Jeff Bridges, Chris Pine and Ben Foster all destroy their parts in this absolutely terrific modern western from director David Mackenzie.

Pine and Foster play two brothers who come up with a bank-robbing scheme to save the family farm, and Bridges is the soon-to-be-retired sheriff trying to stop them. Pine takes his career into all new territories with his work here, making you forget he’s Captain Kirk and totally disappearing into his part. Foster, an actor I couldn’t stand when he was younger, just gets better and better with each film, with this being his best work yet. Pine’s brother is supposedly the more sensible one, while Foster’s is the nut. What’s great about the writing here is how those roles sometime switch, and the acting by both makes it mesmerizing to watch.

What else can you say about Bridges at this point? He’s one of the best actors to have ever walked the Earth, and this further cements that fact. Mackenzie, whose most notorious prior film was the underrated Starred Up, takes a step into the elite class with this one. His staging of car chases and manhunts is nerve shredding. It’s simply a movie without a bad frame in in it.

It’s a masterpiece, one of only a few to be released so far this year.

Just a few short weeks until we'll all be able to go outside without our faces melting off! In the meantime, keep yourself entertained inside your house.

Here's the week's top 10 most rented DVD's from Casa Video:

1. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice
   

In 2013, soul singer Sharon Jones was diagnosed with cancer and underwent a major operation and chemotherapy. Well, that didn’t slow her down much at all, as this documentary from director Barbara Kopple shows.

When Jones got sick, she just shaved her head and kept on performing. The film shows her appearances on stage, in church services, on shows like Ellen and Jimmy Fallon, and her energy never dissipates. In the stretch between her diagnosis and now, she performed, released a Grammy nominated album (Give the People What They Want), and, unfortunately, her cancer returned (She informed people at the premiere of the film in Toronto in 2015 that she was starting another round of chemo that Wednesday). The film offers a convincing argument that a good, positive, strong attitude qualifies as one of the better weapons against disease. While the film is mostly about her personal struggles, the moments showing her performing will certainly inspire soul lovers to dig deeper into her catalogue and seek out filmed performances. She’s definitely one of a kind. 

Friendships when you are younger are a big deal. Writer-director Ira Sachs is very much clued into this reality with this beautiful little movie about a family moving to Brooklyn after a relative has left them a home.

Greg Kinnear, in his best role in years, plays Brian, an actor on the downside of his career, who moves with wife Kathy (Jennifer Ehle) and son Jake (Theo Tapiltz) to the new Brooklyn home, where Jake instantly befriends the charismatic Tony (Michael Barbieri). They go to the same school together, play video games, and aspire to become artists. Tony’s mom (Paulina Garcia) operates a business in the home Brian has inherited, and her rent is too low. When he tries to raise the rent, problems ensue and despite the best of intentions, relationships are affected. Everybody is terrific in this movie, especially Tapiltz and Barbieri, who come off as real kids. Kinnear, looking world-weary and just a little beat up, is a testament to how tough his chosen profession can be. Garcia has a few moments that are appropriately scary, while Ehle continues to be one of those actresses that quietly amazes.

Sachs is a director with amazing power of observation; his film is full of moments that are deeply moving and strike chords. This is one of the year’s more wonderful under-the-radar films.

The twilight of summer is here (womp womp).

Upsides? Walking out the front door will soon no longer feel like accidentally opening a pre-heated oven. And hey, here's a list of five awesome events to attend before the onslaught that is the first week of school descends upon our once empty, tranquil desert streets.  

1) Silversun Pickups at the Rialto
Although ideally we'd rewind back about a month and blast these driving rhythms through an iPod stereo on some beach in Mexico, we'll just have to enjoy them now at the Rialto when Silversun Pickups roll through on Wednesday, Aug. 17 at 8 p.m. Full of sway-worthy, 90s-esque complex sound, the Pickups are the perfect act to celebrate the angst that comes with the last days of summer. Check them out here.    

2) Open Studios Under the Full Moon
The Metal Arts Village's (3230 N Dodge Blvd) monthly gathering of booze, food and art is happening this Thursday, Aug. 18 starting at 6 p.m. Wander around and meet local artists doing what they do best, followed by some food truck fare and perhaps a summery Hef from Tucson Hop Shop. Family friendly and free, check out the Facebook event page for more details.

3) Twilight Bicycle Mural Tour | COX Plaza Dance Party
This one's for the bikers and dancers out there looking for one more night of empty streets and breathable dance floors. The tour will start at MOCA (265 S Church Ave) at 7 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 19 and will officially set off at 7:15 p.m. After a 2-hour, flat ride showcasing some favorite murals in the area, (and for the non-cyclists among us) the night will end with a dance party at Cox Plaza with DJs BayBay Ruthless + Illslur. Tickets are 5 bucks or free if you're a MOCA member. Here's the info.

