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 FRED Weekend Shopping Guide – your spotlight on the things you didn’t even know you wanted…

(Please support FRED by using the links below to make any impulse purchases – it helps to keep us going…)

It’s slow and steady, but as a character piece about a broken down country star living on dive bar and bowling alley gigs who finds a shot at redemption both personally and professionally, Crazy Heart (Fox, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) is a tour de force for Jeff Bridges. I’ve always dug Bridges, and he certainly deserved the Oscar for this turn. Bonus materials include a featurette, deleted scenes, and alternate music cuts.

With the Freeloader Pico Solar Charger ($39.99), you’ll be hard pressed to get caught out without at least some ability to recharge your oh-so-important gadgets on the go, as the sun is your is all you need to build up a back-up, and the Freeloader can then be unloaded whenever you need it.

Stripped of its lush, immersive, big screen 3-D and viewed on a much smaller, decidedly 2-D home TV screen, Avatar (Fox, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) becomes what it always was – an overblown, awkward, cinematic equivalent, in blue, of purple prose sci-fi. Sometimes, films are really about the gimmick. Even though it’s in 2-D, though, the transfer is crystal clear, and you’d better enjoy it, because there’s absolutely no bonus features whatsoever in this release, so you can be sure a deluxe special edition will be available for the holidays.

For all of the waiting and hoping, Peter Jackson’s adaptation of The Lovely Bones (Paramount, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$48.99 SRP) turns out to be a mostly forgettable affair that has more in common with the turgid What Dreams May Come than I would have liked. In brief, the story is about a murdered 14-year-old girl caught in a limbo between life and death, who must help her family catch her killer and protect her family before she can move on. The really interesting thing about the 2-disc set, though, is the hours of diary segments included…Though it should come as no surprise, considering Jackson’s massive Rings and Kong sets.

I’m become a bit tired of him as an actor, but it’s in rewatching a film like The Basketball Diaries (Palm, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$24.99 SRP) that I’m reminded just what a powerful actor the young Leonardo DiCaprio was. This new edition is lacking in any bonus features, but the picture and sound are certainly the best they’ve been.

Similar to their recent attempt to present a younger, hipper version of Robin Hood to simpletons with a short attention span, the BBC tackled the legend of Merlin (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$49.98 SRP) by giving us a young wizard newly arrived in Camelot, still learning his way, who finds himself at odds with the young heir to the kingdom, a chap named Arthur. Did you see that coming? The 5-disc first season set contains all 13 episodes, plus audio commentaries, featurettes, video diaries, and a gallery.

Slowly but surely, we’re catching up on the releases of Gordon Ramsay’s excellent cooking show, The F Word (BFS, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). The fourth series brings us a whole new crop of celebrity guests, celebrity cook-offs, remote ingredient locales, and much more. The 4-disc set contains all 12 episodes.

Journey back to the crazy days of local television genre hosts – from kiddie to horror programming – via the documentary Every Other Day Is Halloween (Brink DVD, Not Rated, DVD-$19.95 SRP), which examines the life of TV personality Dick Dyszel, whose host creations still inspire those who watched him decades ago. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, extended/deleted scenes, the AFI world premiere, and even a limited edition Channel 20 Club Car reproduction.

As both Dallas and Dynasty wind down their DVD releases, it was only a matter of time before we got Falcon Crest (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP). The 4-disc set contains all 18 first season episodes of northern California winery-based drama.

I was never a fan of the show, but it had enough of a fan base to last quite a few seasons, and those fans are surely the target audience of The Drawn Together Movie: The Movie (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$29.99 SRP), which takes the animated raunch of the television version and cranks it up to unrated territory. Bonus materials include featurettes, confessionals, and more.

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

##

Comments: None