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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Just weeks before his latest show Treme debuts on HBO, TV writer and producer David Mills has died of a reported brain aneurysm in New Orleans at the age of 49. Mills was head writer and producer on the show, which is about how a group of people of New Orleans rebuild their lives after Hurricane Katrina.

In additon to Treme, Mills was an accomplished and award winning writer for such shows as the HBO miniseries The Corner, ER, Homicide: Life on the Street, Kingpin, NYPD Blue and was a story editor on the CBS drama Picket Fences.

Mills also worked closely for years with David Simon, creator of one of the best shows ever to grace television screens The Wire and who is also the creator of Treme. He also wrote for several newspapers, including The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post.

Mills was a talented man who provided a destinctive voice for characters and stories through his writing. His work will be sorely missed.

Treme premieres April 11 on HBO. I’ll be watching and so should you.

TNT, the network known for its legal/detective dramas (including endless reruns of Law & Order), is now venturing into Sci-Fi with Steven Spielberg and Dreamworks on a series that will star Noah Wyle and Moon Bloodgood. The series, despite not yet having a name, has a pilot directed by Carl Franklin (Devil in A Blue Dress, Out of Time) — who is also working with Spielberg on episodes of the forthcoming WWII television mini-series The Pacific — and a story written by Saving Private Ryan scribe Robert Rodat.

Noah Wyle, who has become quite familiar with TNT through his numerous The Librarian TV Movies, will star as a professor that winds up in the rebellion against the alien invaders. Bloodgood, who really seems to have a taste for the genre with her past roles Terminator: Salvation and the “canceled too-soon” series Journey Man, will play a therapist that works with surviving children of the invasion.

Other names of cast members include Seychelle Gabriel (The Spirit, and M. Night Syamalan’s The Last Airbender), Jessy Schram (Life, Crash: The Series) and Drew Roy (Greek, Lincoln Heights). According to reports, the series opens shortly after aliens have wiped out most of humanity. The aliens are now rounding up the few people left, but they are met with strong resistance from a group of soldiers and civilians who fight for their survival – all while struggling to maintain their humanity.

The series is set to debut sometime in 2011.

Here’s a list of some of the new DVD and Blu-ray releases this week. Plus, some old favorites (and not so favorites) coming out this week on Blu-Ray.

Movies:

For All Mankind: Criterion Collection ~ Jim Lovell, Kenneth Mattingly, Russell Schweickart, and Eugene Cernan (Blu-ray)

The Color of Magic ~ David Jason, Sean Astin, Tim Curry, and Jeremy Irons (DVD)

The Towering Inferno ~ Steve McQueen, Paul Newman and Richard Chamberlain (Blu-ray)

The Haunting in Connecticut (Unrated Special Edition) ~ Kyle Gallner, Elias Koteas and Virginia Madsen (DVD and Blu-ray)

The Edge of Love ~ Keira Knightley, Sienna Miller, Matthew Rhys, and Simon Armstrong (DVD and Blu-ray)

Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon / Curse of the Golden Flower / House of Flying Daggers Trilogy ~ Ziyi Zhang, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Andy Lau, and Chow Yun-Fat (Blu-ray)

Horsemen ~ Dennis Quaid, Ziyi Zhang, Lou Taylor Pucci, and Clifton Collins Jr. (DVD)

Van Wilder: Freshman Year – Unrated ~ Linden Ashby, Kurt Fuller, Jonathan Bennett, and Steve Talley (DVD)

I Still Know What You Did Last Summer ~ Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jr. Freddie Prinze, Brandy, and Mekhi Phifer (Blu-ray)

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