The weekend’s here. You’ve just been paid, and it’s burning a hole in your pocket. What’s a pop culture geek to do? In hopes of steering you in the right direction to blow some of that hard-earned cash, it’s time for the Quick Stop Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

Second only to endless documentaries about the Nazis and WWII, one of the most addictive shows to hit the History Channel has been the how-to/how-does explorations of Modern Marvels. Criminally absent from DVD shelves, that oversight has been rectified with the 8-disc Modern Marvels: Technology box set (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$39.95 SRP). The set features all you could ever want to know about candy, James Bond Gadgets, the Manhattan Project, monster trucks, engineering disasters, sugar, Walt Disney World, and the world’s longest bridge. This is a wonderful start, but where’s the next set?

Eager to bankrupt cinephile, Warners release another of their must-have themed collections, this time gathering together 6 vault titles starring one of the screen’s most legendary actresses. The Katharine Hepburn: 100th Anniversary Collection (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP) contains 1933’s Morning Glory, 1936’s Sylvia Scarlett, 1944’s Dragon Seed, 1945’s Without Love, 1946’s Undercurrent, and 1979’s The Corn Is Green. Complete remastered, each film also sports period cartoons and short subjects (a most welcome regular feature on these Warner sets).

The History Channel’s 12-part documentary The Civil War (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$49.95 SRP) is the perfect companion piece to Ken Burns’s own take on the American struggle of brother vs. brother. Whereas Burns was more concerned with the war on a personal level, the History Channel series is a comprehensive look at the social, political, military, and historical aspects.

Warlords (Acorn, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP) is a 4-part documentary produced by Britain’s Channel 4 that examines the motivations and mindset of the four wartime leaders that shaped the events of World War II in the Western theater – Hitler, Churchill, Stalin, and Roosevelt. It’s a wonderful examination of the decision-makers and what each was hoping to achieve for their own countries.

I’ve often wondered why there hasn’t been a more wholesale release of titles from A&E’s wonderful Biography series, but a new pair of themed box-sets may be establishing the necessary precedent to getting scores of them out on DVD. The Legends of The Silver Screen collection (A&E, Not Rated, DVD-$44.95 SRP) contains 8 editions of the show, spotlighting Humphrey Bogart, Betty Boop, James Dean, Clint Eastwood, Katharine Hepburn, Paul Newman, Robert Redford, and Shirley Temple, plus the documentary Hollywood: An Empire of Their Own. The Mafia Legends set (A&E, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP) turns the focus on Bugsy Siegel, Lucky Luciano, Al Capone, and Mob hitmen. More, please!

F-Troop was one of those bizarre TV comedies that you’re glad was allowed to make as many episodes as it did before it was” found out” and cancelled. In F-Troop‘s case, that meant only two seasons, the second of which is out now (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). Any show that can feature both Paul Lynde as a singing Mountie and Vincent Price as a Transylvanian Count in the old west is one that needs to be watched for generations to come. The 6-disc set features all 31 episodes, plus a retrospective featurette.

Like its sister-show Dogfights, Shootout! (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$69.95 SRP) contains interviews and discussion of military operations spanning the past century, with you-are-there 3-D recreations of the battles in question. The 6-disc set contains both seasons 1 & 2, plus a trailer for the forthcoming game based on the series.

Take a pop culture spin through coming of age in the 50’s with the documentary Heavy Petting (Docurama, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP), featuring interviews with pop and cultural luminaries who came of age during that storied period – including the likes of Spalding Gray, David Byrne, and Allen Ginsberg – describing their own personal “loses of sexual innocence.”

It’s not genius, but I still enjoy Kyra Sedgewick’s turn as deputy police chief Brenda Johnson in The Closer (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), where she expertly balances crime-solving with inter-office politics and an attempt at a private life. The 4-disc second season set features all 15 episodes, plus a behind-the-scenes featurette and a gag reel.

Dive back into the supposedly savage tribal worlds featured in Barbarians II (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP), the History Channel series that attempts to give a clearer picture of these often misunderstood peoples. This 2-disc set spotlights the Vandals, Saxons, Franks, and Lombards. Bonus features include an episodes of both Conquest (“Weapons of The Barbarians”) and Modern Marvels (“Axes, Swords & Knives”).

The second season of the Clint Eastwood-starring television western Rawhide gets a truncated 2nd season release, splitting up the 32-episode season into a pair of individual volumes. Available now is the 4-disc Rawhide: Season 2 – Volume 1 (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$38.99 SRP), featuring those first 16 eps.

All these later, and I still don’t like Firefly. Jebus knows, I tried, but Joss Whedon’s space opera struck me as a cloying, annoying, pale shadow of the heights he achieved on Buffy (before the abysmal final season) and Angel (whose final season proved to its finest). Still, there are plenty of Browncoats out there who have embraced the series, and more power to them. For those fans, though, there’s the second volume of Firefly: The Official Companion (Titan Books, $24.95 SRP), packed with interviews, photos, behind-the-scenes insights, and complete scripts for “Jaynestown”, “Out of Gas”, “Ariel”, “War Stories”, “Trash”, “The Message”, “Heart Of Gold”, and “Objects In Space”.

What happens when you push a franchise beyond the breaking point? You get Hannibal Rising (Genius, Not Rated, DVD-$29.95 SRP), a mediocre attempt to drag the corpse of the Hannibal Lecter franchise through the streets, hoping no one notices the smell of this turgid turkey. Well, smell it does. Bonus features include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and trailers.

Let’s close out this week with a look at Funko‘s 7″ vinyl Futurama bobble-head figurines, featuring Fry, Bender, Leela, and Dr. Zoidberg ($10.99 SRP each). If you want something a bit more imposing, though, by all means pick yourself up the 12″ vinyl Bender coin bank ($24.99 SRP). You know he wants nothing more than to fill his chest cavity with someone else’s money.

So there you have it… my humble suggestions for what to watch, listen to, play with, or waste money on this coming weekend. See ya next week…

-Ken Plume

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