4) Wild Style at the Loft 
This month's Staff Selects takes us to the hip-hop glory that was 1980s New York City, a docudrama that features the graffiti, freestyling, scratching and breakdancing that exploded onto the city scene on the heels of a new artistic culture. Even the actors were taken right from the neighborhoods featured in the film. The flick airs Sunday, Aug. 21 at 7:30 p.m. at the Loft (3233 E Speedway Blvd). You can take a look at the trailer before heading out. 

5) Brew-HaHa Comedy Showcase
Coming in hot a few days after the first day of school, the Brew-HaHa Comedy Showcase at Borderlands Brewery (119 E Toole Ave) is promising an "amazing" show, with plenty of beers on tap just in case the laughs don't land for everyone. The latter shouldn't be too much of a problem with headliner Monte Benjamin at the comedy helm, with local AZians Randy Ford, Charles Engle and Dan Thomson also on the bill. The show, on Wednesday, Aug. 24 at 8 p.m., has a $3 cover, here are the deets. 

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice was a skunk blast to the face for most of us trying to have a good time with a superhero movie earlier this year. This has been established repeatedly—perhaps ad nauseam—in this here column. Suicide Squad looked like a chance to get DC movies back on the good foot.

With David Ayer (Fury, End of Watch) at the helm, and a cast including Will Smith, Jared Leto and Margot Robbie, it looked like summer was due to get a fun blast of movie mischief. Suicide Squad does nothing to improve the summer blockbuster season. It actually sends a big, stinking torpedo of shit into its side, and sends the thing barreling toward the bottom of the bowl.

Yes, I’m equating this film to that of a large, destructive, malicious turd. That’s being kind.

After a first half build up/tease that does a decent job of introducing bad guy characters like Deadshot (Smith), Harley Quinn (Robbie) and the Joker (Leto), the movie becomes what can only be described as a spastic colon, resulting in that big turd referred to above. While Smith and Robbie deliver relatively fun performances, the movie is a scattershot mess with no sense of direction. The tone is all over the place, as if the studio meddled and turned the movie into a hackneyed heap of nothing.

Seriously, nothing in this movie, including the reason for forming the squad and the motives of the main villains, make any sense.

To do list: Hang out with some mermaids, take a lesson from one of Tucson's best chefs and watch some movies.

Here's a list of the 10 most rented movies from Casa Video last week:

1. Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice 
   
   

After sitting on the shelf for quite some time, Mark Osborne’s unorthodox, animated adaptation of Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s classic story finally gets a release, albeit a release streaming on Netflix.

It’s a good enough movie, but its by no means a straight retelling of The Little Prince. There’s a modern story about a young girl (Mackenzie Foy) who befriends an old aviator (Jeff Bridges), and the aviator is the one from The Little Prince. He recounts part of that story to the little girl, which we see in stop motion animation (the modern story is mostly CGI).

There’s an interesting mix of animation techniques to go with some twists to the story, and while it feels a little uneven and perhaps slow at times, it’s an enjoyable film.

Other voice performers include Rachel McAdams, Paul Rudd, Marion Cotillard, James Franco, Benicio Del Toro and Albert Brooks, and its fun hearing all of their great voices in one place.

Again, if you are looking for a traditional retelling of The Little Prince, this is not your bag. If you are looking for decent enough animated fare that will entertain kids and adults alike, you could do much worse.

It's still early in the week, but let's start talking about what the plan is to de-stress this weekend.

My suggestion: Join the good folks at the Loft Cinema (3233 E. Speedway Blvd.) for an evening of battling Rodents of Unusual Size, humiliations galore and, of course, popcorn. That's right, they're showing the Princess Bride on the big screen. 

The movie is playing at 10 p.m. on Friday and Saturday (Aug. 12-13) and 10 p.m. on Sunday, Aug. 2 p.m.

Is there's a better way to come down from a rough week of work than watching a classically charming movie? Inconceivable! I'll see you there.

Three sisters, Sachi, Yoshino and Chika (Haruka Ayase, Masami Nagasawa and Kaho), welcome their newfound and much younger half-sister Suzu (Suzu Asano) into their home after their father passes away.

Suzu is closed off and quiet at first but, as she gets to know her new family, she starts opening up, as does the movie. Writer-director Hirokazu Koreeda doesn’t go for storytelling fireworks in this movie, but he does achieve a quiet, subtle, and extremely charming beauty in this tale of four sisters. Much of the film consists of the girls sitting around dinner tables, having meals and discussing simple life issues. Yes, it sounds boring as all hell on paper, but it actually plays into one of the summer’s most pleasant and rewarding surprises.

Ayase is especially good as the eldest sister, dealing with romantic struggles and trying to reconcile bad feelings towards her mother. Asano is a revelation as the young Suzu, an emotionally closeted girl who, nonetheless, jumps at the chance for a new family and a fresh start. While much of the movie is still and quiet, there’s a moment where Suzu rides on the back of a bike through a tunnel of cherry blossoms that amounts to one of the year’s most memorable images.

The movie goes at a leisurely pace, but not to a point that irritates. When it’s over, you’ll miss these characters.