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 realize now I read a Neil Gaiman story for the places you shouldn’t go but must, the innocence gained in innocence lost, and the light lurking about in the darkness. All of those elements are woven into the fabric of The Ocean At The End Of The Lane (William Morrow, $25.99 SRP), a tightly told tale that ranks among his best. So just go read it. Now.
Daleks! You can never have enough Daleks! Small ones, big ones, plastic ones, metal ones – even inflatable ones. Measuring an impressive 47″ tall and available in a variety of colors, the gents at Thinkgeek are stocking an Inflatable Dalek ($39.99). That’s right. AN INFLATABLE DALEK. You know you want one. Or a dozen.
If the 4th season was Walter White extricating himself from the dangerous position he had gotten himself into, the first half of Breaking Bad: Season Five (Sony, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$65.99 SRP) finds the unpredictable Heisenberg taking the reigns of a full-fledged drug empire on his own terms… For better or worse. Which, granted, we won’t know for sure how it all winds up until the show wraps this Fall. Bonus features include audio commentaries, behind-the-scenes featurettes, and a gag reel.
Hey hey hey! Another childhood favorite gets the deluxe special edition treatment from the fine folks at Shout Factory with the debut of Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids: The Complete Series (Shout Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$119.99 SRP). While there has been a previous release of the show, this iteration gets a full remaster – looking and sounding better than it did in its original network airing. There’s also a snazzy new documentary on the making of the show with creator Bill Cosby.
As much as can be said for the uneven show, the 3rd season of MadTV (Shout Factory, Not Rated, DVD-$29.93 SRP) is probably its strongest, with a strong cast (including Phil Lamarr, Nicole Sullivan, Debra Wilson, Will Sasso, and Alex Borstein) that came to play.
The lasagna-loving tabby is back with a whole new fixation in the latest collection of episodes – The Garfield Show: Pizza Dreams (Vivendi, Not Rated, DVD-$14.93 SRP), featuring six episodes plus a handful of shorts.
A comedy about an aging magical double act whose friendship since childhood splinters when a new stunt-based act comes on the scene? You’d think there’d be plenty of comedy to mine with a cast that includes Steve Carell and Steve Buscemi as the duo and Jim Carrey as the stunt performer, but except for Carrey’s inspired turn, The Incredible Burt Wonderstone (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$35.99 SRP) never manages to reach the heights it should, which is a shame. For a better take on the same material, take a look at Magicians, starring David Mitchell & Robert Webb. Bonus materials include deleted/alternate scenes, featurettes, and a gag reel.
And now, your comedy album round up for this week brings Bob Saget: That’s What I’m Talkin’ About (New Wave Dynamics, $13.89 SRP), Brian Posehn: The Fartist (New Wave Dynamics, $12.99 SRP), Owen Benjamin: High Five Til It Hurts (Comedy Central, CD/DVD-$14.98 SRP), and Kumail Nanjiani: Beta Male (Comedy Central, CD/DVD-$13.99 SRP).
Inspired by actual events, Phantom (Fox, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP) is a Cold War game of cat and mouse aboard a missing Soviet sub between a battle-hardened captain (Ed Harris) and a rogue KGB agent (David Duchovny with the fate of the world in the balance. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, featurettes, and a music video.
Still reeling from an attempt on his life, Detective Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) begins the march towards closure in the final season of CSI: NY (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$64.99 SRP). Bonus materials include featurettes, the CSI crossover episode, the Vegas/NY crossover, featurettes, deleted scenes, and a gag reel.
When it comes to affordable entertainment, no one beats the economy-priced fare from the folks at Mill Creek. The latest batch of titles are an eclectic mix, with standard DVD releases of the SyFy Channel miniseries Tin Man (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$25.00 SRP) and the documentary The United States Military: History Of Heroes (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$9.98 SRP). They’ve also got a clutch of high definition releases, including the double feature titles The Nines/Slipstream and Universal Soldier: The Return/Second In Command (Mill Creek, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$9.98 SRP each), and the documentary JFK: A New World Order (Mill Creek, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$14.98 SRP).
For the past few years, the fine folks at Diamond Select Toys – purveyors of pop culture collectibles – have been putting out a range of items based on the most seminal of comedy-horror films, Ghostbusters. The latest batch of times sure to tempt even the most casual fan include a faithfully-sculpted 8″ Slimer Bank ($19.99 SRP), a party-ready Slimer Gelatin Mold ($14.99 SRP), and a Ghostbusters Silicone Tray ($14.99 SRP), which perfectly crafts ice ready for your next spooky cocktail.
