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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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 
When I was a young college freshman near the end of my first (and only) disastrous year at NYU, I was able to arrange for a press ticket to a taping of 
For years and years and years, ever since I first saw one when I was a kid, I’ve wanted a book that opens up to reveal a cut-out hole. You know what I mean? The kind you could hide things in. Like a jewel. Or booze. Well, Thinkgeek now gives you that 
Another Pixar film in theaters means another eye-candy filled “Art Of” book, which is exactly what you get with 
Forged in the fire of the Writers Strike of 2008, released on the internet to rabid fan acclaim, and long available on that selfsame net, everyday people can now get a copy of Joss Whedon’s online musical, 
Much of the comedy in Eddie Murphy’s game-changing stand-up concert 
It’s pure popcorn, but I think 
Another great flick making its transition to high definition is the Civil War epic 
I must admit, 
June has become decidedly jazzy with a trio of deluxe Legacy Edition catalogue releases from Sony Music. First up is a 3-disc edition of Dave Brubeck’s 
Paramount isn’t the only one unleashing a tidal wave of Blu-Ray catalogue titles, as Universal dips into their extensive roster for a batch of their own, many of them must haves. So what does the batch consist of? 
I still can’t fathom what people saw in the three flicks currently comprising the 
Sergio Leone’s 
Over 20 years after its single season run, The Jetsons returned to television with brand new episodes, the first 21 of which are being released as 
The BBC’s nature documentarians can always be counted on to deliver stunning visuals, and that’s certainly the case with 
I can’t see William Conrad in the episodes features in 
The movie’s a dud, but it’s still fun to flip through both 
Though often a director, I always get a kick out of Kenneth Branagh, the actor, who is in fine form in the UK series 
Surprisingly, 
The folks at Sesame certainly are pushing Abby Cadabra, aren’t they? The latest team up with their little red cash cow is 
Nancy Botwin moves her mini pot empire south of the border in the fourth season of 
It’s not my cup of tea, but 
Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and Jamie Bell star as a trio of simple farmhand brothers who goes up against the Nazis in 
In 
The remastered editions of 
If you want a graphics tablet just for the occasional use and don’t want to drop a ton of money on a deluxe one, the 
When people ask me why I tend to prefer British comedies to their US counterparts, I have only to point to a show like 
It is with no small irony that Kate Winslet won an Oscar for her role in 
There’s simply too many television shows in the studio libraries for even the most diligent company to release in a timely fashion. Stepping in to help get that TV product out is the fine folks at Shout! Factory, who have built a reputation in licensing and releasing top-notch TV-on-DVD releases that have until now fallen through the cracks. The series getting complete first season sets from Shout! are 
One new TV-to-DVD set that special kudos must go to Shout! Factory for is the release of the complete first & second seasons of 
The actually decent animated adventures of ol’ webhead continue in 
It’s the second of the cobbled-together attempts by Warner Bros. to utilize their extensive animation back catalog, and while the Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie featured new interstitial animation directed by Chuck Jones, 
It’s pretty much your standard, cliched girl vs. girl comedy, but at least 
I periodically try, but I still don’t enjoy Seth MacFarlane’s 
I know there were fans of it, but I never really could get into the 90’s animated adventures o Marvel’s mutants, The X-Men. For those that did, though, you can now pick up 
Universal jumps into their library and comes up with a batch of pre-code films (much like Warners and Fox) for their first 
Universal also dips into the archives to release a restored 75th anniversary edition of Cecil B. Demille’s 
It’s still flawed and not terribly good, but 
It’s pretty paint by numbers, but kudos must go to 
We’re up to the sixth season of 
I never thought we’d reach the end, but another TV show’s DVD journey is over with the release of the 9th and final season of