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…)
As brilliant as the first season was, the second season of Louis CK’s Louie (Fox, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) was even more so, plussing across the board with episodes that included Louie confronting Dane Cook, sleeping with Joan Rivers, and even traveling to Iraq. Just watch the damn thing already. Bonus materials include audio commentaries on select episodes.
On the go and want the itty bittiest little stylus you can get for your smartphone? Look no further than the teeny little MicroStylus Compact Capacitive Touch Stylus ($9.99), a little nub of a thing that works a charm and is storable in your device’s headphone jack.
While I can’t envision the art form returning, The Artist (Sony, Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$35.99 SRP) is a beautifully evocative homage to the era of the silent film and the artists who made tem larger than life, even as sound came in and shook the very foundations of the industry. For once, the hype was accurate. Do see it. Bonus materials include featurettes and a blooper reel.
Every so often, a modern take on a classic property makes it work, and much like the equally successful Brady Bunch Movie before it, 21 Jump Street (Sony, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$35.99 SRP) makes that leap by planting tongue in cheek while walking a fine line between comedy and ridicule, aided and abetted by a grounded story and winning turns from Jonah Hill & Channing Tatum. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, featurettes, deleted scenes, and a gag reel.
If you still miss the lovely character absurdities to be found in Dr. Katz, look no further than Lisa Kudrow’s Web Therapy (E1, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP), which stars Kudrow is an online therapist with little patience for her patients – who include the likes of Alan Cumming, Courtney Cox, Victor Garber, Jane Lynch, Steven Weber, Lily Tomlin, and more. The first season set contains audio commentaries, a featurette, outtakes, and a season 2 preview.
While in many ways a by-the-numbers romantic comedy, what makes Love Birds (Freestyle, Rated PG-13, DVD-$14.99 SRP) worth your valuable viewing time is that its leads are Rhys Darby and Sally Hawkins, both of whom elevate the material immensely. Bonus features include an audio commentary and a featurette.
It may be a frothy romantic comedy about a pair of famous Brits who set up a fake wedding to a fake bride to send paparazzi on a false trail while they have their real nuptials, but The Decoy Bride (IFC, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$29.98 SRP) gains a fair amount of goodwill just by casting David Tennant as the groom in this mad scheme. Bonus materials include a featurette, a deleted scene, and interviews.
Adding to Universal’s 100th anniversary celebrations is the high definition arrival of Oliver Stone’s Born On The 4th Of July (Universal, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$19.98 SRP). Bonus materials include an audio commentary and a trio of featurettes.
Disney has been steadily increasing to a torrent the high-definition releases from their catalogue of titles, particularly those from Touchstone & Hollywood Pictures. That means this week brings the new-to-high-def release of Mel Gibson in Ransom (Touchstone, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$20.00 SRP), Madonna in Evita (Hollywood Pictures, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$26.50 SRP), and Christian Bale singing and dancing in Newsies (Walt Disney, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$26.50 SRP). Bonus features include audio commentaries, featurettes, and more.
And speaking of Disney catalogue releases, they’ve brought out hi-def editions of a pair of their latter (and lesser) period animated films… In fact, many consider both Treasure Planet and particularly Home On The Range (Walt Disney, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP each) to be the lackluster duds that marked the end of traditional animation at Disney in the early aughts. And yes, they are both awkward films to sit through, but certainly not abysmal. They’re no All Dogs Go To Heaven 3. Bonus materials include audio commentaries, featurettes, deleted scenes, bonus shorts, music videos, and more.
The still-legendary and goofy fun – if not terribly good – sci-fi sexploitation film Barbarella (Paramount, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP) makes its debut in high definition, which means you can ogle Jane Fonda and try to comprehend the script in exquisite detail. Sadly, there are no bonus features to be found.
While I thought it would be the lesser of the two Snow White films to come down the pike, Mirror Mirror (Fox, Rated PG, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP) if only because its simple reinterpretation of an evil queen (Julia Roberts) out to shove Snow White aside to win the hand of the Prince is far less pretentious and self-important than that whole Huntsman fiasco. Bonus materials include featurettes and deleted scenes.
