The Company Men is a corporate drama by first time writer, producer, and director John Wells that first premiered at Sundance in 2010.  Starring Ben Affleck (The Town, Good Will Hunting), Tommy Lee Jones (Men in Black, No Country for Old Men), and Chris Cooper (American Beauty, Adaptation), this film obviously has a strong cast of seasoned actors that together couldn’t make a bad film if they tried.  With it’s high production value, timely script, and strong cast, the question isn’t whether this is bad film, but rather if it is as relatable or socially relevant as the filmmakers want it to be.

Personally, this film is just not my usual genre.  I understand that there definitely could be a sizable market for this film, but what some people might find to be a relevant story about the hardships of today’s economy, I find to be lacking in realism and slightly melodramatic.  It is one of those films where every few lines the audience is suppose to be nodding in agreement thinking, “Yes, I feel your pain.”  Don’t get me wrong, I completely understand the need for films to comment on the troubles of society, but this just seemed forced and exaggerated.

The film is about the effects of corporate downsizing, how it ultimately effects people the same way regardless of job title or salary, and what is really important to treasure in your life.  Affleck plays Bobby Walker, a white-colar corporate employee who gets laid off in the first round of downsizing at corporate giant GTX.

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Just when you thought Hell’s Kitchen was safe from the grasp of Hollywood after 2003′s embarrassment to the genre which was Mark Steven Johnson’s Daredevil, it looks like the property may still be lucrative enough to garner a reboot.

Fox is so keen on the idea of rebooting the Man Without Fear, they’ve even signed Twilight: Eclipse director David Slade to take on the film.

From Variety: Slade has been considering several comicbook properties, including Fox’s “Wolverine,” but that gig wound up going to Darren Aronofsky (“Black Swan”). Though the film wound up spinning off “Elektra” with Jennifer Garner, studio had hoped “Daredevil” would earn more than its $103 million domestic take and launch a series of sequels.

Fox has been looking to redevelop the character since, but people close to the project say it’s not a reboot per se — more a continuation of the “Daredevil” saga. Studio has yet to hire a scribe, but writer would work closely with Slade.

Sadly, because Fox has been keeping the film in “pre-production” for years, they managed to retain the rights to Daredevil when Marvel was purchased by Disney. The same thing goes for The Fantastic Four, which the studio is also hoping to reboot.

One can only hope that Slade and the writer yet-to-be-decided will do a better job than the Affleck/Garner vehicle from 2003, but the most we can hope for is that we won’t get an ancillary Kevin Smith cameo. Fingers crossed.

Some people may find that The Company Men hits a little too close to home. The movie follows a handful of employees at a large shipping company at the height of the recent economic downturn. It takes an unflinching look at what happens to their jobs, their marriages, their friends, and their honor. An excellent cast including Tommy Lee Jones, Kevin Costner, Ben Affleck, Maria Bello, Rosemarie DeWitt, and Chris Cooper make this film riveting and believable.

The film takes a unique approach by focusing on these men who, by most people’s standards, are fairly well off.  By humanizing their plight(s) without vilifying the men, we are able to relate to their universal struggles. After all, it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, losing a marriage or one’s dignity is going to hurt no matter what. That’s what I loved so much about the film. You want to hate the characters, but through the course of the film, you come to realize these guys are just like you and I.

Ben Affleck plays Bobby, a hotshot sales director with the company.  He’s got a giant house (mortgaged to the hilt), a hot wife, and a fancy car. He’s living the dream.  When corporate downsizing begins, his head is one of the first on the chopping block.  He’s shell shocked and embarrassed, but he is confident he’ll find another job in no time.

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A couple of weeks ago, I named The Company Men on my top 10 films of 2010 list. The movie tracks a handful of employees at a large company, and follows their stories through the economic downturn.

It’s an amazing film (full review will run tomorrow) that captures all the anguish, anger, and fear I have witnessed through my own friends and family experience. This movie absolutely nails it, and it can be difficult to watch at times, because it hits so close to home.

