New DVD List: What Happened, Miss Simone? & More

Here is a new DVD list highlighting various titles recently added to the library’s collection.

“What Happened, Miss Simone?”
Website / Reviews / Trailer
Playing at the True/False Film Fest in 2015, this Academy Award-nominated documentary explores the life of Nina Simone. A classically trained musical genius, chart-topping chanteuse and Black Power icon, she is one of the most influential, beloved, provocative and least understood artists of our time. This film inspired a companion book published earlier this year.

“City of Gold”
Website / Reviews / Trailer
Playing earlier this year at Ragtag Cinema, this film follows restaurant critic Jonathan Gold as he pulls back the curtain on the perceived superficiality of Los Angeles to show viewers a genuine and vibrant world where ethnic cooking is a kaleidoscopic doorway to the mysteries of an unwieldy city and the soul of America.

“The Other Side”
Website / Reviews / Trailer
This film played at the True/False Film Fest in 2016. In an invisible territory at the margins of society lives a wounded community whose members face the threat of being forgotten by political institutions and having their rights as citizens trampled. Through this hidden pocket of humanity, Robert Minervini opens a window to the abyss of today’s America.

“Longmire”
Season 4
Website / Reviews
The unflappable Sheriff Walt Longmire and his deputies are trying to put the troubling events of the past behind them. But, the opening of the new casino on the Reservation brings dark new problems to Walt’s corner of Wyoming. Based on the mystery novels by Craig Johnson.

“Paths of the Soul”
Website / Reviews / Trailer
This film blends documentary and fiction to follow a group of Tibetan villagers making a Buddhist “bowing pilgrimage,” laying their bodies flat on the ground after every few steps, along the 1,200-mile road to Lhasa, Tibet’s holy capital. Each of the travelers embarks on this near impossible journey for very personal reasons.

“Rectify”
Season 3
Website / Reviews
This series follows the life of Daniel Holden, who returns to his small hometown in Georgia after serving 19 years on death row. Having spent his entire adult life waiting to die, Daniel must now try to find a way to cope with his past and forge a “normal” life with a future before him.

“The Messenger”
Website / Reviews / Trailer
For thousands of years, songbirds were regarded by mankind as messengers from the gods. Today, these creatures, woven inextricably into the fabric of our environment, are vanishing at an alarming rate. As scientists, activists and bird enthusiasts investigate this phenomenon, amazing secrets of the bird world come to light for the first time.

“The People vs. O.J. Simpson”
Website / Reviews / Trailer
Told from the perspective of the lawyers, it explores the chaotic dealings behind closed doors and how prosecution overconfidence, defense shrewdness and shocking courtroom twists led to one of the most earth-shattering verdicts of all time. It is based on the best-selling book “The Run of His Life: The People v. O.J. Simpson” by Jeffrey Toobin.