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 been years – YEARS! – since fans were left in the lurch after the release of the third season, but the waiting game comes to an end with the release of Rocky & Bullwinkle & Friends: Complete Season 4 (Classic Media, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP). Gone are the lovely bonus features, but at least we get 19 more episodes of remastered hilarity.

You want not only the ultimate remote control, but also the ultimate wireless keyboard? You know, the kind of keyboard that allows you to do anything from a distance, in ridiculous comfort? Well, the ProMini Wireless Keyboard with Trackpad ($69.99) fits the bill, allowing you to pretty much do whatever you’d want to do with your electronics. It’s almost scary.

While I didn’t dislike it, I was certainly disappointed in Ricky Gervais’s The Invention of Lying. It just never seemed to gel into the kind of transcendent piece he was capable of. Well, Gervais and co-writer/co-director Stephen Merchant have hit all the right notes with the elegant, elegiac Cemetery Junction (Sony, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$30.96 SRP), a period piece about a trio of friends in a dead-end town in 1970’s England and the difficulties in dreaming yourself out of a bleak future. Bonus materials include audio commentaries, interviews, featurettes, deleted scenes, and bloopers.

I didn’t think I’d much care for it, but I was pleasantly delighted by Emma Thompson’s Nanny McPhee (Universal, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$26.98 SRP), which has a verve and fun energy that elevates it beyond just a Mary Poppins clone. It’s now in high definition, with an audio commentary, featurettes, deleted scenes, and a gag reel.

It’s the full text – a rarity in filmed form – and one can certainly say that Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$34.99 SRP) is an epic, star-studded undertaking. Whether one can say it’s entertaining is a matter of taste – personally, I tend to drift in and out of it. Still, it does look incredible in high definition – as it was filmed in 65mm. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, featurettes, introduction from Branagh, the 1996 Cannes Film Festival promo, and the theatrical trailer.

Claire Danes is wonderful as the lead in the biopic Temple Grandin (HBO, Not Rated, DVD-$26.98 SRP), about a young woman who didn’t let autism – a mysterious condition during her childhood of which little was known – stand in her way, as she eventually became an expert in animal behavior. Oh, just watch it. Bonus features include an audio commentary and a making-of featurette.

Never really watched One Tree Hill (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP), but I’m sure there’s a dedicated fanbase eager for the complete 7th season set, where they’ll also be rewarded with deleted scenes, featurettes, audio commentaries, and a gag reel.

Despite knowing the creators/showrunners, I’ve never been able to get into Courtney Cox’s MILF comedy Cougar Town (ABC Studios, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP). Maybe it’s because the writing just seems so forced (something the creators/showrunners suffered from on the latter seasons of their previous show, Scrubs). Either way, the first season set contains featurettes, deleted scenes, and bloopers.

Take a group of overweight Brits, dress them in period clothes, and make them participate in weight loss regimens commensurate with those periods. What do you have? The documentary series The Diets That Time Forgot (Acorn, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP).

Saved from the ax by DirecTV, the 4th season of Friday Night Lights (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP) changes things up in its truncated 13 episodes, bringing in new characters in the aftermath of the splitting of the school district. Bonus materials include audio commentaries, deleted scenes, intros, and a trio of featurettes.

It’s been a slightly bumpy road the past few seasons, but everything course-corrected and ended exactly as everyone thought it would in the fourth and final season of Ugly Betty (ABC Studios, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP), as Betty steps out of her awkward, ugly duckling phase. Bonus materials include audio commentaries, webisodes, featurettes, deleted scenes, and bloopers.

The fine folks at Sideshow continue to deliver tremendously spiffy collectibles to Disney fans, following up on their incredible premium format Evil Queen from Snow White and The Rocketeer with an absolutely massive mquette of Fantasia‘s Chernabog ($299.99). Clocking in at 18″ high and an expansive 13″ wide, the piece contains a light feature that illuminates the underside of the demon’s front section, and the Sideshow Exclusive edition also contains one of Chernabog’s minions.

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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