When I was given the opportunity to interview director John Wells, I jumped on it.  This film means a lot to me, and I couldn’t wait to talk to the man who wrote, directed, and produced it. Wells has an impressive filmography as a producer on a myriad of projects.

He served as executive producer during the entire run of television’s ER and The West Wing. He has also been President of the Writer’s Guild of America.  Although he has directed several television episodes, this is his first feature film.

Right before we started the interview, I told him how much the movie meant to me, and shared a few personal stories about friends and family members who have suffered since the recession.

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I was surprised at how much trouble I had narrowing down my top ten movies this year.  My top 20 were all very close, but here are the movies that I ultimately enjoyed the most. I readily admit that I did not see near as many foreign films as I would have liked, but by the time I cover most of the mainstream fare, there is simply no time left.

Honorable Mentions: Fair Game, Tiny Furniture, Greenberg, Cyrus, The Tillman Story, The American, Mother and Child, Scott Pilgrim.

10. Waiting for Superman
This Documentary was equal parts frustrating, inspirational, and heartbreaking. Director Davis Guggenheim (No End in Sight) sheds light on the dismal state of our public school system. He follows the plight of several children who live in various geographic regions who are placing all of their hope for an decent education into lottery systems for charter or private schools. Guggenheim relies on their compelling stories for a narrative, while interspersing lots of graphics and cartoons illuminating some pretty harrowing statistics.

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David Fincher’s The Social Network piqued the interest of audiences over the weekend and grossed over $23M, on just over 2,770 screens.  That is a full thousand fewer screens than big releases typically get.

The film was enthusiastically embraced by critics, receiving some of the best reviews of the year. According to Cinemascore, the film scored a solid B+ with audiences as well.  There is lots of Oscar talk swirling around this film, and it is unofficially considered a bookend to the upcoming award season. Look for this film to perform in theaters for several weeks.

There seems to be a bit of hand-wringing over the gross of the film, because many thought would make more money.  However, if you look at the per/screen average, the film did quite well, with over $8,300 per a showing.  That simply annihilates the per/screen totals of everything else in the top ten this week.

If the film had opened on more screens, it likely would have grossed more money.  Keep in mind that there are no big name stars in the film (save for Justin Timberlake, who is a co-star,) and David Fincher is still not a household name for mainstream America.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole maintained its number two spot from last weekend with  $10.8M, with a standard drop of about 32% over opening weekend. After two weeks in release, the film has made about $30M, which is still a long way from its estimated $80M budget.

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It’s rare when two different pieces of news come together to form an even more awesome story. That’s the case here, as Jeremy Renner, star of last year’s critical success Hurt Locker, will be joining the ever growing greatness which is the upcoming Mission: Impossible 4 film.

Why is this such a big deal? That’s a three-part answer.

One: Renner has been a huge deal ever since working on Locker and even got cast as a fan favorite in the upcoming Avengers film helmed by Joss Whedon as Hawkeye. As if that wasn’t enough, two: he’s joining M:I4, which will be directed by Brad Bird, famous for his work on The Incredibles, Ratatouille, and The Simpsons. Three, the script comes from lord of all things geek, J.J. Abrams.  From Deadline:

Renner will star alongside Tom Cruise in the fourth installment of a franchise that will begin production in the fall. It is the second major role for Renner coming out of his  turn as the reckless explosives specialist in the Oscar-winning The Hurt Locker. Renner also will star in Marvel Studios’ The Avengers, playing the role of Hawkeye. Renner will next be seen in the Ben Affleck-directed The Town, the GK Films-produced drama that Warner Bros opens September 17.

Paramount has struggled to find the right co-star to play an operative opposite Cruise, and one factor was to selecting an actor who could potentially carry the series down the line, should Cruise’s Ethan Hunt character not continue to be the emphasis.

So there you have it, Renner will be showing off his archery in The Avengers, fighting alongside the former Daredevil in The Town, and now costarring in one of the highest grossing action film franchises in the past decade. What will he do next? Let’s hope he doesn’t go the way of Vin Diesel and pull a Pacifier.

