This week, there are at least 3 easy to recommend titles hitting Blu-Ray/DVD, along with one or two others that will have an appeal to some of our audience here at The Awards Circuit. In my eyes, there are two films closely fighting it out for my top honors, so it was a closer contest than usual. It’s a very good slate overall, and things will be just as good next week, if not perhaps even a bit better…so stay tuned for that. As for the top pick today, I enjoyed having to consider my options for a bit before coming up with an answer. For my PICK OF THE WEEK, I had to choose from an unlikely smash hit dramedy and a very small scale relationship drama. Both impressed me greatly and were only recently bumped from my Top 10 of the year so far. Which film did I wind up choosing? Well, I went for the more fun flick. That one happens to be:

Magic Mike

I’m still in a bit of shock that I loved this movie as much as I did. Than again, if anyone could take a Channing Tatum male stripper tale and make it something I’d enjoy, it’d be Steven Soderbergh. This is actually a character study more interested in young males chasing the American dream as opposed to a skin flick, and it shows with an incredibly likable and winning tale. Tatum managed to impress me, and of course Matthew McConaughey completely stole the show. Fans of the Power Hour know I like to quote McConaughey’s character from time to time, and I do it out of love. This is a great movie, and one that deserves some awards attention, though I doubt it ultimately will. Those of you that didn’t see this film really should know, as it’s one of my 20 favorites of 2012 right now. It’s so much better than you’d expect!

-Coming in a close second we have Sarah Polley’s romantic drama Take This Waltz. It’s almost a 1 and 1A situation, as this is also in my Top 20 at the moment. Starring Michelle Williams and Seth Rogen, this is a tale of potential infidelity that surprises at almost all turns. It might be divisive to some, but for me it’s an incredibly good movie. I highly recommend this film as well if male strippers aren’t your thing. You really can’t go wrong with a Polley flick…

-Also out this week getting my thumbs up we have the high concept romantic comedy Seeking a Friend for the End of the World and the documentary The Invisible War. The former is a really fun Steve Carrell flick while the latter is a likely Best Documentary Feature nominee at the Oscars. Both are well worth checking out and deserve larger audiences than they’ve received so far.

-The rest of the films out today include the disappointing historical horror film Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, as well as movies I haven’t seen…including the Tyler Perry comedy Madea’s Witness Protection, the drama Crooked Arrows, and the action flick El Gringo. I can’t recommend any of these to you, but especially in turns of Abe and Madea, there are fans out there who will be eager to pick them up. I’d prefer you wait for Steven Spielberg’s take on the President for the former, but if the latter alternative is Alex Cross, then maybe you should just take a walk instead…

-My Vintage pick, in honor of this week’s release of Cloud Atlas, is one of my very favorite films of all time and a cinematic cousin to this ambitious flick. It’s The Fountain, perhaps Darren Aronofsky’s least appreciated work. The movie has tremendous layers to it and really is underrated in a big bad way. I’ve waxed poetic on it numerous times before and won’t totally go down that rabbit hole again right now, but I do think that now’s the perfect time to revisit it, no matter what you thought of it. If you’re a fan like me, it’s a welcome excuse to watch it again. If you’re not a fan, why not give it another shot before Friday. If you’ve never seen it, well…then just get off your ass. It’s a masterpiece to me, and I hope you try it out. There’s very little else like it out there.

-What will you be watching on Blu-Ray/DVD this week? Discuss in the comments!

About Joey Magidson

When he’s not obsessing over new Oscar predictions on a weekly basis, Joey is seeing between 200 and 300 movies a year. He views the best in order to properly analyze the awards race/season each year, but he also watches the worst for reasons he mostly sums up as "so you all don't have to". In his spare time, you can usually find him complaining about the Jets or the Mets. Still, he lives and dies by film. Joey's a voting member of the Internet Film Critics Association as well. Today the IFCA, tomorrow the world!

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