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…)
I’ve been waiting a fair while for it to make its way on to Blu-Ray, if only to see if the many previous DVD restorations could be improved on. I’m happy to say that the new high definition transfer of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho (Universal, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$26.98 SRP) looks and sounds wonderful, and should delight fans. Bonus features are nothing to shake a stick at, either, porting over the making-of featurettes, newsreel footage, scene analyses, audio commentary, and photos of the last special edition. More Hitchcock, please. Fast.
If you want a stylus that keeps your smartphone or tablet clean as you touch, touch, touch away, then give a spin to the iClooly Multitouch Pen ($9.99), which features a brush at the end. That’s right – no more need for greasy fingers, with the added benefit of accuracy.
Too often, travel journalism tends to see the forest and not the trees, which is why I so thoroughly enjoyed Dom Joly’s The Dark Journalist: Sightseeing In The World’s Most Unlikely Holiday Destinations (Simon & Schuster, £12.99 SRP), because he makes it feel like we’re right there with him – including all of the simple little eccentricities that we all experience on a trip – even though his journeys take him to the likes of Iran, North Korea, Beirut, and, yes, even America. Oh, and he brings true humor to his observations, which is a welcome respite from dour-faced travelogues. Just get this book.
It wasn’t exactly filmed with the highest budget, but the improved picture quality and sound mix brought to the high definition Rocky Horror Picture Show (Fox, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$34.98 SRP) are an exceptional improvement, even if the extras are not terribly impressive – and still don’t include VH1’s excellent documentaries from years past. Still, fans will be snapping this up regardless, and will probably enjoy the new Shadowcast picture-in-picture feature.
I’m a relatively young guy… relatively… But watching a 20-year-old like Bo Burham makes me equal parts impressed and bitterly jealous at just how powerfully creative he is at such a young age. I’m kind of pissed off about it, actually. Watch his latest Comedy Central special, Words Words Words (Comedy Central, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), and I’m sure you’ll be just as impressed and pissed off as I am. Be sure to pick up the companion Words Words Words CD (Comedy Central Records, $12.98 SRP) as well. And then just sit and stew. And laugh. And then stew some more. And feel old. So very, very old.
It doesn’t hold a candle to The Six Million Dollar Man, but fans can now pick up the first season of spin-off series The Bionic Woman (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), in which Steve Austin’s beloved, Jamie Summers, becomes a bionic hero in her own right. The 4-disc set contains all 13 episodes, plus the 5 Six Million Dollar Man crossover episodes, audio commentaries, a featurette, and a gag reel.
In the same spirit as their landmark nature documentaries of the 50’s, Disney has leapt back into the game in full force with DisneyNature, whose latest features go under the sea in Oceans (Walt Disney, Rated G, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) and a bit pink with Crimson Wing: Mystery Of The Flamingos (Walt Disney, Rated G, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP). Both releases contain featurettes and filmmaker annotations, as well as bonus standard DVDs.
It’s rare to find a whip smart comedy nowadays, but the very New York Please Give (Sony, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$34.95 SRP) is just that, starring Catherine Kenner and Oliver Platt as a married couple whose plans to expand their family into the apartment of their ailing, elderly neighbor puts them in direct conflict with her granddaughters. Bonus materials include featurettes and outtakes.
Really, the only one worth getting is the first one, but for high definition at so cheap a price, you might as well get the Robocop Trilogy box set (MGM, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$59.99 SRP) – again, as long as you remember that the first film is required geek viewing, but the last two are abysmal.
If you neglected to pick up the complete series set last year and have instead been going season by season you’ll be happy to know that Fox has decided you can now pick up what you’ve been missing to wrap things up – Ally McBeal: Season 3, Ally McBeal: Season 4, & Ally McBeal: Season 5 (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP each). All three seasons feature the original music, but sadly not a single bonus feature.
While I can really do without any child of mine seeing the Sesame Street: Preschool Is Cool! Counting With Elmo disc (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP) – you know, because of my longtime hate of Elmo – I can heartily recommend the celebratory Sesame Street: C Is For Cookie Monster (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), featuring clips aplenty of our favorite blue monster (Well, him and Grover are tied).
Gabriel Byrne returns as psychotherapist Dr. Paul Weston in the second season of HBO’s In Treatment (HBO, Not Rated, DVD-$59.99 SRP), recently divorced and related to Brooklyn, and in the process of rebuilding his practice. The 7-disc set contains all 35 episodes.
I thought Romeo + Juliet (Fox, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$34.99 SRP) was hyperkinetic overload and Moulin Rouge (Fox, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$34.99 SRP) was a jumbled mess, but there’s no denying that Baz Luhrmann’s films were made for high definition, as these new editions prove. Both discs include audio commentaries, featurettes, trailers, and more.
Gene Roddenberry writing a sex-fueled black comedy high school murder mystery? Starring Rock Hudson, Telly Savalas, and Angie Dickinson? That’s Pretty Maids All In A Row (Warner Bros., Rated R, DVD-$24.95), now available exclusively from the Warner Archive.
As election season heats up, give a spin to the Politics & Presidents of Mike Wallace’s 20th Century series (Acorn, Not Rated, DVD-$49.99 SRP). The 10 episodes feature a wealth of insightful interviews with historians and some of the actual participants themselves.
While they’ve yet to introduce it in their native 12″ line, Sideshow has imported a pair of much requested 12″ Star Wars figures from Medicom in Japan – the lovable droids R2-D2 ($189.99) and C-3PO ($199.99). The detailing on both is exquisite and screen accurate to the original trilogy, right down to the obvious grime coating R2. Both also have LED light-up features – the dome light on R2 and C-3PO’s eyes. If you’ve been waiting for these guys as long as I have, you should snap these up as soon as possible, before they’re gone.
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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