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 know it should no longer impress me, because they’ve done it with each of their classic high definition releases, but Disney’s restoration of their newest Diamond Edition, Lady And The Tramp (Walt Disney, Rated G, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP), is truly beautiful. Never has this film looked so sharp and vibrant, and it makes the wait for the remaining classic titles to hit Blu-Ray that much harder. Bonus materials include all of those featured on the previous DVD Platinum Edition, plus deleted scenes, a deleted song, a lovely featurette on Walt’s Disneyland apartment, and more.
Celebrate special events in aeronautic style with the incredibly easy to use (and quite beautiful) Sky Lanterns Mini Hot Air Balloon ($3.99). This simple paper hot air balloon features a small flame source under a paper balloon, which can soar up to a mile high. And it’s completely biodegradable.
Following up on his stellar turn in series 5, Murray Gold keeps the roll going with his music for Doctor Who: Series 6 (Silva Screen, $18.10 SRP). The 2-disc set contains cues from all 13 episodes, including his epic “Majestic Tale (Of A Madman In A Box)”. Ace.
It’s very much of the period, but there’s no denying that the chemistry between Ryan O’Neal and Ali McGraw as two star-crossed lovers is what made Love Story (Paramount, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$22.99 SRP) such a success way back in 1970, and it’s certainly worth revisiting over 40 years later in high definition. Bonus materials include an audio commentary and a retrospective featurette.
Collecting together a trio of character-based live specials from earlier in his career, Steve Coogan Live (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$24.99 SRP) is worth a spin if you’re only familiar with Coogan from his recent feature film work, or just Alan Partridge. Bonus materials include additional Australia highlights, animations, and Steve Coogan: The Inside Story.
If you’re in the mood for a brilliant little two-hander, Cormac McCarthy’s The Sunset Limited (HBO, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$34.98 SRP) stars Samuel L. Jackson as Black, a man who has just stopped White (Tommy Lee Jones) from committing suicide at the train station. Black takes White back to his apartment, where he proceeds to try and convert him to the faith… in something.
If there’s one overriding takeaway from the Harold & Kumar movies, is that they’re really not interested in anything much besides giving audiences a pleasant viewing experience. In that, A Very Harold & Kumar Christmas (Warner Bros., Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$35.99 SRP) doesn’t deviate too much, though it does find our pothead protagonists a few years older and separated, as Harold is married and living a big-money existence in the suburbs while Kumar… Well, Kumar is still Kumar, just a little older and sadder for it. Ah, but this is a holiday movie, so circumstances unite them both for a truly mad adventure that does, indeed, feature the return of Neil Patrick Harris. Of course. Bonus materials include deleted scenes and a pair of featurettes.
Lucas Cruikshank’s internet sensation Fred Figglehorn returns for another adventure in the spooky Fred 2: Night Of The Living Fred (Lionsgate, Not Rated, DVD-$16.98 SRP), which finds our high-pitched hero desperate to prove his replacement music teacher is actually a vampire. Bonus materials include a clutch of featurettes and videos.
In the mood for a small character drama this weekend? Give a spin to Fireflies In The Garden (Sony, Rated R, DVD-$30.99 SRP), which finds a Midwestern family rocked by an accident on the eve of the matriarch’s decades-delayed graduation from college, which she had set aside to raise her now-adult kids while her husband pursued a career that has put him on the track to become university president. The disc sports a making-of featurette.
Alan Rickman and Emma Thompson star in the charming little drama The Song Of Lunch (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$14.98 SRP), about a book editor (Rickman) who meets up with his former love (Thompson) for lunch, 15 years after their breakup. Quite a nice two-hander.
Tween girls will probably want to snap up the Disney Channel movie Geek Charming (Walt Disney, Not Rated, DVD-$26.99 SRP), starring Modern Family‘s Sarah Hyland as a high school it girl rescued from humiliation by a film geek who decides to cast her in his documentary. Guess what? They fall in love and remake each other’s stereotypical expectations! Whoda thunk it? Bonus materials include 10 episodes of the series Shake It Up.
Having gained time travel abilities, the Daleks pursue the 1st Doctor and his companions in the 1965 story “The Chase”, eventually winding up on a jungle planet populated by Mechanoids sent decades prior to prepare the planet for human colonists that never arrived, who quickly take The Doctor and companions captive. Oh, and the Mechanoids and the Daleks don’t get along. You can now re-create that enmity with the Doctor Who: The Chase Collector’s Set (Underground Toys, $47.95), featuring a pair of classic silver Daleks facing off against the flame-wielding Mechanoid.
