A Ken Burns Documentary can speak to adults like The Princess Bride spoke to Fred Savage.  Only instead of Columbo, it’s the masterful talents of Ken Burns that tells the story.  His ability to excel with the pictures + narration + music + interviews formula is amazingly impressive in our age of 3D/HD/IMAX.  He’s made a documentary for almost any type on your list:

The Outdoorsman:  The National Parks: America’s Best Idea – $57.99 and Lewis & Clark – $19.99
The Sports Fan:  Baseball – $71.49 and Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson – $22.99
The Musician:  Jazz – $71.49
The Historian: The War – $43.99  and The Civil War – $69.99
The Reader: Mark Twain – $14.99
The Drinker: Prohibition – $29.99

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For his latest, Prohibition, those opening notes are just a small sample of how Ken Burns and Lynn Novick nail every last little detail in their films.  Throw in voices from the likes of Samuel L. Jackson, Tom Hanks, Oliver Platt as Al Capone and Sam Watterson as the voice of newspaper articles, and Prohibition will go head to head with most Hollywood movies when it comes to pure entertainment.  The fact that it’s a documentary is almost bizarre.  A Ken Burns film is nothing like those dusty film strips you were shown in middle school.

Affordable too.  $30 gets you all six hours.  Of course his other films can get spendy, but when you consider Baseball is 18.5 hours long… the price makes sense.

I don’t know why I was expecting more but I was.  It’s hard to deny Statham’s potential as not just an action star, but a thriller/action/doesn’t-rely-on-tons-of-explosions male lead.  He can do this.  See his 2008 flick The Bank Job.  The Mechanic leans a little too close to the Nicholas Cage / John Travolta eye roller Face Off.

It’s not Statham’s fault though.  He’s easily the best part of the film.  Yes it’s his standard character.  His filmography is like the AC/DC catalogue.  Low on range, high on testosterone awesomeness.  The Mechanic hiccups w/ the ridiculous body count, Ben Foster’s character, and oddities like Statham using Ask.com in a blatant product placement to research an enemy.  Assassins Ask Jeeves?

It has moments but they’re too few.  Wait for it on Netflix for a slow weekend evening.  During which you might be wearing something like Statham’s rough but upgraded casual wardrobe.  Here’s a few affordable alternatives…
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The Coat:  J. Crew Wool University Coat – $129.99 (reg. $235)

Close but not quite identical, the coat Statham wears in the movie doesn’t have flap front pockets and instead has more of a mock neck.  But between the single breasted front and mid to upper thigh length, it’s plenty close.  Especially when it’s on sale for $130.  Careful though, it’s final sale.  So no returns.
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The Sweater:  Farrah Coppard Shawl Collar – $129.99 (reg. $190)

Big knit, dark toggles, thick and wide shawl collar.  This thing commands more of a presence in the movie than the one female co-star.  Similar sweaters are pricey.  This one via Urban Outfitters is close, with another similar option coming from  J. Crew.  Toggle-less is far and away the cheapest thanks to this $35 version from L.E.C.
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The Long Sleeve:  Calvin Klein Waffle Knit Thermal – $31.20 ($39.00)

Looks like assassins like their thick boxy knits.  When you have a neck and traps like Jason Statham, what usually passes for something resembling long underwear can look plenty good.  The Calvin Klein version, although expensive, has raglan sleeves and a more updated looking fit.  Now go do some pull-ups.
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The Sunglasses:  Cole Haan C704 – $135.00

Tough to find alternatives for the movie version.  These guys over here seem to think they’re $400 and made by a company called IC! berlin.  They drop deep, are incredibly squared off, have minimal framing, and come straight back through the earpiece.  Gradient lenses too.  Like some sort of Sarah Palin Eyewear / Blu blocker hybrid.  The Cole Haans are kinda (okay, not really) close.  Why don’t you just go with these instead?

