Dallas Buyers Club

Matthew McConaughey is getting a lot of recognition lately — for being nearly unrecognizable in Dallas Buyers Club.

McConaughey plays real-life Texas cowboy Ron Woodroof, whose free-wheeling life was overturned in 1985 when he was diagnosed as HIV-positive and given 30 days to live. Jared Leto plays Rayon, a HIV-positive transgender woman who helps Ron smuggle medication.

Dallas Buyers Club takes audiences to a time that hasn’t been seen much on film — the worst of the AIDS crisis, where the disease was a death sentence, and the public's fear was at its height. Time has transformed AIDS from a fatal to a chronic disease and it has given us the opportunity to examine what now seems like one of the most powerful stories of the ‘80s.

There might be some storytelling faults that keep this from being the “movie of the year,” but there is hardly an untrue note and McConaughey and Leto pull off the two strongest male performances of the year.

Simply put: It aims to be one of this year’s important movies - I bought it.

Award potential: McConaughey and Leto are frontrunners for actor and supporting actor in every film award this year. Dallas Buyers Club, the film, is not a frontrunner, but I think it will be one of the 7, 8, 9 or 10 Best Picture Oscar nominations.

The ten buck review: Worth ten bucks.