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…)
After teasing fans with a best-of collection a few years back, the complete, digitally remastered first season of Sgt. Bilko (aka The Phil Silvers Show) (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) is now available – and if you’ve never seen the show and consider yourself a fan of comedy, you must rectify the oversight immediately. Not only is the writing sterling, but Phil Silvers is a brilliant comic performer, elevating the material and making his role as a con-happy army sergeant iconic. The 5-disc set contains all 34 episodes, plus audio commentaries, the original network opening, original cast commercials, the lost audition show, and Phil Silver’s guest-starring episode of The Lucy Show.
I love bubbles. My nephews love bubbles. Who doesn’t love bubbles? Well, perhaps people who hate Lawrence Welk. Still – most people love bubbles. How about really big bubbles? Surely big bubbles equal big fun. And it’s true – big bubbles equal big fun. How can you make big bubbles easily? Why, with The Big Bubble Thing ($11.99), with which you can make ginormous bubbles up to 50-feet long.
If you’ve yet to see the brilliant Stephen Fry’s equally brilliant journey across the United States in the 6-part documentary Stephen Fry In America (BFS, Not Rated, DVD-$29.98 SRP), please rectify that grievous oversight at your earliest available moment. Accompany Fry as he visits all 50 states, encountering stereotypes and people, places & events that undermine established stereotypes. A Blu-Ray edition ($39.99 SRP) is also available (and looks pretty darn good).
I never thought that I’d eventually get to watch a high definition version of GI JOE: The Movie (Shout Factory, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$26.97 SRP), restored to its intended theatrical ratio. Yes, remember that it was supposed to be a theatrical feature, but when the big screen outing of Transformers tanked, GI JOE: The Movie was consigned to a direct-to-video release. Granted, the print still looks like a TV cartoon from the 80’s, but it is cleaner than it’s ever been, and the sound has been cleaned up significantly. Bonus materials include an audio commentary and those good ol’ PSAs we know and love so much. Also, for fans, the bonus standard DVD includes contains the flick in full frame, as we all remember it.
Leave it to Warner Bros. to take an incredible legacy and talent base for their animated DC properties and continue to spin out neither here nor there direct-to-DVD features that recast already brilliant actors for the sake of gimmicky stunt casting. So it goes with Batman: Under The Red Hood (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$29.99 SRP), which finds yet another voice for Batman & The Joker, leaving behind the iconic Kevin Conroy & Mark Hamill, in a blah story about the Gotham arrival of a vigilante with no ethics, Red Hood. Bonus materials include featurettes, a quartet of Batman: The Animated Series episodes presented by Bruce Timm, and a Jonah Hex animated short.
The one thing I can say about the otherwise flat, lifeless, and sadly boring remake of Clash Of The Titans (Warner Bros., Rated PG-13, Blu-Ray-$35.99 SRP) is that, stripped of its horrid 3-D conversion for home viewing, it’s a least a brighter affair. Bonus materials include an alternate ending and a featurette on Sam Worthington.
Long available in the complete series set, high definition enthusiasts can now pick up the penultimate 3rd season of Battlestar Galactica (Universal, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$88.98 SRP). The 5-disc set contains audio commentaries, video blogs, deleted scenes, featurettes, and webisodes.
As Stallone’s big action flick The Expendables is right around the corner, it’s no surprise that there’d be a tie-in release of Rambo: The Complete Collector’s Set (Lionsgate, Rated R, Blu-Ray-$54.99 SRP), which contains all 4 Rambo films in high definition (though the most recent, Rambo, is just Disc 1 of the original 2-disc set). Bonus materials are the same as the last special edition.
I suppose it must be a sign of soft sales at retail that the 3rd season of The New Adventures of Old Christine (Warner Bros., Not Rated, DVD-$24.95) has been demoted to Warners On-Demand service. But I suppose fans should just be happy they can get the 10 episodes that comprise this season anywhere.
Just in time for the healthcare debate but ignored in theaters, Repo Men (Universal, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$39.98 SRP) stars Jude Law and Forest Whitaker as Remy & Jake, a pair of near future repossession men who reclaim organ transplants when their recipients fail to make their payments. But after Remy gets a new heart after an on-the-job accident and falls behind in his own payments, Jake comes after him. Bonus materials include an audio commentary, deleted scenes, fake ads, and a visual effects featurette.
Largely depressing but endlessly fascinating, Life After People: The Complete Season 2 (History Channel, Not Rated, Blu-Ray-$39.95 SRP) presents another 10 episodes packed with post-apocalyptic degeneration. Like I said – irresistibly depressing.
After 7 seasons and years of releases, the DVD journey of Sabrina The Teenage Witch (Paramount, Not Rated, DVD-$39.98 SRP) comes to an end with the final season. The 3-disc set contains all 21 episodes, plus the TV movie Sabrina Goes To Rome.
