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 run hot and cold on Quentin Tarantino, and while I think it’s overlong, I really enjoyed his spaghetti western homage Django Unchained (Anchor Bay, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP). Anchored by outstanding performances from Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz, and Leo DiCaprio, it’s the perfect mix of Tarantino’s dialogue and chutzpah. Bonus materials include a clutch of featurettes, but an audio commentary is sorely missed.
David Tennant returns in the high stakes espionage thriller with Spies Of Warsaw (BBC, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$24.98 SRP) as Colonel Jean-Francis Mercier, a highly decorated war hero operating in a pre-World War II Europe filled with danger, intrigue, and love. Bonus materials include an interview with Tennant.
If This Is 40 is a loud, tone deaf look at relationships, Save The Date (MPI, Rated R, DVD-$24.98 SRP) is a sweetly low-key take on similar ground, as independent-minded Sarah (Lizzy Caplan) leaves her longtime boyfriend after his incredibly awkward public proposal, finds a new beau, runs afoul of her sister’s wedding plans, and… Well, just watch it. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, a music video, outtakes, and more.
If you’ve yet to experience the fun to be found in 3rd Rock From The Sun, now’s the perfect time to do so, as the fine folks at Mill Creek have just released the final two seasons of the show – Season 5 & Season 6 (Mill Creek, Not Rated, DVD-$9.98 SRP each) in ultra-low-priced fashion perfect for playing catch-up on a nifty little slapstick comedy.
And speaking of Mill Creek, they’ve also released the second season of That 70’s Show (Mill Creek, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$24.98 SRP) in 16×9 high definition, while porting over all of the bonus features from the original DVD release, including featurettes and commentaries. If only more sitcoms originally shot in HD were revisited this way, the world would be a happier place.
I could care less about sports, but I’m a sucker for a sports movie that makes you care about its characters, and that’s probably why – even 20 years after it was released – The Sandlot (Fox, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$19.99 SRP) still works as a charming little kid’s flick about a young boy who gets shown the ropes of baseball by the neighborhood kids. Bonus materials include a featurette, the trailer, and TV spots.
The BBC digs into their classy archives for the DVD release of their 1964 adaptation of Ford Madox Ford’s Parade’s End (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$24.98 SRP), starring a very young Judi Dench alongside Ronald Hines. Also dropping is the much more recent Women In Love (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$ SRP), based on the novels of D.H. Lawrence.
Proving that they can go just in deep in pleasing fans as the already-established MOD Warner Archive Collection, Fox’s Cinema Archives drops 7 never-before-released catalogue titles starring Jane Withers – High School, The Farmer Takes A Wife, Chicken Wagon Family, Rascals, Paddy O’Day, Golden Hoofs, and Little Miss Nobody (Fox, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP each).
This week’s soundtrack spotlight falls on a pair of BBC productions – one nature, one science fiction, and both great. First up is Roger Limb’s complete score for Doctor Who: The Caves Of Androzani (Silva Screen, $16.47 SRP), from Peter Davison’s tenure as the 5th Doctor. Second, we’ve got Sarah Class’s beautiful score to the epic BBC Earth documentary Africa (Silva Screen, $16.47 SRP).
It’s certainly not Pixar or even Dreamworks, but A Monster In Paris (Shout Factory, Rated PG, 3d Blu-Ray-$24.97 SRP) is an amiable musical adventure that features a clutch of songs performed by Sean Leonard and Vanessa Paradis.
Running for a remarkable 28 years, we’re so very close to entering the last decade of seasons with the release of Last Of The Summer Wine: Vintage 1998 (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$34.98 SRP), Roy Clarke’s celebration of aging, aging, and more aging. Plus mellow comedy.
Find out the fate of Camelot as Morganna and Modred plot its destruction in the fifth and final season of the BBC’s Merlin (BBC, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$59.98 SRP). Bonus materials include audio commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, storyboards, and outtakes.