Ben Affleck may get a pretty bad rap for his acting, but that was certainly redeemed (mostly) when he stepped behind the camera for the first time to direct Gone Baby Gone. The film was nominated for tons of awards, including Best Actress for Amy Ryan.

Affleck is at it once again with his latest directorial effort The Town. You can tell that he’s got some recurring themes, much like his buddy Kevin Smith, such as a gritty town in Boston and female abduction. This time, Ben himself is stepping in the male leading role, instead of casting his brother Casey.

The movie is based on the Chuck Hogan book Prince of Thieves about a bank robber who becomes infatuated with a witness that his gang is convinced will talk. The movie also stars Blake Lively, Jon Hamm, and Jeremy Renner.

Check out the new trailer after the jump. Catch Ben Affleck’s The Town in theaters on September 10th.

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In an effort to keep things out of the hands of those who made the characters popular, major studios such as Sony, and now Regency and Fox, are rebooting their recent Marvel films in order to retain the rights so they don’t default back to Disney owned Marvel. Sony is doing so with the reboot of Spider-Man, while Regency and Fox have recently announced that they’re doing the same with Daredevil.

Originally made in 2003, and starring Ben Affleck and Colin Farrell, the film isn’t even a decade old and it’s getting a complete revamp. This time, the writer behind 2008′s The Day The Earth Stood Still, David Scarpa, will be penning a script, and the story will more than likely scrub the previous films’ continuity.

It’s unfortunate that studios resort to these childish ways. If the franchise eventually ends up in the hands of Marvel and Marvel Studios, this could mean great film cameos from some of our favorite heroes. A perfect example is what Favreau, Brannagh, and Joe Johnston are doing with the Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America films, and it’s all like a fanboy’s greatest dream.

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Here’s a list of some of the new movie and TV shows coming to DVD and Blu-ray this week that we’re looking forward to seeing. Also, there’s some classic, and not-so-classic, movies hitting Blu-ray for the first time this week as well.

Of all the new releases, we’re particularly interested in the Blu-ray versions of movies and TV shows such as J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, Gone with the Wind, Thirst, Rome: The Complete Series and the Blu-ray debut of David Fincher’s awesome Fight Club (shown above with Brad Pitt and Edward Norton). We are Jack’s excitement at this release finally coming out.

Check them out:

Movies

Bruno ~ Sacha Baron Cohen, Paula Abdul (DVD and Blu-ray)

Clerks ~ Brian O’Halloran, Kevin Smith (Blu-ray)

Downhill Racer (The Criterion Collection) ~ Robert Redford, Gene Hackman (DVD)

Fight Club ~ Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, Helena Bonham Carter (Blu-ray)

Galaxy Quest ~ Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman (Blu-ray)

Gone with the Wind (Ultimate Collector’s Edition) ~ Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh (Blu-ray)

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Mike Judge’s new movie, essentially an almost direct followup to Office Space, is a quirky and well-meaning comedy that strikes many of the right notes but in the end falls a bit flat and ends up with very little to show for it’s efforts. The film covers pretty familiar territory for Judge and as such doesn’t seem quite as fresh as perhaps it did when Office Space was released. The cast, with the notable exceptions of David Millgan as the male gigolo hired by Jason Bateman’s character to seduce his wife, the always awesome J.K. Simmons and, surprisingly, Ben Affleck as a helpful bartender and friend to Bateman’s character, are mostly relegated to sitcom level schtick and not given much else to do. And in the case of Mila Kunis, are simply the eye-candy — a role she plays very well, however.

Sure, many of the lines and situations in the film elicit a chuckle and in some cases, cause the viewer to laugh out loud, but those moment a few and far between. Instead, we’re left with many attempts at humor that fall flat and leave me to wonder what Judge was thinking. Some gags in the film are particularly overused — the “pushy neighbor” comes to mind — and result in not only being unfuny but annoying to the audience as well.

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