Fayetteville Free Library Reading Room

Beowulf
Starring Robin Wright Penn and Anthony Hopkins
Rated PG-13

Action/Adventure

Inspired by the epic Old English poem of the same name, director Robert Zemeckis’s digitally rendered film follows the Scandinavian hero Beowulf (Ray Winstone) as he fights to protect the Danes from a ferocious beast named Grendel. Though at first Grendel seems invincible, Beowulf eventually manages to defeat him in a desperate battle to the death. Devastated by her son’s violent demise at the hands of Beowulf, Grendel’s mother sets out in search of revenge. Later, Beowulf faces the biggest challenge of his life when he attempts to slay a powerful dragon.

Released on February 26, 2008

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Silk
Starring Keira Knightley and Michael Pitt
Rated R

Drama

Francois Gerard’s adaptation of Alessandro Baricco’s novel Silk stars Michael Pitt as a young Frenchman who travels to Japan at the request of a wealthy silkworm magnate who asks him to smuggle back some new worms. The mission succeeds, and this allows the man to live in great comfort with his wife (Keira Knightley). After a few years, they are unable to conceive a child, a situation that leads to the man taking on a lover during his subsequent visits to Japan.

Released on February 26, 2008

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Honor Thyself
By: Danielle Steel

Fiction

Carole Barber has come to Paris to work on her novel—and to find herself after a lifetime in the spotlight. A legend of film and stage, Carole has set a standard of beauty and grace, devoting herself to her family and causes around the world. But on this cool November evening, as her taxi speeds into a tunnel just past the Louvre, a fiery instant of terror shatters hundreds of lives—and leaves Carole alone, unconscious and unidentified in a Paris emergency room.

At the Ritz, they wonder where their famous, incognito guest has gone. From California to London, Carole’s friends and family begin to make inquiries. Then comes a moment of shock as they all realize that Carole is far from home and fighting for her life. In the days that follow, the paparazzi swarm. As a woman who the whole world knows, slowly awakens, she knows nothing of herself. Every detail must be pieced back together. But for Carole an extraordinary opportunity has arisen in a life-threatening crisis: a second chance to count her blessings, heal wounded hearts, recapture lost love… and to live a life that will truly honor others—beginning with herself.

Released on February 26, 2008

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Remember Me?
By Sophie Kinsella

Fiction

When twenty-eight-year-old Lexi Smart wakes up in a London hospital, she’s in for a big surprise. Her teeth are perfect. Her body is toned. Her handbag is Vuitton. Having survived a car accident—in a Mercedes no less—Lexi has lost a big chunk of her memory, three years to be exact, and she’s about to find out just how much things have changed.

Somehow Lexi went from a twenty-five-year-old working girl to a corporate big shot with a sleek new loft, a personal assistant, a carb-free diet, and a set of glamorous new friends. And who is this gorgeous husband—who also happens to be a multimillionaire? With her mind still stuck three years in reverse, Lexi greets this brave new world determined to be the person she…well, seems to be. That is, until an adorably disheveled architect drops the biggest bombshell of all.

Suddenly Lexi is scrambling to catch her balance. Her new life, it turns out, comes complete with secrets, schemes, and intrigue. How on earth did all this happen? Will she ever remember? And what will happen when she does?

Released on February 26, 2008

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American Gangster
*Academy Award Nominated Film
Starring Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe
Rated R

Drama

Director Ridley Scott spins this yarn concerning a Harlem drug kingpin (Denzel Washington) who smuggles heroin into the country by hiding it in the bodies of U.S. soldiers killed during battle in Vietnam. There was a time when no one noticed reserved driver Frank Lucas, but when the criminal kingpin he was charged with transporting through the city streets suddenly dies, Lucas seizes the opportunity to build his own criminal empire. When innovative businessman Lukas attempts to go semi-legit by becoming one of the Manhattan borough’s biggest civil supporters, however, street-savvy outcast cop Ritchie Roberts (Russell Crowe) begins to sense a sizable shift in the hierarchy of the drug underworld. But Roberts is one of the few honest detectives operating within a corrupt system, and as he sets out to investigate the case, crooked detective Trupo (Josh Brolin) does everything in his power to compromise the integrity of his idealistic counterpart. Upon clearing all of the usual Mafia-connected suspects, Roberts begins to believe that a previously unknown black power player has come out of the woodwork to dominate the local drug trade. While Roberts and Lucas may be operating on opposite sides of the law, the one thing that both men have in common is a strict code of ethics that separates them from their opportunistic colleagues. Now, as a confrontation between the two men becomes inevitable and the fate of each becomes inexorably tied to the other, it gradually becomes apparent that only one of them will emerge from the conflict victorious.

Released on February 19, 2008

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Michael Clayton
*Academy Award Nominated Film
Starring George Clooney
Rated R

Drama/Suspense

Michael Clayton (Clooney) handles all of the dirty work for a major New York law firm: Arranging top-flight legal services and skirting through loopholes for ethically questionable clients. But when a fellow “fixer” decides to turn on the very firm they were hired to clean up for, Clayton finds himself at the center of a conspiratorial maelstrom. Once an ambitious D.A., Clayton is now a shell of his former dynamic self, thanks to a divorce, an unfortunate business venture, and astronomical debt. Though he longs to leave the cutthroat, ethically dubious world of corporate law behind, Clayton’s poor financial situation and devotion to firm head Marty Bach leave him little choice but to remain on the job and tough it out. Meanwhile, litigator Karen Crowder finds her entire company’s future hinging on the outcome of a multi-billion dollar settlement overseen by Clayton’s friend, star lawyer Arther Edens. When Edens snaps and decides to blow the whistle on the questionable case, sabotaging the defense, Clayton must decide between his loyalty and his conscience.

