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…
I just spent this evening (as I type this, naturally) doing something that I haven’t done in years – lose track of a few hours of my life while immersed in a Star Wars game. With my limited amount of free time and the nagging desire to get some kind of sleep each night, it’s a rare occurrence when I actually get to do any sort of gaming. As far as Star Wars games go, I haven’t really played one since Battlefront II (and that one because it promised – and delivered – some Ewok shooting). Well, the drought is over, because I just spent the evening immersed in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (LucasArts, PS3-$59.99 SRP) on the PS3. Boasting a stunning look and at least a half-way interesting story, it took me back to the good old days of playing Jedi Knight on my PC long, long ago. And – considering it pretty much takes place in the timeline of the original trilogy – it allowed me to fully ignore those abysmal prequels and just get down to force pushing Stormtroopers off of cliffs. Really, isn’t that what life is all about? For comparison’s sake, I also played a bit of the Wii edition ($49.99 SRP), which wasn’t nearly as gorgeous as the PS3 edition, but did boast the Wii’s signature ease-of-use. If you don’t like a lot of buttons and just want to dive right in and have fun (even your Grandmother), the Wii version is the one for you.
I’ve got a cold this week, and when I wasn’t immersing myself in Jedis and Sith Lords, I was pitting a pirate against a ninja. That’s right – all that fancy radio-control technology has been integrated into RC Pirate vs Ninja ($49.99). It’s an epic battle, and these two inflatable enemies – situated on their RC bases – are fighting the fight of the ages. Who will win? Who knows? FIGHT!
In their infinite wisdom, the BBC of the late 60’s and early 70’s would regularly wipe the videotapes of older shows in order to reuse the tapes. What that means is that scores of shows have been lost to the whims of a frugal network – many of them landmark programs. Much of the 60’s TV work of Peter Cook and Dudley Moore – and their show Not Only But Also – suffered that fate. Some of the material survived, however, and that’s what’s collected in Peter Cook and Dudley Moore: The Best Of What’s Left Of Not Only But Also (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$18.99 SRP). What survives is a clutch of sublime comedy beauty – from the glorious back and forth of “Pete & Dud” to a still genius live action recreation of the supermarionette Thunderbirds. Get this. GET THIS NOW!
It’s become even rarer in this day and age, but it’s always a real treat when a show with a unique, quirky sensibility manages to break out of the network blanding factory and gain a foothold amongst viewers. The latest in that select pantheon is Pushing Daisies (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP), the story of a pie maker named Ned who has the ability to bring the dead back to life with a touch – but a second touch sends them back to the grave (while no second touch instead dooms a bystander). He teams up with a private eye to bring murder victims back to life just long enough to find out who the murder is in order to collect the rewards, but his plans go awry when his childhood sweetheart is struck down, and he decides he wants her back for good. The series is a real gem. The 3-disc set features all 9 first season episodes, plus featurettes.
Mere months before the release of what would prove to be their swansong album, Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel toured in the fall of 1969 – playing some old favorites and a few tunes from their as-yet-unreleased album, Bridge Over Troubled Water. Those concerts were recorded for a live album follow-up to Bridge that never came to be… until now. Simon & Garfunkel: Live 1969 (Sony Legacy, $11.99 SRP) collects 17 tracks recorded during those concerts, and it finds the duo at the peak of their performance powers.
The thinking behind the release of The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour: The Best Of Season 3 (Time Life, Not Rated, $49.98 SRP) – when the sets spotlighting the first two seasons haven’t been released yet – is that more people are probably interested in the infamous 3rd and final season, which saw the legendary cancellation of the controversial series. The 4-disc set contains a selection of 12 uncut episodes, plus a slew of bonus features. I only wish we got the complete season, and that the first two seasons were definitely on the way.
Fans of Space Ghost Coast To Coast have been left in the lurch for years now as the DVD releases stopped abruptly, leaving many episodes in the lurch. Well, those fans can rejoice in and quickly snap up Space Ghost Coast To Coast: From The Kentucky Nightmare (Adult Swim, Not Rated, DVD-$15), with 2 discs featuring 44 “missing” episodes, plus bonus materials. The set is available as an Adult Swim exclusive directly from www.adultswim.com. Get it.
Some of it may be music written for the HBO series Big Love, but David Byrne’s Big Love: Hymnal (Redeye, $15.98 SRP) is worth snagging – well, not only for those tracks, but also for the new compositions featured on the disc. It’s a new album, folks – snap it up.