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
##
It’s a true loss that Nat Hiken’s 
Even if you’re not steampunky, it’s hard to resist the charm of the positively beautiful 
I would say that 
The best way to describe the brilliant new stand-up special from the brilliant Paul F. Tompkins is that it’s an oral history of the career of comedian Paul F. Tompkins. Suffice to say, you would regret it for the rest of your days if you do not purchase 
The dandy scribe behind Downton Abbey, Julian Fellowes, explores another slice of class warfare – this time historic – with the 4-part miniseries 
Have a little Jackie Gleason-thon in high definition this weekend with the Blu-Ray arrival of the guilty pleasure comedy 
Fox has released another of their star-specific DVD collections, this time bringing together 10 films for the 
The fine folks at Mill Creek continue to re-release seasons of a handful of TV classics for staggeringly rock-bottom prices you’d be foolish not to take advantage of. Included this time around are 
A movie lover who devoured old films, my grandmother would have loved if I had gifted her the dirt cheap, 12-disc genre sets Mill Creek has been releasing, mainly because each of those 12-disc sets – flicks of the 1950’s in 
What do Ricky Gervais & Stephen Merchant do when they’re bored? They send the decidedly reticent Karl Pilkington on tour of the wonders of the world in 
I’m always interested in products that take up less room but still accomplish a job I need, which is why the 
It’s a new year, and waiting for us in the bright and shiny are a pair of new classic Doctor Who releases – the Jon Pertwee story 
Want to know just how snowed under I’ve been for, oh, ages? I actually missed that a pair of new Rifftrax shorts collections AND a Rifftrax holiday special had been released on DVD. Rectifying that glaring oversight, I’m here to recommend you rush over and pick up your very own copies of 
I resent a sports film that makes me like it in spite of it being a sports film. Because I really do not like sports. So damn you, 
What does work, though, is HBO’s miniseries adaptation of 
Want to be depressed this holiday season with a fearsome piece of plausible disaster? Then kick back with some egg nog and candy canes and watch 
You may not remember (though fans most certainly do), but there was a massive outcry a few years back when the first couple of seasons of both Roseanne & 3rd Rock From The Sun hit DVD. The trouble? Instead of the original broadcast versions of the episodes, the DVDs featured the edited syndication cuts. Yeah, so fans were not happy. Well, thanks to the fine folks at Mill Creek, you can now get 
The kids will feel a seasonal chill from 
Though it’s produced by Martin Scorsese and one of the writers from The Sopranos, the period piece 
It’s the end of the road for Steve McGarrett as we finally arrive at the 12th and final season of 
Buoyed by still-powerful performances from Gary Oldman & Chloe Webb, 
I have to be honest in saying I’m not much for the dimensional beastie hijinks of 
Following on the heels of the incredible Citizen Kane presentation on Blu-Ray, another legendary piece of cinema gets a stunning delivery in high definition – William Wyler’s epic 
If you’re up to mischief, there’s no better way to manage it than with your very own 
Made on the cheap after the failure of Fantasia and on the eve the US’s entrance into the second World War, 
The remake looks 4 kinds of awful, so it’s good that we can go back and relive the 80’s charm of the original 
Every time I’ve heard a story about a lion in the suburbs, I’ve been curious about what other exotic – and dangerous – pets may be lurking in suburbia. Well, 
The kids and hipsters alike will want to snap up 
Set in the 1950’s, 
Yeah, I think it about time we finally get to meet the titular mother of 
If your kids are not quite old enough for Jack Sparrow but love all of the pirate material in Peter Pan, they’ll probably love 
If you’d like to see a “historical” dramatization with shaky history and an unpalatable agenda at work, look no further than 
Scholastic continues to produce their outstanding line of Storybook Treasures Read-Along DVD sets, with the latest must-have collections for anyone with a young reader in their life being 
It took me a second to realize the figure on the cover of 
It’s a terribly bleak meditation on aging and not terribly suitable for kids who aren’t in the middle of an existential crisis, which may be an odd assessment to some considering I’m talking about 
There’s something oh so juvenile but oh so fun about having 
The 25th anniversaries are coming fast and furious, as hot on the heels of Back To The Future comes 
A few years ago, mentalist/sorcerer supreme Derren Brown released a book that provided tantalizing glimpses into his life but largely served as a sort of overview to the methodology behind his magic. Now, however, he’s returned with a proper autobiography, 
A few years back, when the 
It’s not nearly as enjoyable or as cohesive as Band Of Brothers, but there’s still plenty of fascinating history – and accompanying visuals – to be had in its follow-up mini-series, 
It’s a growing trend to create books packed with reproductions of ephemera, and you can add the Harry Potter film franchise to that list with the release of 
I’ve made it this far in my life without ever having seen 
Just in time for the holidays – and hot on the heels of his stage comeback – you can pick up the complete 5-season run of 
It’s a big ol’ festive mess of a film, but I have a special place in my heart for 
Join photographer Murray Fredericks as he travels into the remote, dangerous, formidable, and breathtakingly beautiful Lake Eyre, a massive salt lake in the north corner of South Australia. The documentary, 
It’s clearly Robert Rodriguez’s attempt to make the same impact on the Predator franchise that James Cameron made with Aliens, but Rodriguez’s 
My unwavering love for Star Wars has wavered quite a bit since George Lucas slapped us with the prequels, but occasionally something comes along that reignites that enthusiasm, if only for a brief time. One of those flares came when flipping through 
There may be only one Highlander, but they made the unfortunate decision to follow up the decent fantasy flick 
A sci-fi schlock classic makes its DVD debut as 
It’s not spaceflight or Everest, but using IMAX to shoot and present the works of Vincent van Gogh’s paintings is certainly a unique, and interesting, use of the format, as shown in 
When he’s not busy giving directions to a god of thunder, Kenneth Branagh has been starring as Inspector Kurt Wallander in the BBC’s latest mystery series 
If you want to look at a dull, lifeless reimagining, look no further than the awkward tedium that is