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…)
If you pare Jackass down to its bare essentials, it’s pretty much just Johnny Knoxville doing stupid things. And that’s pretty much the embarrassingly sublime simplicity of Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa (Paramount, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.99 SRP), which finds Knoxville in his 86-year-old Irving Zisman make-up doing stupid stunts in public with the added bonus of a kid sidekick. Bonus materials include deleted scenes and featurettes.
While there have been a handful of figures released in Sideshow’s GI Joe line already, the real gem I’ve been eagerly awaiting is the arrival of Cobra’s supreme leader, Cobra Commander ($174.99). Thankfully based on his classic appearance from the original Real American Hero cartoon, the maniacal terrorist sorts either his reflective battle helmet or his hooded visage via swappable heads. There are plenty of extra hand variations (including one crushing a small globe), plus his scepter, pistol, laser rifle, and knife. Overall, exactly what I was hoping for.
Now that Sherlock has wrapped, get your Benedict Cumberbatch fix from The Fifth Estate (Touchstone, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$36.99 SRP), where he plays WikiLeaks mastermind Julian Assange in the true tale of espionage and intrigue behind the foundation’s founding and mission. Bonus materials include featurettes, TV spots, and trailers.
At a time when all of the other studios are opening up their vaults and releasing their deep catalogue titles, CBS has come up with a trio of their own starring some quite big names, starting with Dustin Hoffman in the quirky comedy Who Is Harry Kellerman And Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me (Paramount, Rated R, DVD-$19.99 SRP). Then we’ve got a pair of films featuring Jack Lemmon – The April Fools (Paramount, Rated PG, DVD-$19.99 SRP), with Catherine Deneuve, and The War Between Men And Women (Paramount, Rated PG, DVD-$19.99 SRP), with Barbara Harris.
Just in time for Mardis Gras comes the complete collection of HBO’s Treme (HBO, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$134.98 SRP), which brings together all 36 episodes of the epic story of the Big Easy’s rise from the ashes of Katrina, told through a collection of musicians, chefs, and residents. In addition to audio commentaries and featurettes, the set also contains an exclusive bonus disc with 15 music video performances from the show.
The fine folks at BBC Earth return with a new pair of visually stunning and informative nature documentaries – Penguins: Spy In The Huddle & Snow Babies (BBC, Not Rated, DVD-$19.98 SRP each). My only wish for both of these is that they could have gotten a true high definition Blu-Ray release.
The rescue of a boatful of illegal immigrants forces a struggling island family off the coast of Sicily to make difficult decisions in the fascinating import Terraferma (Cohen, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$39.98 SRP). Bonus materials include a making-of featurette and the theatrical trailer.
Even though I’m not a fan of the sport, I’m a sucker for a well-made documentary, and 1 (Millennium Entertainment, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$24.99 SRP), about the history and danger of Formula 1 Racing and narrated by Michael Fassbender, certainly is an interesting watch.
And speaking of Formula 1 racing, that’s the subject of Ron Howard’s latest film, Rush (Universal, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$34.98 SRP), which dramatizes the real-life rivalry between drivers James Hunt (Chris Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Bruhl) as they clash both on and off the track. Bonus materials include featurettes and deleted scenes.
While the 60’s film is a much more romanticized take on the material, the recent miniseries take on Bonnie & Clyde (Sony, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$55.99 SRP) hews much closer to the facts of the couple’s bloody crime spree and even bloodier end. Bonus materials include a clutch of featurettes.
If you’re keen to give a gift of a romantic flick-a-palooza, try the 7-film Nicholas Sparks Collection (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, DVD-$69.97 SRP), which includes Safe Haven, The Lucky One, Dear John, Nights In Rodanthe, The Notebook, A Walk To Remember, and Message In A Bottle. The set also includes collectible postcards and a letter from Sparks.
For years, it’s been nigh-on impossible to buy 10th Doctor action figures for any decent price on the secondary market. Well, with the new Doctor Who: Doomsday Set (Underground Toys, $54.99 SRP), you get not only David Tennant’s Doctor (with 3D glasses), but also a Dalek and a Cyberman.
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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It was seen as a strident, preachy end to The Little Tramp when it originally premiered, but the years have proven what lovely political stand Charlie Chaplin was taking with 
If you’re not wanting to spring for an expensive pad but you need to eliminate heat build-up under your laptop, try the 
It’s always a beautiful thing to see two actors at the top of their game, particularly when they’re both in the same film. 
