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…)
All kudos, salutations, exaltations, hurrahs and huzzahs to Darrell Van Critters for assembling a long overdue and absolutely brilliant tribute and celebration of The Art Of Jay Ward Productions (Oxberry Press, $49.95 SRP). From Crusader Rabbit and Rocky & Bullwinkle to George Of The Jungle and Superchicken, it’s packed with artwork and information about the artists and the studio itself. Did I mention how brilliant this book is? Because it really is brilliant that such a wonderful tome now exists. So go get it. Quickly.
To say that Fruitvale Station (Anchor Bay, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) is a sobering film is an understatement, as it dramatizes the tragic shooting of 22-year-old Oscar Grant (Michael B. Jordan) by San Francisco BART officers on New Year’s Day 2009 – which was captured on cameras by his fellow passengers. Bonus materials include a filmmaker Q&A and a featurette.
After mainly focusing on shorts-based released for their DVD line – most likely due to ease of rights issues – the fine folks at Rifftrax have been increasing their feature-length releases, with a pair of brand new ones to ring in the new year. If you’re in the mood to extend your holiday celebrations, there’s the disturbing Santa’s Village Of Madness, or the somehow not quite as creepy Ghosthouse (Rifftrax, Not Rated, DVD-$9.95 each). Just get them both.
Fox has opened up their vaults again, going all the way back to the high definition debut of one of the very first Academy Award winners, 1929’s Sunrise (Fox, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP), packing it with an audio commentary, deleted scenes, trailers, and featurettes. Also arriving in high def are 1967’s In The Heat Of The Night (Fox, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$19.99 SRP), with commentary & featurettes, and 1985’s A Chorus Line (Fox, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$19.99 SRP), with the original theatrical trailer.
The surprise announcement that his younger brother is getting married sets off a chain reaction of bitterness and recrimination between the long-divorced but still very angry parents of Carter (Adam Scott), a man who is still caught in the emotional maelstrom of that dissolution in A.C.O.D.: Adult Children Of Divorce (Paramount, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP). It’s a wry little comedy marked by a stellar cast, including Catherine O’Hara, Richard Jenkins, and Amy Poehler. Bonus materials include cast & crew discussions, PSAs, and outtakes.
Watching Kevin Bacon be Kevin Bacon is the real reason to watch the spotty The Following (Warner Bros., Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$49.99 SRP), as it finds him cast as a former FBI agent brought back into the fold when a serial killer he put away nine years earlier (James Purefoy) escapes from death row intent on revenge and with a loyal cult of followers spread far and wide dedicated to carrying out his master plan. Bonus materials include an audio commentaries, featurettes, and deleted scenes.
The perfect antidote to the grating US version is a dose of the original power trio in their latest season with Top Gear 20 (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$18.98 SRP), which finds Clarkson, Hammond, and May racing against a yacht in New Zealand, blast across Spain, and seek the world’s fastest taxi. Bonus material includes Stig Cams and James May’s Greatest Moments in Top Gear History.
By the time we get to the third season of Enterprise (Paramount, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$129.99 SRP), any lingering franchise goodwill I had towards the show had long since evaporated in the face of a relentlessly mediocre offering, so the baby steps this season began taking to try and right the sinking ship very much smacked of too little, too late, but at least they were an improvement. Little did the show know, however, that this would prove to be their penultimate season of a voyage cut short. Bonus materials are, as with the previous Blu-Ray releases, where the real gems reside, with a brand new, wonderfully candid set of documentaries as well as new audio commentaries and all of the previous DVD features.
If you’re in the mood for a prestige mystery that manages to maintain it’s edgy drama throughout, try Top Of The Lake (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$34.98 SRP), which starts with a pregnant 12-year-old-girl who walks out into the freezing waters of a lake. She refuses to reveal who the father is, and then disappears from town… leaving behind more than one mystery for an inexperienced detective (Elisabeth Moss).
As the new episodes have slowed to a trickle, the Spongebob machine keeps on rolling by introducing a character-centric collection – Patrick Squarepants (Nickelodeon, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP) – which brings together 14 episodes centered around everyone’s favorite be-shorted starfish.
Just in time for the debut of the fifth season (naturally) comes the complete fourth season of Archer (Fox, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP). From the Bermuda Triangle to the Vatican, it’s a globe-hopping clusterfuh of Archerian proportions. Bonus materials include Archer Live! and a featurette.
It’s largely disposable entertainment, but Runner Runner (Fox, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) is fine as thriller, with engaging performances from Justin Timberlake as a Princeton grad student who believes he’s been swindled by a gambling tycoon (Ben Affleck), so he heads to Costa Rica and winds up gambling more than he anticipated in a high stakes game between the Tycoon and the FBI. Bonus materials include deleted scenes and a featurette.
Every once in awhile, The History Channel manages to set aside their godawful “reality” programming in favor of something truly enlightening and, dare I say, classy, like The Universe In 3D (History Channel, Not Rated, 3D Blu-Ray-$19.99 SRP), which brings their astronomical science series into the 3rd dimension.
Get your final fix of the period police drama Copper (BBC, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$59.98 SRP) with the second and final season, set in New York City on the brink of Lincoln’s assassination in a metropolis at war with itself. Bonus materials include set tours and featurettes.
The supernatural Three’s Company that is the US remake of Being Human (E1, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$49.98 SRP) rolls along with the release of the third season, which finds our vampire, werewolf, and ghost (plus Nora) struggling to keep their secrets hidden as things get more and more complicated. Isn’t that always the way? Bonus materials include featurettes, bloopers, and the 2013 San Diego Comic-Con panel.
Only a handful of releases of the long-running BBC series remain with the release of Last Of The Summer Wine: Vintage 2001 (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$34.98 SRP), featuring the ongoing comic misadventures of Holmfirth’s pensioners.
When you can watch the story of a woman on the coast of Scotland who crafts fishing lures that are renowned the world over for both their efficacy and their beauty and be absolutely enthralled, THAT is the mark of the true power of a well-crafted documentary. So do give a spin to Kiss The Water (Virgil Films, Not Rated, DVD-$19.99 SRP) and see if it lures you in as well.
It’s a new year, so howzabout a new round-up of soundtracks currently available for your listening pleasure? We’ve got Howard Shore’s The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug (WaterTower Music, $18.99 SRP), Anchorman 2 (Universal Republic, $11.88 SRP), Marcelo Zarvos’s Reaching For The Moon (Lakeshore, $9.99 SRP), Johnny Klimek & Reinhold Heil’s I, Frankenstein (Lakeshore, $15.35 SRP), and Rolfe Kent’s Labor Day (Warner Bros., $18.47 SRP).
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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