Released on February 19, 2008

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Rendition
Starring Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal
Rated R

Drama/Suspense

This movie tells a tale of a Middle East CIA operative who begins to have doubts about his latest assignment after witnessing the interrogation of a suspected suicide bomber by secret police. When Egyptian-born chemical engineer Anwar El-Ibrahimi mysteriously vanishes on a routine flight from South Africa to Washington, his wife Isabella embarks on a frantic international search for her missing husband. At the same time, a CIA analyst arrives at a detention facility outside of United States. As the interrogation of El-Ibrahimi gets underway, the CIA analyst is profoundly shaken by the unorthodox methods used by the man’s captors, and quickly begins to reevaluate his assignment.

Released on February 19, 2008

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Lady Killer
By: Lisa Scottoline

Suspense Fiction

Mary DiNunzio is a trademark Lisa Scottoline heroine—she’s strong, she’s smart, and she’s got plenty of attitude. In recent years, she’s become a big-time business-getter at Rosato & Associates, but the last person she expects to walk into her office one morning—in mile-high stilettos—is super sexy Trish Gambone, her high school rival. Back then, while Mary was becoming the straight-A president of the Latin Club and Most Likely to Achieve Sainthood, Trish was the head Mean Girl, who flunked religion and excelled at smoking in the bathroom.

As it turns out, however, Trish’s life has taken a horrifying turn. She’s terrified of her live-in boyfriend, who’s an abusive, gun-toting drug dealer for the South Philly mob. There’s only one problem—Mary remembers the guy from high school too. Unbeknownst to Trish, Mary had a major crush on him. Then Trish vanishes, a dead body turns up in an alley, and Mary is plunged into a nightmare, one that threatens her job, her family, and even her life. She goes on a one-woman crusade to unmask the killer, and on the way, finds new love in a very unexpected place.

Released on February 19, 2008

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Strangers in Death
By: J.D. Robb

Mystery Fiction

Technology may be different in 2060 New York, yet the city is still a place of many cultures and great divides. And as ever, some murders receive more attention than others - especially those in which the victim is a prominent businessman, found in his Park Avenue apartment, tied to the bed - and strangled - with cords of black velvet.

It doesn’t surprise Lieutenant Eve Dallas that Thomas Anders’s scandalous death is a source of titillation and speculation for the public - and humiliation for his family. While everyone else in the city is talking about it, those close to Anders aren’t so anxious to do so. Fortunately, because Dallas’s billionaire husband, Roarke, happens to own the prime real estate where Anders’s sporting-goods firm was headquartered, she has some help with access. Before long, she’s knocking on doors - or barging through them - to look for the answers she needs. It’s up to Dallas to solve a sensational case where all involved guard secrets from one another - and strangers may be connected in unexpected, and deadly, ways.

Released on February 19, 2008

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Dakota
By: Martha Grimes

Fiction

In this stunning sequel to Grimes’s beloved Biting the Moon, young Andi Oliver is an amnesiac and drifter who awoke in a Santa Fe bed and breakfast with a man’s belongings tossed about the room. Adopting a name from the initials on her backpack, Andi moves from one waitress job to the next, from Idaho to North Dakota. It is in Dakota that she is hired at Klavan’s, a massive pigfarming facility that specializes in the dark art of modern livestock management. As Andi begins to uncover the truth about Klavan’s and a slaughterhouse called Big Sun, two men are on her trail, one a gunman hired to kill her, another who has followed her across three states demanding something from her forgotten past.

Released on February 12, 2008

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Becoming Jane
Starring Anne Hathaway and James McAvoy
Rated PG

Historical Drama

Events from the life of the author Jane Austen inspired this romantic historical drama, which speculates of a romance that may have had a significant impact on her life and work. Twenty-year-old Jane Austen is the daughter of Rev. Austen, a minister who looks after a flock in a small rural community in Southern England with his wife. While her older sister, Cassandra, is engaged to be married, Jane resists her family’s efforts to match her up with Mr. Wisley, the wealthy but dull nephew of Lady Gresham, a minor member of the British nobility. When Jane meets Tom Lefroy a young man her own age, she’s intrigued. As Tom begins to court Jane, she finds herself increasingly attracted to this poor but keenly intelligent man, though she soon realizes her own ideas about love and marriage are sometimes at odds with the conventions of the society in which she lives.

Released on February 12, 2008

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We Own the Night
Starring Mark Wahlberg, Joaquin Phoenix and Robert Duvall
Rated R

Drama

Set against the backdrop of the bloody battle waged between New York City cops and the Russian mafia in the 1980s, director James Gray’s period drama tells the tale of an emerging club manager whose family ties to law enforcement make him a target for the city’s most dangerous criminals. Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix) manages one of Gotham’s hottest clubs - but being in the club scene often means turning a blind eye to blatant criminal activities. Realizing that his career - and perhaps his life - could come to a sudden end if anyone discovers that his father Burt (Robert Duvall) is the deputy chief of police and his brother Joseph (Mark Walberg) is a rising star on the force, Bobby struggles to keep that sensitive information from everyone except his devoted girlfriend Amada (Eva Mendes). Russian kingpin Vadim is a ruthless criminal who is willing to permanently silence anyone who dares cross him - regardless of whether they are a stranger on the street or a lifelong member of the family. When the Russian mafia declares all-out war against the NYPD, conflicted Bobby is forced to choose between his life of luxury, or the family that he has worked so fervently to separate himself from.

Released on February 12, 2008

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