It’s not Pixar, but 
If you’re looking for pulse-pounding cinematic science fiction, you’re not going to find it in Andrei Tarkovsky’s 
If Apocalypse Now is the operatic version of the Vietnam War, then Oliver Stone’s 
If you’ve held off on picking 
Studios can latch onto just about any day and turn it into an excuse to release a special anniversary edition of one of their catalogue titles, and Warners has done just that with a pair of new-to-Blu-Ray titles ostensibly making their debut to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the Civil War – 
Long before Days of Thunder or Hal Needham, 
While Warners releases Grand Prix on Blu-Ray, Paramount digs up the Steve McQueen racing movie 
Previously available, for some reason you can now pick up a standalone edition of Sylvester Stallone’s 
Has the Royal Wedding already come and gone? So fast! If you’d like to relive all of the memories, the BBC has put together an overview of their coverage titled, appropriately, 
As kids growing up in the 80’s, I think we knew instinctively when something was a low-rent rip-off of a far more popular property, and that’s exactly what I felt about the Gobots, which were the bane of any kid hoping to get a Transformers figure from a clueless (often frugal) parent. Relive just how sad the rip-off was with Warner Archive’s release of the original miniseries 
While I wouldn’t say it’s a great, must-see film, 
I think the most endearing thing about Nickelodeon’s CG-animated series 
Have running out of ice roads to be anticlimactic on, the franchise has decided to further move the whole affair into artifice by dropping the drivers into crazy dangerous roads around the world with the first season of 
Via rare archival footage and personal interviews, the History Channel documentary 
You know, if they’d actually given half an effort to make 
Before he moved on to making big-budget blasé blockbusters, Ron Howard put his child actor past behind him as part of Roger Corman’s stable of actor/filmmakers, as the latest double feature release from the Corman Collection will enlighten you with 
I think it largely disappeared from theaters, which is a shame, because 
Want a little bit of quick, cheap work area light with the convenience of USB? Then the 
If you enjoyed the Ricky Gervais podcast, the animated versions made from those recordings and presented as 
After a smattering of single-disc releases, the long-awaited second volume of 
When I first saw 
The fourth season of 
Like most Ron Howard films, I found 
It’s in re-watching it that I fully understood just how mannered and poor man’s Wes Anderson (which, really, should be left up to Wes Anderson) Sofia Coppola’s 
ABC Family’s 
Yeah, Family Guy‘s Star Wars parodies are largely inferior to Robot Chicken‘s, but that’s largely due to the former’s shoehorning of their characters into the roles, instead of being allowed to just play with the universe as it exists. Thankfully, they’ve come to an end with the 3rd and final installment, 
It’s a daunting proposition, revisiting a film that defined the 80’s with the simple phrase “Greed Is Good”, and I’m not entirely sure Oliver Stone succeeds with 
For fans eager for its release the wait for the complete high definition release of 
The idea of carrying on a TV series in comic book form – written by the showe’s creator and writers – is actually a pretty good idea. Sadly, 
The Warner Archive Collection certainly has been going full bore when it comes to their catalogue releases, and have ramped up things considerably on the animated side. I mean, I don’t think anyone ever expected they might one day be able to purchase a complete series set of Hanna-Barbera’s short-lived 
Often overlooked in favor of the The Little Mermaid, I’d say that the Disney animation renaissance began with the still-fun 
I don’t know about you, but every once In awhile I remember to fear whatever creepy crawly organisms might be living in the bristles of my toothbrush. Or at least I used to fear them, before I got the 
It’s a button-pusher to be sure – as all Richard Curtis films are – but I’ve got admit, I did like his love letter to the illegal, ship-based rock broadcasters of late-60’s Britain in 
I’m not a terribly big fan of Ron Howard as a filmmaker, but the story of 
They shine with a pale, pale light compared to the classic MGM short subjects, but if your kids absolutely have to have more cat & mouse adventures, then there’s 
Coming out of the theater with my 5-year-old nephew, I could tell that How To Train Your Dragon (available for 
Put memories of Platinum Dunes blah remake out of your head with the high-definition arrival of the original 
Since selling off The Muppets, the Jim Henson Company has been chopping and packaging the material they have left for DVD releases. 
In one of the slowest turnarounds ever, you can now pick up the 2-disc special edition release of 
I’m so happy to live in a world where a documentary has been made that looks at the fascinating – and odd – world of ventriloquism, which is called “venting” by its practitioners. 
Let your impressionable children plunk themselves down in front of the 2-disc 
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Let your kids go on a bilingual jaunt around the world with 
You only have to view the unedited, unadulterated, original episodes of the UK’s Top Gear to understand why the idea of making an “American edition” and jettisoning hosts Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond is such a pig-ignorant idea. For one, it’s their interplay that makes the show – not the car talk. Secondly, it’s foolish to think it doesn’t translate to the US in its original form – because it does. Which is all to say that I highly recommend you pick up 
Sometimes, life is about the simple pleasures. Sometimes, those simple pleasures have been shrunk down and conveniently made USB-powered. Such is the case with the 
DC continues to deliver top-notch collections of the post-Marvel work Jack Kirby did for the company in the 70’s with the release of his ragtag group of war heroes fighting at the height of World War II, 
Unlike most of Ron Howard’s filmic output, which often suffers from being uninspired and drab, I thought his adaptation of (Universal, Rated R, DVD-$29.98 SRP) succeeded in translating the energy and performances that made the stage version such a success to the big screen. Maybe that’s because it takes a lot of effort to stamp out the skill that Michael Sheen and Frank Langella bring to their performances as David Frost and the disgraced but defiant Richard Nixon. Bonus features include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, a look at the Nixon Library, and footage from the actual Frost/Nixon interviews. A 
If you were to take the wonderfully candid wrestling documentary Beyond The Mat and fictionalize it, you’d have the story of broken down wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson, a former superstar up against the ropes in 
Although the bulk of it doesn’t really hold up (the 90’s references shoveled throughout certainly make it less than timeless), I still have some affection for the episodes featured in 
The second season of the ADD 
Ian McKellen is truly incredible in the recent RSC production of 
Yes, I admit it – I watch 
Peter Bogdanovich fans can get not only the director’s cut of his Last Picture Show, but also the new-to-DVD release of Nickelodeon in a two-disc 
I’m no fan of rap and only marginally aware of the various rifts within its community, but I found 
I thought Robert Rodriguez & Frank Miller’s adaptation of Miller’s 
Having moved on from saving the planet, Elmo is back to promote literacy with 
If you’ve been anxiously awaiting the return of hillbilly squids, then you’re prayers are answered with the arrival of 
Ewing Oil was left a shambles at the end of season 10, but the eleventh season of 
If the leaked Wolverine workprint hasn’t extinguished your enthusiasm for all things hairy mutant, also being released is the animated 
We’ve made it to the halfway mark with the release of 
The Stuart Little animated series is an innocuous, affable affair that managed to hold my nephews’ attention (no small feat). Two volumes are now available – 
The rich socialites of