If you can manage to put the Tom Cruise Crazy out of your head, you can see the charm in the young actor fronting the now 25 year-old(!) Risky Business (Warner Bros., Rated R, DVD-$19.96 SRP). The rakish enthusiasm is there, unsullied by decades of Scientology baggage. Revisit the old Tom Cruise in this new special edition, with an audio commentary, a retrospective documentary, original screen tests, the theatrical trailer, and the director’s cut of the final scene.
Spend those darkening, blustery days leading up to All Hallow’s curled up with the new commemorative edition of Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Lovecraft (Gollancz, $37.95 SRP). This hardbound edition contains dozens of stories from the horror master, and belongs on the shelves of discerning readers everywhere. It’s a handsome edition, to be sure.
The second Busby Berkeley Collection (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) features a quartet of classic dance-filled musicals – Gold Diggers Of 1937, Gold Diggers In Paris, Hollywood Hotel, and Variety Show. All of the films are fully remastered, and bonus features include vintage music & comedy shorts, cartoons, and musical numbers.
So, you cross Office Space with James Bond, with a touch of Alias? Sure, I’ll give it a shot. The show in question is Chuck (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), about a chain store computer nerd named Chuck Bartowski who finds himself in the deep end when he unwittingly downloads stolen government secrets into his brain – and now he’s a secret agent. Seriously. The 4-disc box set features all 13 first season episodes, plus featurettes, deleted scenes, outtakes, and more.
Being a fan of the Disney theme parks and the design ingenuity and creativity that forged them, a book like Walt Disney’s Imagineering Legends And The Genesis Of The Disney Theme Parks (Disney Editions, $35.00 SRP) is, for me, a delightful look at the wizards operating behind the curtain. Author Jeff Kurti presents all of the main players – including the likes of Marc Davis and X. Atencio – with plenty of “oooooh” art and photos.
Yes, you’re seeing spots. Lots of them. Not only is Disney re-releasing the live action, Glenn Close-starring 101 Dalmatians and 102 Dalmatians (Walt Disney, Rated G, DVD-$29.99 SRP each) – with pretty much the same bonus features as the previous editions – but they’re also dropping a special edition of the animated 101 Dalmatians II: Patch’s London Adventure (Walt Disney, Not Rated, DVD-$29.99 SRP), with a behind-the-scenes featurette, music videos, and a look inside Thunderbolt.
Halloween is fast approaching us, so Fox has dropped another of their catalogue unearthing Fox Horror Classics collections (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP). Volume 2 sports Bela Lugosi menacing the titular Chandu The Magician, Vincent Price and Gene Tierney in Dragonwyck, and the ape-to-human thriller Dr. Renault’s Secret. Special features include audio commentaries, featurettes, radio shows, and more.
It’s easily one of the more depressing romantic flicks in cinematic history, but it is a classic of the genre and still holds up as a solid piece of filmmaking. It’s welcome, then, that An Affair To Remember (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP) is getting a deluxe, 2-disc 50th anniversary edition, with an audio commentary, retrospective featurettes, the AMC Backstory spotlight, Fox Movietone News, galleries, and the original theatrical trailer.
Bitter, angry, and still funny, the complete first and second seasons of that angry mallard Duckman (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP) are now on DVD, complete with audio commentary, behind-the-scenes and retrospective featurettes, and more.
Some of the best Star Trek stories have been the numerous tales of alternate realities, so it makes sense that the latest Star Trek Fan Collective is – you guessed it – Alternate Realities (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). The 5-disc set features Mirror Universe episodes from the original series, DS9, and Enterprise, twisted realities from Next Gen and Voyager, and alternate lives from the 3 latter series. And, unlike the regular series box sets, you even get audio commentaries.
For some reason, they aren’t releasing full box sets of the 80’s Alvin & The Chipmunks, but we’ve got a 2-disc Alvinnn!!! Edition (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP) featuring 14 episodes from the show. Can we please have a box set of the 60’s Alvin Show now?
If you still have find memories of the John Hughes troika The Breakfast Club, Weird Science, and Sixteen Candles, then you’ll probably want to pick up the new High School Flashback Collection box set (Universal, Rated PG/PG-13/R, DVD-$39.98 SRP). All three films are housed in a “locker” tin, and the films themselves feature brand new documentaries, commentaries, and more.
I never thought the mostly enjoyable run of classic Charlie Chan flicks would ever move past the first volume, but here we are with the 5th Charlie Chan Collection (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP), starring Sidney Toler as the legendary sleuth. The 4-disc set features Charlie Chan’s Murder Cruise, Murder Over New York, Dead Men Tell, Castle In The Desert, Charlie Chan In Panama, Charlie Chan At The Wax Museum, and Charlie Chan In Rio.
