True Grit, The Company Men, and Others on DVD This Week

They're on their way to buy The Company Men, too. 

It's 9:37, on a beautiful Tuesday evening in San Francisco. I'm listening to Bill Hicks bits on YouTube, and looking up this week's DVD releases. Coincidentally, one of them happens to be a documentary about Bill Hicks and the celebrity achieved after his death, not even 15 years later. It's also about the censorship struggles he faced during his career peak. It's called American: The Bill Hicks Story, and is available today. If you aren't familiar with Hicks' stand-up, do yourself a favor and watch this before you watch anything. His work was a game changer, and the template for less daring comedians like the Blue Collar Comedy Tour fellas to follow. 

Also released on DVD/Blu-Ray today - True Grit, the Coen Brothers ode to the old west and the film that made America collectively give up about $100 million; Rubber, the independent phenomenon about a tire with psychotic and psychic powers, and the mind of a serial killer; Sanctum, the one movie about the cave diving that nobody remembers seeing; Another Year, that Mike Leigh film that you might have heard about; Just Go With It, that Adam Sandler movie you won't admit to having seen; and The Company Men, the first "best movie" of 2011.

More after the cut--

The Town

The Town - doing it better than Point Break since 2010.

In 1997, Ben Affleck and Matt Damon gave us a soft an emotional tour of Boston in Good Will Hunting, as they knew it growing up. They explored the values of hope and family. In 2007, ten years later, Ben Affleck went it alone and took us back to Boston with Gone Baby Gone, exploring themes of loss and grief, right and wrong. In 2010, Affleck took us to the doorstep, sat us down on the curb, and said "Watch." The town, Charlestown, to be specific, lives and breathes by itself - the central hub of bank robberies in New England. The film's opening quotes tell us that the trade is almost a birthright - something you're born into, or against. And for the four lads in this film, it's the only life they know. And they'll go to incredible lengths to protect it. 

More after the cut--

The Company Men

If Ben Affleck keeps this up, he'll never have to look for work.

When critiquing a film, there are a handful of things you have to consider - the tone of the film, the depth of the performances, how it flows as a whole, key moments that help the film develop an emotional resonance, so on and so forth. At least, that's how I do it. One should judge the story presented, and how it fits into the world the film assumes. The Company Men, for all intents and purposes, is a perfect film. Nothing is out of place. But, even though the film sets out to do what it achieves and has no sense of pretense about it, there is something in the mix that just doesn't ring true. 

More after the cut --

In Theaters This Weekend

Reason #412 why I hate Ashton Kutcher

Two wide releases (The Company Men and No Strings Attached), and a "wider" release of Peter Weir's The Way Back hit cinemas this weekend. Which are you going to see? 

A closer look at all three after the cut --

Pete Postlethwaite, thanks for my childhood.

Pete Postlethwaite, 1946-2011

British actor, rightly knighted, has passed away. After a long battle with cancer, we're now afforded the chance to look back on his remarkable career.