The Weather Man (2006)

It grossed a lousy $12 million at the box office last fall. Critics (including EW's) whaled on it. And yet The Weather Man, featuring Nicolas Cage as a self-hating Chicago TV personality trying to pull his ''s--- life'' together, is precisely the kind of movie that big studios get criticized for not making anymore: a cuts-deep dramedy with the guts to be unlikably honest. The flinch-inducing humor might turn you away — in one of the gentler running gags, Cage's forecaster gets repeatedly pelted with Big Gulps and McNuggets by hecklers on the street — but look past that, to the bittersweet family story, the funny/ sad meditation on America's disposable junk-food culture, and another go-for-broke performance from Cage. EXTRAS Just five generic minidocs. Director Gore Verbinski must have been too busy filming Pirates of the Caribbean 2 and 3 to contribute a commentary track.