As a child of the early 80’s, I was a fan of just about any cartoon you can mention, both good and bad. Included in the bunch is the original, far superior run of GI Joe, which introduced a diabolical terrorist group bent on world domination named Cobra, with an iconic leader whose memorable voice and penchant for failure made him a favorite. Well, the fine folks at Sideshow have captured the iconic look of the one and only Cobra leader with their Cobra Commander Premium Format Figure . ($299) Standing regally evil with serpent scepter in hand and loaded pistol behind his back, you can display him with either his mirror-faced battle helmet or his hood via a pair of interchangeable heads. COOOBRAAAAAA!
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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If The Departed was Scorsese’s attempt to get a hold on Boston, Ben Affleck’s 
Write all of those holiday gift thank you letters in the most beautiful and pretentious way possible with the 
I greatly enjoyed the first Nanny McPhee movie, and hoped against hope that Emma Thompson would be able to maintain the same level of Poppins-esque whimsy, heart, and humor she captured so well. Thankfully, 
Going in, I didn’t know quite what to expect from 
It’s always nice to see a new collection of Groucho material, even if it’s all culled from the public domain – that doesn’t mean it’s something I’ve seen. 
If you want a prime example of exactly how NOT to capitalize on public knowledge of a pop culture fixture for a big screen relaunch, look no further than the lifeless, drab take on 
Fans who seemingly didn’t watch the poor-rated show when it was on can now partake of the final clutch of episodes via 
If your kids liked Happy Feet and really want to see a movie about owls, then 
It’s with a bit of a whimper that the once-riveting 
I must admit, I do so love an old school, cat & mouse thriller of the kind that Hitchcock and Carol Reed would make, and that’s exactly the type of methodically taut pace found in 
Many have wondered why some of the flicks being tackled by the folks at Cinematic Titanic weren’t addressed during their Mystery Science Theater run. Personally, I’m glad they weren’t – because it would deprive us of the top notch, stellar writing that a fully engaged and broken in Cinematic Titanic is now giving viewers, which comes from years of additional experience. It’s as if movie riffing has gone Bionic, and they’ve got full kung-fu grip, to boot. If you don’t believe me, check out their latest offering – a wretched waste of celluloid called 
Kick off the new year in a classy way with a pair of new special editions featuring Audrey Hepburn’s legendary star turns in 
With all of the stuff that comes in for feature in the shopping guide, being able to take good photos of said collectibles is definitely a plus. The best way to get a good photo is to construct a light box… But who has the time for that? That’s right – none of us. So your best bet is to pick up the handy 
The UK Channel 4 series 
As with most of these documentaries, there’s much to find fault with in so sweeping a project as 
Never ones to let a re-release go un-re-released, The Weinstein Company dusts off Jackie Chan’s 
Relive all of the absurdity found in each in every episode of 
You know that Blu-Ray has finally arrived as a format when you can purchase a snazzy, high definition copy of a cinema classic like 
I had high hopes for 
There’s a turgidness to director (and co-writer) Ed Harris’s western 
The residents of the Springfield Retirement Castle will be delighted with the arrival of the complete second season of Andy Griffith’s top flight southern lawyer, 
Mysterious abound as we plow through the quartet of episodes features in the second volume of 
The third installment is on the way, which means you can now partake of both of the previous installments of Kate Beckisndale doing something or another in both 
The classic tale of love & power gets a pretty decent update in 
Brad Garrett’s middling sitcom ‘
In the era of elevated morons like Joe the Plumber, a film like 
They still insist on releasing the 80’s Alvin & The Chipmunks series in unsatisfying single-disc collections, the latest of which focuses on the boys female counterparts, 
Getting a long-overdue top-to-bottom overhaul of it sound and picture, 
In our fast-paced, on-the-go, insert clich̩ world, making our entertainment mobile is a must. With iPhones, iPods, laptops, and other portable media devices Рplus scores of DVDs and TV shows to get through in a day Рfinding a way to automate the process of making those videos easily uploadable to your devices is a must. Enter the 
With the third 
It’s been almost a decade since Randy Newman put out a new album of original tunes – not since Bad Love for the doomed Dreamworks Records, in fact – and it was with some trepidation that I spun up 
Three years in and Everybody Hates Chris (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) has managed the rare feat of still being a quality, funny show. Unlike Malcolm In The Middle, which squandered its brilliant start by becoming a cartoon, Chris is still grounded in the reality it set up right from the beginning. The 4-disc set features all 22 episodes, plus audio commentaries, webisodes, interviews, featurettes, deleted scenes, a gag reel, and more.