Besides barreling through introducing him to a load of classic films, I’ve been looking for activities that my 6-year-old nephew will enjoy while the summer heat gets a bit too hot to make outside activities viable. And what I’ve found is that the movie-watching activity can be combined with major construction projects. Those major construction projects, you won’t be terribly surprised to find out, are LEGO-based.
This week, we tackled the immense Star Wars: Venator Class Republic Attack Cruiser ($199.99), thanks to our good friends at ThinkGeek.
This is the largest LEGO project we’ve tackled, coming in at 1,170 pieces… A good deal of them very, very tiny. Once the box was opened and the bags set out, the enormity of the task was a bit daunting.
Of course, I spent far too much time wondering why Grand Chancellor Palpatine looked so much like Christopher Walken.
And finally – after three whole movies – we came to the end, and my nephew was eager to explore all of the nooks and crannies, including Palpatine’s office (with a small box holding Death Star plans hidden away in the bow).
Next week, we’ll be tackling another project, but for now, here’s a look the finished Attack Cruiser…
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
##
After what has seemed like an endless series of delays, the mother of all mockumentaries has finally made its way to high-def with the release of 
As someone who prefers quiet walks at night when traffic isn’t quite as busy, it’s nice to have a practical hat like the 
If you’re only exposure to 
The episodes have been released in single-disc releases thus far, but now you can get 
It’s the beginning of the end as the first of showrunner Russell T. Davies’ four telemovie swan songs comes to DVD in the form of 
Oh, Torchwood– you are such a flawed little spin-off. So desperate to be adult and differentiate yourself from parent Doctor Who, you’re just a mess of poorly realized characters, awkward writing, and unrealized potential. Still, fans can pick up 
It’s my second favorite Irwin Allen disaster flick (after the wondrous Poseidon Adventure, but 
Ever since being informed of its existence by the great Graham Linehan, I’ve been dying to see 
Joss Whedon lost my trust during the abysmal final season of Buffy. I never got into Firefly, and every time I tried to watch his latest, 
Weaving seldom-seen interviews, footage, and interviews with those who knew him, 
Though many will get their stuff in a bunch, I thought the finale of Battlestar Galactica was a big, awkward disappointment that jumped from “Huh?” to “What?” moments with reckless abandon. Still, fans are sure to snap up the final set, 
There are a lot of catalogue titles making their way into the Blu-Ray roster, but it’s always nice when the films of a personal favorite filmmaker get a spin – such as Terry Gilliam’s 
Quirky and fun, 
I guess the best way to describe 
Before Polanski went mainstream with Rosemary’s Baby, he was spending the 1960’s making chilling cinema like 
Of all the direct-to-DVD DC animated adventures to come down the pike thus far, 
It went out with a bit of a whimper, but fans at least can now pick up the wrap-up with 
Besides featuring an early TV performance from a young Ian McKellen, 
I never cared for The Fast & The Furious, but even I could see diminishing returns in its sequels. So, too, did the studio, who decided to go back to basics – cast and all – with the cleverly named 
When 
Oh, relaunched Knight Rider. You were so very hopeful that your self-important, lackluster new take on the 80’s hit would actually have a future, you didn’t even bother to call your DVD release The Complete Series even though you’ve been cancelled. So now people can buy 
The film is one of those cult faves, and Lalo Schifrin’s score to 
Gary Hobkins and his rather unique ability to foresee and hopefully avert the future – literally, he’s delivered the next day’s edition of the newspaper – returns with the complete second season of 
I’ve wanted to like Galactica from the start but the series started contradicting itself and the universe it was trying to create in the bloody pilot. Note to producers: if you have a great plot inconsistency in your series, try not to feature said inconsistency in the opening titles. The inconsistency I’m singling out (because there are a helluva lot to pick from) is the inexplicable downgrading of the humanoid Cylons from the pilot to the rest of the series. Every week, we have a shot of Baltar (James Callas) being shielded from a nuclear blast by what we now call Caprica Six (Tricia Helfer). She doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch but before long, we’re capping the humanoid “skin job” Cylons like they’re shuffling zombies in George Romero film. But that’s not enough – we go on later in the series to show that you can kill a Cylon by ejecting them out an airlock only to then show Boomer (Grace Park) functioning perfectly well in a vacuum aboard a Cylon base ship. But don’t make the mistake that possibly Boomer & Caprica Six are some kind of super-Cylons – Boomer takes a bullet just like anyone else and dies (at least, as much as any of the Cylons actually “died” at that point). The Cylons really need to outsource their work to Skynet – at least it knows how to build humanoids that can take a pounding!