events: Free Comic Book Day

This Saturday, May 1, is Free Comic Book Day! That’s the day fans can go to participating locations, meet comic book artists and writers (and fellow enthusiasts), and pick up free – yes, FREE – promotional copies of comic books for every age group. Check out this article about Atlanta's comics connection, featuring a link to the official Free Comic Book Day website.

While you plan the what/when/where for your weekend, try these comic book-based DVDs:

Tales from the Crypt: from comic books to television -- Tells the story of Entertaining Comics (EC) publisher William M. Gaines and details the controversy which erupted in the 1950s over his ground-breaking horror, crime and science fiction comic books.

Stan Lee' s mutants, monsters, & marvels -- Stan Lee is interviewed about his life and career in animating comic book characters.

The mindscape of Alan Moore : a psychedelic journey into one of the world's most powerful minds -- Follow the evolution of Moore’s career as he transformed the comics medium, from the earliest days of his childhood through The Watchmen and beyond.

(Want music instead? Try this: The Dark Knight : original motion picture soundtrack)

In Library News: new computer center opens April 30th!

It's massive...it's amazing...it'll blow your mind. Do not attempt to adjust your screen. The library's brand spankin' new computer center, opening on Friday, April 30, 2010, is controlling this transmission. For more mind-altering pics of the newly-renovated downstairs, check out our page on Flickr. We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your screen. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to...the new Downstairs.

In the DVD collection: Staying On

Retired Army Col. Tusker Smalley (Trevor Howard) and his wife (Celia Johnson) are the only remaining British residents in the hill station of Pankot, India. Though they have tried to maintain the lifestyle and memories of a past era, the country around them is undergoing a marked transition. Filmed on location in Simla, at the foot of the Himalayas. Reserve this DVD.

In the CD collection: Sergei Prokofiev

Today is the 119th birthday of composer Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev. Born in 1891 in the farming village of Sontsovka, Ukraine, his love of music came naturally: his mother was a talented pianist in her own right, and Prokofiev would later recall listening to her play Beethoven and Chopin far into the night. Though not considered a prodigy, he displayed talent early on, penning his first compositions at age five (with the assistance of his mother) and writing the music and libretto for an opera when he was ten. In 1904, he became the youngest student ever to be admitted to the most prestigious musical training ground in Russia, the St. Petersburg Conservatory, arriving with a trunkload of musical compositions that caused professor Rimsky-Korsakov to reportedly exclaim, "Here is a pupil after my own heart!" Despite criticisms from professors and fellow students, Prokofiev developed an increasingly original style of composition and performance which, over time, would mark him as one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century. He spent time living abroad in Japan, North America, and Europe, returning to his homeland in the mid-1930s and composing some of his greatest works, including the ballet Romeo and Juliet, despite turbulent relations with the Stalist government. Given the cultural repression and the official denouncements of his own modernist work under which Prokofiev toiled during the last years of his life, it was a cruel irony that he died the same day as Stalin: March 5, 1953.

Click here to reserve  the BBC Welsh Symphony Orchestra's performance of Prokofiev's Romeo and Juliet; the CD also includes an excerpt of Tchaikovsky's version.