As in the past, the singular releases of the final Avatar: The Last Airbender arc have been compiled into The Complete Book 3 Collection (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$79.99 SRP), which sports an exclusive bonus disc with a 4-part audio commentary, a look at the women of Avatar, pencil test animation, and a San Diego Comic-Con featurette. Paul Sabourin will be buying this.
Still stylish after all these years, the 50th anniversary edition of Gigi (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$20.98 SRP) features a beautifully restored print of the Gallic love story. The 2-disc edition features an audio commentary, vintage shorts, an in-depth making-of documentary, and the original 1949 nonmusical version of Gigi.
And if that’s not enough French fare for you, then how about a new special edition of Gene Kelly in An American In Paris (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$20.98 SRP)? It’s fully restored as well, with an audio commentary, classic shorts, a making-of documentary, a profile of Kelly, an outtake song sequence, and more.
Did anybody watch the Grey’s Anatomy spin-off Private Practice (ABC Studios, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP)? I suppose there must be someone out there that cared to see Kate Walsh’s Dr. Addison Montgomery move on, I guess. Either way, here’s the complete first season, featuring all 9 episodes plus featurettes, commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes, and more.
You can now snag the 2-disc special edition of Michael Bay’s Transformers (Paramount, Rated PG-13, DVD-$29.98 SRP) in new “transforming package”. Personally, I think the film is a giant, unintelligible piece of crap – and my opinion remains unchanged – but I know there are plenty of fans who will snap this up. It’s got the same audio commentary and featurettes, but the case transformers into that crappily designed big screen Megatron. Blech.
It seems like it’s taken almost 8 years just to get all 8 seasons of Will & Grace (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$44.98 SRP) on DVD, but the final season has finally arrived. The 4-disc set features all 23 episodes, plus interviews with the cast, audio commentary, a featurette, and outtakes.
The second season of the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$79.98 SRP) is still an awful mess of poorly written scripts and baffling characters that makes for an almost comically bad series that – with just a small amount of tweaking – might actually be a great show. It’s just that – as it’s handled now – it feels like a very poor man’s X-Files/Angel hybrid. The 5-disc box set features all 13 episodes, plus the Torchwood Declassified behind-the-scenes episodes, deleted scenes, outtakes, and a look at the life and deaths of Captain Jack.
And, while it’s not the Doctor Who release I was hoping for, the complete first season of Torchwood had made its way to Blu-Ray (BBC, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$99.98 SRP) sporting the same bonus features as the standard DVD release. Here’s hoping the Doctor arrives in high-def in the near future.
Garishly colorful, borderline seizure-inducing, and practically incomprehensible, the Wachowski Brothers’ take on Speed Racer (Warner Bros., Rated PG, DVD-$28.98 SRP) is one of those awful films that you just can’t take your eyes off of, as you desperately look for some kind of redeeming value and marvel at the brightly-colored awkwardness on display. But at least John Goodman is watchable. And they found something to do with Christina Ricci’s forehead. So there’s that. Bonus features include a pair of featurettes.
It’s mostly a soapy mess, but the real reason to at least check out the first season of Dirty Sexy Money (Buena Vista, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP) is for the performance of Donald Sutherland as the stupid rich patriarch of New York’s troubled (and in trouble) Darling family. The 3-disc set features all 10 episodes, plus audio commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, bloopers, and more.
Oh, Mike Myers… I truly believe that you honestly thought that The Love Guru (Paramount, Rated PG-13, DVD-$34.98 SRP) was funny. Watchable, even. Sadly, it’s neither of those things. It is painful, however, and hopefully marks the low point before Myers makes a comeback. We hope. Bonus features include featurettes, deleted scenes, outtakes, and more. A Blu-Ray edition is also available ($39.99 SRP), with identical bonus features.
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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Comments: 2 Comments
2 Responses to “Weekend Shopping Guide 9/19/08: Pete & Dud Unleashed”Leave a Reply |
September 19th, 2008 at 5:06 am
Personally, I think the film is a giant, unintelligible piece of crap – and my opinion remains unchanged – but I know there are plenty of fans who will snap this up. It’s got the same audio commentary and featurettes, but the case transformers into that crappily designed big screen Megatron. Blech.
September 20th, 2008 at 12:20 pm
That Duckman DVD is going to kick some serious ass