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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I wasn’t sure what to expect from 
Thinkgeek time! Googly eyes are fun. You know it. I know it. And you know what’s even more gun than googly eyes? 
It doesn’t have the flash bang of a Harry Potter, but the Diary Of A Wimpy Kid series continues to get soplidly entertaining adaptations with its aging cast, the latest being the summer-themed 
Mike Birbiglia’s 
I find Seth MacFarlane’s humor to be hot & cold, but for the most part, the be-careful-what-you-wish-for comedy 
Even after watching the entire first season, I’m still not sure if I like Lena Dunham’s celebration of privileged naval-gazing, 
As a kid watching the early days of The Disney Channel, I must have seen 
I’m all for Jeremy Renner, but I think he got the short end of the stick in trying to follow up an absent Matt Damon in 
If you’ve only ever seen Gordon Ramsay being all shouty and sweary in his various programs, you should try seeing him in a more relaxed mood, just doing what he loves, and does well. And hey, you can see exactly that on 
It’s a messy failure, but Warren Beatty certainly seemed to be genuinely interested in trying to bring 
Though I still find Robert Pattinson to be a cipher as an actor, that works for his role in David Cronenberg’s 
You’ve got to hand it to director Gordon Liu – if you want a non-stop adrenaline rush of martial arts fury, look no further than the bombastically-titled 
So what happens if you combine the adrenaline rush of Run Lola Run with the dangerous world of New York City bike messengers by giving a messenger a delivery that results in deadly chase through the streets? You get the surprisingly enjoyable thriller 
Also making their high definition debut this week are the catalogue titles 
Forget every memory you’ve etched in your brain about the Schwarzenegger flick, because the new 
This week also brings a pair of Showtime series to DVD, including the first season of the Don Cheadle vehicle 
After his awkward piece of performance art at the Republican National Convention, it’s a shame that the next time we saw Clint Eastwood on film it’s in the turgid 
Various elements are certainly dated, but there are some genuine scares to be found in the classic UK television anthology 
It’s not the recent 25th anniversary concert that brought the house down at the O2, but 
US Marshal Matt Dillon (James Arness) is back in the saddle for 
Serious baseball nuts with disposable cash will probably want to pick up the official Major League Baseball 
They’ve become as regular as the seasons, but 
Not nearly as polarizing as his son, it’s easy to watch the documentary about George Herbert Walker Bush, 
It can be very Lifetime Movie “Up With People”, but at least the History Channel’s miniseries 
Get a whole new clutch of short attention span comedy with the complete second season of 
In 1964, James Whitmore starred in a powerful adaptation of John Howard Griffin’s 
The crew of the Planet Express return in the 2nd of the 4 direct-to-DVD adventures that manage the rare feat of resurrecting a show with not only the same level of quality of the original run, but above and beyond it. 
If you were to transplant Grosse Point Blank to Belgium, you’d wind up with 
If I have one disappointment with the soundtrack album to Pixar’s 
I’ve spoken many times of my Anglophilia, and my fascination with the oftimes bizarre and eccentric history of England. With that in mind, it’s understandable that I dug right in to 
The History Channel’s dramatic recreations of classic wartime aerial combat makes their high-flying return with the complete second season of 
I don’t know why exactly it is that it seems the bulk of today’s kiddie flicks compare unfavorably to the classics of yesteryear. Maybe it’s that manufactured sheen that it all seems to have – CGI is a sterile tool, and it adds a cold, uninvolved feeling to modern children’s films. Case in point is 
If I had a time machine, somewhere on “to do” list would be to travel back just a few short years to when people like Michael Eisner and Jeffrey Katzenberg proclaimed 2-D animation a dead artform and slap them over the head with a copy of the film 
I’m all for goofy, well-written fun in kids shows, and 
Genre-bending shows are always a gamble on network television, as viewers are usually slow on the uptake and executives are quick to lower the axe. Occasionally, one slips through the cracks and is given some legs – such as 
Despite the hokey kitsch value the success of the Broadway musical version has brought it, 
If you were to take that early 90’s HBO staple Dream On and transport it to Showtime and reinvent it as an edgy dramedy about a sex and drug addicted author (David Duchovny), you’d have 
If you were to ask Roland Emmerich to remake Caveman, the result would be 
Ignore that abysmal Roland Emmerich flick, and delve into the real pre-history with