OUR BIGGEST NEW ARRIVAL YET: VIDIOTS ANNEX

25 years ago Vidiots started as a small indie store dedicated to making good films available to movie lovers. Over the years we've expanded in space and titles - over 45,000 - and hosted appearances by a wide variety of filmmakers. Celebrating our 25th anniversary is the perfect time to take the next step in bringing together people who enjoy watching, discussing and learning about film: Vidiots Annex.

Vidiots Annex is a brand-new space within our store that will provide a "classroom" for film study, both individual classes and seminar series. It's like film school but without the debt and homework, and for all ages and levels of interest. Historians, critics and industry professionals will teach seminars on everything from the Coen Brothers oeuvre, the history of comedy, anime mythology and analysis of cult films. The Annex provides an intimate and relaxed setting to meet other film buffs and expand your knowledge of genres and auteurs. Vidiots Annex will also be hosting "Saturday Night Film Club," screenings of classics followed by moderated discussions. Vidiots Annex is a new relaxed community center for people who enjoy talking about movies long after their over. To learn more, get a full list of courses and register, go to vidiotsannex.com

ANNEX SPECIAL: Want to try out a Vidiots Annex class or series at a discount? Just go to the website (vidiotsannex.com) to register and enter in "WNEW" into the promotional code field to receive 20 percent off any single class or series.

Anniversary Party/Grand Opening of Vidiots Annex: Thank you to all our loyal customers for 25 years of support. Please join us in celebrating this special landmark. You'll also get an early chance to check out our new ultra modern classroom/screening room, as well as meet some of our teachers. Live music, a DJ and refreshments, all free. We truly hope you can join us on Saturday, July 10th at 8pm.

Vidiots online/Vidiots in Print: The opening of our Vidiots Annex is gaining attention. We were the featured selection for Daily Candy recently and spotlighted in the July edition of Los Angeles Magazine. Expect to see more.

Customer Picks of the Month: Renee Montagne - Renee Montagne is an experienced journalist who got her start in community based radio and is now familiar to many of us as the co-host of NPR's "Morning Edition." Renee is also a Vidiots customer, and we asked her to pick some of her favorite political films to spotlight for our special "Cusomer of the Month" in-store shelf. Among Renee's selections, you'll find Amandla!, Wag the Dog, My Country, My Country, State of the Union, Citizen Ruth and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington.

South Africa on Film - We have a special section inside Vidiots devoted to South Africa, host country of the World Cup, tracing its history and exploring contemporary life through film. Titles include The Man Who Drove with Mandela, Boesman and Lena, Tsotsi, Cry the Beloved Country, Lost in the Stars, A Dry White Season, and featuring terrific performances from Barbara Hershey and Jodhi May, A World Apart.

Hidden Gems: You'll find these films of interest in our new arrivals section.

David Hockney: A Bigger Picture - Though the narration is intrusive, this is still a fascinating record of Hockey's move from LA back to his native England, and the impact on his process.

Beeswax - Andrew Bujalski's latest film is set in an Austin, mostly in a vintage store; in exploring the relationships of a few friends, Bujalski also takes on explores our relationship to modern language.

Separation - Experimental film suggesting the fragments of a woman's breakdown in 60's London set to a Procul Harem soundtrack

Bigger Than Life - Nicholas Ray's 1956 unsparing, surprisingly unsentimental look at post-war suburban life, capitalism and families.

Tom's Pick of the Month:

The Messenger - I really can't recommend "The Messenger" highly enough. It recalls the great road films of the Seventies, or at least our collective imagining of those films. Ben Foster, who first gained attention as one of Claire's sexually ambiguous boyfriends in the series "Six Feet Under";, is sensational here. As a returning soldier assigned the duty of informing families that their next of kin has been killed in combat, Foster is coiled, surprising, implosive. This compelling actor delivers a monologue that says more about war than hundreds of editorials. Woody Harrelson, as his veteran partner, punches his way through the cliché of the gruff C.O. to find grace notes. Each time this pair go to knock on a door, the film opens into a piercing short story. Some of these stories begin to tendril back onto the main narrative until "The Messenger" blooms into an unexpected meditation on language and grief, solitude and connection.

Summer Hours - In Olivier Assayas' French drama, three adult children, now scattered around the globe, reunite after their mother's death to decide on how to parcel out her valuable art collection. Their small and large tensions are informed not only by their mourning, but by the realization that their geographically far-flung careers will soon limit their personal contact. As the siblings negotiate their future, the film astutely intermingles questions about the transience of art with the morality of making sneakers in China. Assayas works in a nuanced, elliptical style here, almost a tribute to the traditional French naturalism we've come to expect from a movie that starts in a summer country house. It soon becomes apparent that Assayas may be using this "French style" of cinema as a subversive element in itself. He is suggesting that his country is no longer a place of languid summer hours. In this elegiac film, France, home to many masterful still-lifes, has become just as jittery as the rest of us.