Movies, music and books we're into this week

My wife is a big fan of movies about people having to repeat the same day of their lives, for some reason. Suffice to say that Groundhog's Day is one of her favorite films. So whenever we come across a movie with a story along those lines, I usually have to watch it. Source Code fits that description, and I really enjoyed it.Jake Gyllenhaal plays a wounded U.S. military member who's been suspended by the government somewhere between life and death, in an effort to try to thwart a terrorist plot targeting the city of Chicago. He wakes up in the body of another man, on a downtown-Chicago-bound train, and he must figure out the location of the bomb and identify the bomber. If he fails, he wakes up again right where he startedIt sounds a little wacky, and it is. But it also works.

I cannot stand in-flight entertainment. There's never anything I want to watch, which is why I've preloaded Snatch for much-needed entertainment during a cross-Atlantic flight. Classic British comedy and humor at is finest.A diamond worth a fortune has gone missing and it's whereabouts are being tracked by numerous groups, all featuring well-known faces such as Benicio Del Toro, Jason Statham, Dennis Farina, and Jason Flemyng. If you've not seen Snatch, go check it out right now.

The dreaded "Polar Vortex" is in full swing here in the midwest, which means I'm doing everything I possibly can to stay in my warm, cozy apartment. But I was in the mood for a horror flick this week, and what better choice than one that fits the current frozen hellscape outside?The Shining is a bona fide classic, so I won't get too much into the plot here. But the broad overview is that the story is very much one of the isolation and mental anguish that the Torrence family endures at the Overlook Hotel, which they're maintaining during the empty winter months. You know, with some supernatural elements and the increasingly violent and unhinged tendencies of the family patriarch sprinkled in.If you're starting to feel a little cabin fever from being locked inside your own house during these record low temps, The Shining is a perfect way to kill some time.

If you don't like Weezer's new collection of covers, being called the Teal Album, you're just wrong. There's no other way to say it. Following on from the social media hit that was the band covering Toto's "Africa", the Teal Album is a collection of other tracks you might or might not have expected Weezer to cover. Their version of "No Scrubs" is a song you didn't know you needed in your life, and what other album have you ever heard go from "Happy Together" straight to ripping through Black Sabbath's "Paranoid"?

A recent movie I watched had a bunch of random Beastie Boys songs in it. I was humming them non-stop for day, including "Gratitude" from the album Check Your Head. So I figured I should probably listen to the song to maybe get it out of my head. That didn't work. Now I'm humming another tune from the same album.The Beasties made a ton of amazing albums, but Check Your Head has always been my favorite. Every track on it is gold. But 'Gratitude' and 'The Maestro' are my favs. Whether you're a long-time fan like me, haven't listened to them in a while, or have never heard of Ad-Rock, MCA or Mike D, you could definitely listen to worse tunes right now.

Willie Watson was a co-founder of Old Crow Medicine Show, a folk band out of Nashville, Tennessee, before leaving for a solo career in 2011. His first album under his own name, Folk Singer Vol. 1, includes 10 covers of pure folk history sung in his unique twangy voice.A few of these songs I'd heard already, usually performed by their original artists -- I'm a fan of Steve Young and Memphis Slim -- but some are pretty obscure and have led me to discover new (old) artists I'd never heard of. If you enjoy folk songs sung with just a guitar, definitely check this one out.

Our Mutual Friend is considered by many as a satiric masterpiece about the allure and peril of money. The plot revolves around the inheritance of a dust-heap where the rich throw their trash. When the body of John Harmon, the expected heir, is found in the Thames, fortunes change hands surprisingly. Many don't know that Our Mutual Friend was Charles Dickens's last complete novel. Given the way he portrays various aspects of London, it may be one of his best works ever.