Sideshow’s previously released premium figures pulled from the Disney animated pantheon – including Snow White‘s evil Queen, Maleficent, and Chernabog – have been nothing to shake a stick at, but by leaps and bounds, my favorite is the recently release Captain Hook ($324.99), from the classic Peter Pan. Not only does the sculpt capture Hook’s mad Ahab-esque obsession with killing Pan, but the fabric clothing accurately reflects its 2D inspiration. If that weren’t enough, the piece also comes with the secondary bane of Hook’s existence – the persistent Tick Tock Crocodile. And, if you’re able to pick up the Sideshow exclusive edition, definitely do so, as you get a swappable hook hand with Peter’s hat.
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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By now, fans know what to expect from Warners deep, dense, impressively comprehensive Harry Potter Ultimate Editions, which means the wait for the rest of the series to get the treatment has sometimes been quite a hard one to bear. Thankfully, we’re nearing the end with the release of 
Although they seem to be agonizingly slow in adding to their offerings – and I wish they’d really dive into the action figure side of things – the fine folks at have imported a pair of Doctor Who board game for the whole family. 
The BBC has kicked their classic Doctor Who release schedule into overdrive, very rightly taking advantage of the modern show’s growing success in the US, as a new month brings a pair of new releases. From the 5th Doctor Peter Davison’s era we get 
I admit, I was one of those who didn’t exactly anticipate the Coen Brothers’ take on 
Like the two previous films before it, the third Jackass film gets a 
Being part of a family of New Yorkers, I’d always hear many a story of growing up in the 30s, 40s, & 50s, but I never hear much about the sort of games city kids of that period would play – which is why I found the documentary 
If you don’t use drugs or live in Brooklyn but want to experience what it must be like, check out 
I run hot and cold on Norm Macdonald, but there’s no denying he has a unique comedic voice, which is well-represented in his Comedy Central standup special 
Shout Factory continues to re-release formerly out-of-print Mystery Science Theater 3000 titles for those who may have missed them during their first go-round years and years ago – The latest two being 
I enjoyed the quirky charms of the first Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and am happy that the sequel, 
MGM is becoming even more prolific than Warners when it comes to releasing their MOD catalogue titles. The latest batch includes such obscure titles as Michael Moriarty & Yaphet Kotto in 
And if that weren’t enough, MGM has also dropped the adaptation of the Spike Milligan memoir 
It’s not The Hangover, but Ed Helms more than elevates the amiable comedy 
I enjoyed the heck out of the first season of his chat and music show, so I looked forward greatly to diving into 
While we’re waiting for another full season set, pass the time with the latest intermediary single-disc clutch of episodes – 
If you give a Twilight-y take to the story of 
I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with the premise of 
Every few years, Elvira rises and a new clutch of fun presentations of truly horrible horror flicks surfaces, the latest being a pair of double feature releases under the banner Elvira’s Movie Macabre – 
I’m all for animated adaptations of classic Marvel comic book stories, which is why having some of the unfortunate material written by Marvel pariah Brian Michael Bendis adapted first cuts deep. The latest is 
Give your 3D TV (or computer) a little bit of art and a little bit of not-so-art with 
Much like Curb Your Enthusiasm proved a radical, welcome breath of fresh air from the standard sitcom, so too does Louis CK’s 
There’s something eminently enjoyable in seeing Liam Neeson stretch his action star legs in 
In a welcome move, Shout Factory has recently acquired rights to produce full-season sets of classic Nickelodeon series, including the complete first season of 
Fans can now pick up the second volume of the first season of Nickelodeon’s inexplicably popular Monkees pastiche 
The problems with Michael Bay’s 
We’re now up to the 4th season of 
Louis CK proves yet again why he’s one of the finest practitioners of stand-up today with 
I love desktop gadgets, if only because they provide a welcome – and inherently evil – distraction from actually getting down to the mounds of work at hand. So imagine my delight when I learned I could get a desktop item that not only provides a visual lure, but also a geeky one? That’s what you get with the 
I don’t think it’s his best, but there’s no denying the brutal power of Martin Scorsese’s 
Whoever thought to assemble a Rat Pack of female television comedy greats – Valerie Bertinelli, Jane Leeves, Wendie Malick & Betty White – into a sitcom of their own should be given a promotion. In the meantime, you can pick up the complete first season of 
Sergio Leone’s epic 
Some doubted it would ever happen, but they were all proven wrong when 
The new year brings a pair of new classic Doctor Who releases from the seemingly bottomless catalogue, this time reaching all the way back to Patrick Troughton’s Doctor for 