Would you wear any of it?  Or would you rather go with something like Statham’s peak lapel suit he wore to the premier?  Leave your pick in the comments section below…

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Everybody has one.  A movie you own on DVD, maybe even had on VHS once upon a time, and it’s your standby entertainment for those days when you want to watch something that’s:

1. Familiar
2. Awesome

It’s a movie that makes you feel good.  Something that’s probably a little predictable, has plenty of chemistry between the actors, and is easily quotable.  Maybe you identify with it, maybe you don’t.  Maybe it speaks to something deeper within your, or it’s shallow as all hell.  But it’s that movie you reach for time and time again when you want to let all your obligations go, zone out a bit, and completely relax.  You might even have favorite and least favorite scenes picked out.  And there’s no shame in skipping ahead to the best ones.

If you’ve spent more than a few weeks on this website, it’s not tough to figure out my own personal go to movie.  I reference it enough.  Ocean’s 11.  12 and 13 too, but the first re-make with Clooney and the rest is tops.  Yeah, it’s candy.  But so what…

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A close second is Casino Royale.  Not nearly as lighthearted as the suited up caper flicks of the Ocean’s trilogy (i.e. Benedict never tortures Danny Ocean by mangling his testicles) but it’s hard to argue with this scene on the train between Bond and Vesper.  Third place goes to the first six innings or so of the made for PBS documentary Baseball by Ken Burns.  That thing got me through some very poor and not the smoothest of times.

We all have one.  And it’s probably something that cinema snobs would turn their nose up at.

So what’s yours?

If you‘d like, leave your pick in the comments section below.  No slights or questioning someone else’s favorite here either (unless it’s like, The Music Man or something).  We all have different cinematic forms of comfort food.
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“I didn’t stand at the door. Don’t be an idiot. I bugged the Scotch bottle. ”
“ What!”
“ It’s got a little transmitter on it, I’ve got a little thing in my ear, get past it.”

Charlie Wilson has died.  Here’s NPR’s Morning Edition on his life:

Tom Hanks does an amazing job portraying the man who seemed to born from fiction into the non-fictional world.  Phillip Seymore Hoffman more than deserved his Oscar Nomination for playing the filled to the brim with piss and vinegar yet barely bottled up CIA agent Gust Avrakotos.  And Julia Roberts executes one of the greatest single word one-liners in Cinema History.

“Sluts.”

It’s charming, it’s engaging, it’s a different kind of experience.  Probably just like how Charlie Wilson was.

From the Article:  “We were just saying that there’s a little bit of Edward in every guy. You just have to look for it,” Nelson says. “Imagine having somebody who loves you so much he reads everything you read.”

So the most devoted fang-bangers want a young, lovestruck, man-boy to worship their womanhood and fuel a co-dependent relationship that’s isolated from the real world?

Well… it worked for Mary Kay Letourneau.  Perhaps Twihards don’t want to have sex with a vampire, but instead they want to get in bed with someone who looks, and more importantly acts, like a high school boy.

It’s an interesting breakdown.  Read it at the Details Magazine Website.

If you’re bald, losing your hair, or know it’s going to inevitably happen to you one day… take a cue from Jason Statham:  Buzz it short, grow some stubble, buy some great suits, and carry yourself well.

Do that and you’ll look 10-times better than your full mane counterparts.

In The Bank Job Statham and his buzzed head plays another character that’s right in his wheelhouse.  A tough, smart, bad ass criminal who still maintains an undeniable likability that makes you WANT him to break the law.

This time Statham and his band of merry thieves head after a bank vault full of safety deposit boxes.  It’s not a job they’d normally try and pull, but they’ve got inside info on how easy it could be.  Turns out the inside information comes with a price, because the people in the know want the contents of one box in that vault.

Directed by the man who wrote and directed Anthony Hopkins in the under-rated and far under-viewed “The World’s Fastest Indian,” Statham and the supporting cast execute a crisp, cool movie for people who love crime and heist flicks, and won’t think it detracts from the film if not everyone makes it out unscathed.