Film Shorts: Valley Cinemas, Streaming, The Worx, GCCL

D.K. Holm is on hiatus this week, so I'm taking a whack at standing in for the great man with a condensed version of his usual offerings.

Valley Cinemas has sunk to new lows with the romcom How to Be Single. I'd tell you all about it, but they didn't screen it for critics (hint: that's a bad sign). I can tell you that it's about a woman searching for love in NYC and is based on a debut novel by Liz Tuccillo, who is known primarily for writing/directing bits of Sex and the City (strike two!). Kung Fu Panda is being held over for the kiddiewinks.

Meanwhile, over at the Glasgow City-County Library (408 3rd Ave S, 228-2731), we have, well, we have Courier newbie Parker Kulczyk's random selections from the stacks is what we have. These are, in descending order: Frost/Nixon (fantastic historical rendering of English journalist David Frost's takedown of Tricky Dick Nixon, starring Michael Sheen and Frank Langella), 127 Hours (a bit artsy, perhaps, but decidedly entertaining for a film about a hiker who cuts off his own arm with a pocket knife), Sherlock Holmes (Pirates of the Caribbean meets Masterpiece Theatre, starring Robert Downey Jr. Good clean fun), Rudy (a sentimental object lesson in the blessings of low expectations... with Sean Astin at Notre Dame and some football), and finally, to PK's everlasting shame, The A-Team (loved the show, hated the film, just like everyone else except the misbegotten Mr. Kulczyk). All of these (even The A-Team) can be yours at GCCL if you get cracking and check them out before I do.

The Worx (your friendly local rental shop at 700 1/2 1st Ave N, 228-4474) has Spectre (the latest Bond.... get it), Black Mass (Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger, with Benedict Cumberbatch), and, here in Glasgow at the request of yours truly, Straight Outta Compton (the captivating biopic about the seminal rap group NWA).

Redbox has next to nothing at the moment. Thankfully, Netflix has plenty of The West Wing to cure what ails you. But you've already seen all 7 seasons of the Aaron Sorkin television masterwork? Too bad. What are you going to do, watch The Newsroom or Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip? There are also two seasons of the gobsmackingly good Peaky Blinders (a show about guys who wear hats like mine, starring Cillian Murphy). If you haven't tried it, you'll thank me.

Also available via streaming is the surprisingly good Mozart in the Jungle, on Amazon. The show stars Gael García Bernal as a lovable enfant terrible conductor of the New York Symphony. Sounds pretentious, and it is, but it's sexy, stylish, and very charming. When you're done shipping salmon to yourself or whatever your life looks like on Amazon, watch one episode. If you dig it, you're set. If you don't, you can try The Newsroom or something.