Of all the companies with deep TV catalogues, Paramount/CBS has been the most consistent in releasing their titles, often sticking by and finishing runs while other companies left theirs by the wayside. All this is to say they’ve released another clutch of deep catalogue titles, including 
Continuing to fulfill its remit to release deep catalogue titles sure to make cinephiles happy, the Warner Archive just dropped 
The further we get away from it and the more I try and revisit it over the years, I find myself less and less impressed with Kevin Costner’s Oscar-winning 
As cringeworthy as both the original Office and Curb Your Enthusiasm could be, the comedic situations of 
Another in The History Channel’s long line of “historical” series that have only the slightest of historical content to justify their claim that there’s historical content, 
I admit, after the departure of the original cast, my interest has declined from season to season of 
Ostensibly launched as a way of highlighting positive news stories, 
Sadly, the massive Looney Tunes: Golden Collections are a thing of the past, which leaves us with single disc releases 
We’re nearly at the end with the release of the penultimate fourteenth season of 
The comedy talent may be plentiful, but the quality of the sketches are just as scattershot as your average episode of Saturday Night Live in the first season of 
Originally released on DVD nearly a decade ago, the epic TV miniseries 
If you can get past some of their garbage shows about aliens and the end of the world, History does still manages to put out some real gems that should be seen, including the 5th season of their astronomical wonderfest, 
As it stars both Patrick Warburton and David Spade, I always hope that 
While 
Sadly, 
Ben 10 has moved beyond Alien Force with the first volume of 
Over the past few years, beginning with their landmark Complete Peanuts, Fantagraphics has set the standard for how collections of classic comic strips should be done. In addition to Peanuts and Dennis The Menace, they’ve been giving the A-level treatment to E.C. Segar’s sailor man supreme, Popeye. The third collection of Segar’s Thimble Theater has just hit – 
After the pain of the live action Grinch and Cat In The Hat, it’s with so, so much delight that the CG 
What kind of world do we live in when the new installment in the Mummy franchise is a better flick that the new Indiana Jones. It’s sad, but true that 
Like an ersatz Brady Bunch, two forty-something layabouts are forced to live together after their parents get married, leading to the kind of immature territorial tit-for-tats one would expect from ten-year-old 
After watching the disappointing first theatrical adaptation from The Chronicles of Narnia, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, I wasn’t exactly eager for 
It may be singing its swan song this year, but go back to the good ol’ days of 
Many saw the fourth season of 
I know there are some diehards out there, but I never enjoyed Joss Whedon’s ill-fated (and short-lived) TV space opera Firefly. It attempted to present an anachronistic future that relied heavily on the often awkward imitations of the camera techniques of the old spaghetti westerns, with characters that were difficult to like and a mission that was nebulous at best. Sadly, the show was neither fish nor fowl, and suffered from the creative burnout that eventually led the final season of Buffy to a disappointing end. Still, I know there are fans out there, and you’ll be happy with the entire 14 episode run, uncut and presented in anamorphic widescreen, is now available on Blu-Ray with the 3-disc 
Sgt. Carter’s frustration with a certain Marine comes to an end with the release of the fifth and final season of 
It’s largely a mindless actioner adapted from a videogame, but there’s a shameless exuberance to 
Brenda is long gone and Val is firmly entrenched in the 6th season of 
It’s a button pusher, but watching 
The fourth season of 
I’m not entirely sure who was clamoring for a new X-Files film outside of the die-hards and creator Chris Carter. It’s a shame that 
Oh, and X-Files fans will probably also want to pick up a copy of 
Wrap up the second season of 
The pop songs are lamentable, but John Powell’s wonderful score is more than enough reason to pick up the soundtrack to Disney’s new in-house, non-Pixar CG film 
Like some kind of weird time travel experiment, you can watch two different ages of William Conrad in the second volumes of both 
I’m almost happy that Louis C.K.’s HBO comedy Lucky Louie got cancelled, if only because he’s since rededicated himself to his caustically brilliant stand-up. He’s in fine form on his new album, 
The 5th season of 
If you’re looking for some last minute gifts for the comic fan in your life (or, you know, just yourself), an easy recommendation is the fine books put out by those preeminent comics fans/scholars at Twomorrows. First up is the latest volume in their artist profile series, 
Fast-forward Mad Men ahead a decade and move it out of the office and into the suburbs, and you’d probably get 
The lion of the law returns in the 2nd volume of the third season (whew!) of 
James Arness is back in the saddle as Marshal Matt Dillon in 
Ride ’em in, count ’em out – it’s 
Reformed juvies Pete, Julie, and Linc are back on the undercover beat in