Very rarely does a film manage to capture the of-times bizarre flights of fantasy that envelop the average childhood, so when a flick does manage to capture lightning in a bottle, it’s worth noting. Such is the case with Son Of Rambow (Paramount, Rated PG-13, DVD-$19.99), which finds a young boy discovering common ground with a bully by taking a video camera and a worn copy of Rambo: First Blood, and making a little cinematic magic of their own. To say anymore would ruin the fun, but suffice to say – see it. Bonus features include an audio commentary, the short film that inspired the movie, a making-of, and more. This title is currently a Best Buy exclusive.
Seven years after it came out with an underground, viral splash, Brotherhood Of The Wolf (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP) gets a new director’s cut and a 2-disc special edition, featuring a making-of documentary, deleted scenes, featurettes, storyboards, and more.
If you were in any sort of doubt that we were, in fact, in a presidential election year here in the US, let the immense American Experience: The Presidents Collection (PBS, Not Rated, DVD-$129.98 SRP) remind you. The 10-disc set features profiles on Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Harry Truman, The Kennedys, LBJ, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George HW Bush.
For all of the brilliance of Heroes‘ first season, its second season (Universal, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) fell into that awful, stereotypical sophomore season confusion that has derailed many a promising series before it. In fact, the best thing that happened to the season was probably the writer’s strike, which truncated the wrongheaded direction and allowed a rethink breather. We can only hope season 3 is a course correction. The 4-disc second season set features all 11 episodes, plus audio commentaries, an alternate ending and behind-the-scenes look at the episode “Generations”, featurettes, interviews, and a sneak peek at season 3.
By now, you pretty much now to expect quite a nice dramatic ride from Detective Vic Mackey, and the 6th season of The Shield (Sony, Not Rated, DVD-$59.95 SRP) doesn’t disappoint., as Internal Affairs is breathing down his neck and forced retirement is looming. The 4-disc set features all 10 episodes, plus audio commentaries, featurettes, and deleted scenes.
Mark Harmon and his team of crackerjack Naval Investigators are up against murderers, kidnappers, spies, terrorists, and tigers (maybe not tigers) in the 5th season of NCIS (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$59.98 SRP). The 5-disc set features all 18 episodes, plus audio commentaries, featurettes, and more.
See, I thought the arrival of Pixar’s John Lasseter and Ed Catmull at the head of Disney animation was going to put a stop to the roll-out of mediocre direct-to-video sequels. I guess there’s no stopping the Disney marketing machine, because here we are with The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning (Walt Disney, Rated G, DVD-$29.99 SRP), a prequel to the 1989 classic. Bonus features include deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes featurette, and more.
I gotta admit – even though I was never a big fan, I at least found some enjoyment from Entourage. With the fourth season (HBO, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP), I must say – I’m off it. The charm is gone, and the characters have devolved into soapy clichés. It’s a shame, because it at least had its charm. The 3-disc set features all 12 episodes, plus a trio of audio commentaries, featurettes, and a US Comedy Arts Festival panel with the cast.
Hunker down this weekend with the complete first seasons of a pair of new History Channel shows – UFO Hunters and Battle 360 (History Channel, Not Rated, DVD-$39.95 SRP each). The 4-disc set UFO Hunters features all 13 of the investigative (if misguided) episodes plus additional scenes, while the 4-disc Battle 360 sports all 10 episodes chronicling and recreating the USS Enterprise’s dramatic WWII battles, in addition to a clutch of bonus scenes.
The second volume of The Untouchables‘ second season (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) finds Elliot Ness and his G-Men shifting their focus away from alcohol and onto narcotics, and also expanding further afield than just the mean streets of Chicago. The 4-disc set contains 16-episodes.
Even though it’s more hit than miss, there’s a certain joy in discovering that there was once a sketch show that starred Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, Emma Thompson, Ben Elton, and Robbie Coltrane. That series – Alfresco (Acorn, Not Rated, DVD-$39.99 SRP) – is now available in its entirety on DVD, and is worth checking out for the talent alone.