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 n ice that the original adaptation of John Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Acorn, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$59.99 SRP), starring Sir Alec Guinness as the sidelined spy George Smiley who’s tapped to root out a mole, makes its high-def debut at the same time as the new big screen Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Universal, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$34.98 SRP), starring Gary Oldman as Smiley. Both are beautiful bits of clockwork intrigue and suspense, but Guinness gets the edge only because, as a mini-series, the story is allowed to breath and get far richer in its plot and character. Both, however, are worth watching.
If you want to make your weekend decidedly Kubrickian, why not go about your life and run your errands wearing your very own Horse Head Mask ($25.99). Not only will you be a true individual, but you’ll also be downright creepy.
There are quite a few ways that The Muppets (Walt Disney, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$49.99 SRP) is just an awful, misguided attempt to bring Jim Henson’s beloved creations back into the public consciousness. Perhaps the one that galls me the most is that this really isn’t a film about The Muppets. It’s fanfiction about Jason Segal and his resurrection of The Muppets with the help of a character he created, the Anything-Muppet Walter… Who’s really just a proxy for Jason Segal. If you’re going to make a film about The Muppets, present them without first setting them up to have become culturally irrelevant failures, and also, maybe, let them be the actual stars of their own damn film, and not second fiddles. So, yeah. Anyhoo, bonus materials include an audio commentary, featurettes, a blooper reel, and more.
I’m not about to go and say it’s anything brilliant, but as far as family films about the Easter Bunny as played by Russell Brand go, Hop (Universal, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$39.98 SRP) is a fun little diversion with enough humor and energy yo make for an enjoyable watch with the kids. Even with the pooping jelly beans thing. Bonus materials include a new mini-movie, featurettes, and more.
It’s not very often that a stage play makes the transition to film and retains its single location, and even rarer that it actually works, but Carnage (Sony, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$35.99 SRP) uses its enclosed locale to brilliantly bring together the parents of a bully with the parents of his victim for a conversational dinner that devolves into verbal warfare. The ensemble is the key, and John C. Reilly, Jodie Foster, Kate Winslet, and Christoph Waltz pull it off beautifully. Bonus materials include a trio of featurettes.
Fans of ABC Family’s series about a high school student leading a double life as a fashion house intern, Jane By Design (ABC Family, Not Rated, DVD-$29.99 SRP) can pick up the first volume, containing the initial 10 episodes of its debut season.
Jonah Hill’s blink-and-you-missed-it The Sitter (Fox, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) is an affable, if unmemorable piece of pass-the-time comedy. Think Adventures In Babysitting, but raunchy. And with Jonah Hill. Bonus materials include featurettes, deleted scenes, outtakes, and more.
MGM opens their vaults for more releases from their MOD Limited Edition Collection. Titles this time around include John Huston’s Sinful Davey (MGM, Rated R, DVD-$19.98), Robert Carradine & Billy Dee Williams in Number One With A Bullet (MGM, Rated R, DVD-$19.98), Anthony Edwards & Kathy Bates in the Depression-era romance Summer Heat (MGM, Rated R, DVD-$19.98), and the National Enquirer-esque tabloid spoof The American Snitch (MGM, Rated R, DVD-$19.98).
While many of you are waiting for the cinematic arrival of The Hunger Games, there are many who claim that it’s ripping off a now-legendary cult Japanese action flick that’s getting a deluxe treatment with Battle Royale: The Complete Collection (Anchor Bay, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$49.99 SRP), which features multiple cuts of the film, the sequel, and loads of bonus materials. So if you want to check out if this bloody war between Japanese Junior High students and see how it stacks up against Hunger Games, this is the way to do it.
Deep in the caves of Androzani Minor, the Doctor and Peri are swept up in a struggle full of political backstabbing and murder pitting Androzani Major against a deformed madman named Sharaz Jek. Well, now you can get both Jek and Peri via the nifty Caves Of Androzani Set ($40), so you can finally re-enact the death of Peter Davison’s 5th Doctor.
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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