How to Spend $20
By Eric Hughes
July 1, 2008
BoxOfficeProphets.com
PICK OF THE WEEK
For people who believe the success of a television show is partially based on a damn good title: Mad Men: Season One
If cigarette smoke, sexual harassment and racial slurs are your bag, then boy does AMC have a television show for you. Launched just over a year ago as the network's first drama series, Mad Men premiered to rave reviews from critics while also in front of a huge chunk of audience – at least as far as little AMC is concerned at about 1.6 million viewers. Set in 1960s New York City, the series takes place within a fictional advertising agency – Sterling Cooper – and centers on executive Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and the people he comes in contact with in and out of the office. In true cliffhanger style, viewers last left Don way back in October sitting distraught on the steps after arriving home to an empty house. His wife presumably found out about his infidelities. Along with picking up noteworthy hardware at the Peabody Awards, Screen Actors Guild Awards and the Golden Globes, Mad Men also currently sits on the shortlist for best drama at this year's Emmy Awards. Season two bows on July 27th.
Disc includes: Audio commentary, Establishing Mad Men featurette, Advertising the American Dream featurette, photo gallery, one-on-one discussion with composer David Carbonara, music sampler.
For people who can't get enough of the aggressive Madea Simmons: Tyler Perry's Meet the Browns (Special Edition)
For those of you out there who still don't quite get it, here are the important (and undeniably easy) steps to Tyler Perry's successful transition from stage to screen. First, he makes loads of money in small theater venues with hilarious plays – Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea's Family Reunion, etc. – that feature quirky, fun characters. Second, Perry adapts those same stage plays to the silver screen, using many of the same cast members alongside fresh, A-list faces. Third, simply repeat.
Meet the Browns, Perry's fourth film to use the above formula, was his fourth straight film based on one of his original plays to premiere to more than $20 million at the domestic box office. With budgets usually totaling around $5-10 million, these little projects are making back their costs in mere days, with the remainder being tasty (albeit green) gravy for Lionsgate, Perry's distributor. In Meet the Browns, Angela Bassett stars as Brenda, a single mother living in Chicago who rounds up her three kids and takes off for Georgia after receiving a letter announcing the death of a father she never met. While there, Brenda familiarizes herself with a Southern side of the family that she never knew existed.
Disc includes: Meet the Manns featurette, Angela and Rick: Meet the Lovebirds featurette, The Browns are Born: The Story of Meet the Browns featurette, Jenifer Lewis: Unleashed featurette.
For people who mistakenly think they have died and gone to heaven: Walker, Texas Ranger: The Complete Series (Set)
Fact: Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise. Also a fact: There is no 'ctrl' button on Chuck Norris' computer. Chuck Norris is always in control. And one more fact: Newton's Third Law is wrong. Although it states that for each action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, there is no force equal in reaction to a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick.
These are just some of the many "facts" about Chuck Norris floating around on the Internet, most notably on chucknorrisfacts.com, a site launched after Walker, Texas Ranger ended its eight-season run on CBS. It's funny, really, that so many people are aware of Chuck Norris and his former television show. Yet, how many of you have ever actually watched the thing? (Admittedly, I haven't). For the past few years, Paramount has slowly rolled out single seasons of the show on DVD. Beginning today, however, the studio is bucking the trend by releasing all eight seasons in one DVD package. Now, if only Conan O'Brien would sell his Walker, Texas Ranger Lever...
Disc includes: Bare bones.
You had me at "Thank you. Thank you so much": The Closer: The Complete Third Season
TNT's Saving Grace and USA's In Plain Sight have just one show to thank for helping to popularize television shows that center on sassy, female law enforcement officials. It's The Closer, another product of TNT and one of cable's first true blockbuster series starring Kyra Sedgwick as tough-as-nails deputy chief Brenda Leigh Johnson. Also starring J.K. Simmons as Brenda's boss, assistant chief Will Pope, the drama follows the goings-on at a special unit of the LAPD that handles high-profile murder cases, which Brenda heads after she moves to L.A. from Atlanta. Brenda may be hard-nosed and quirky, but the girl sure can interrogate. Launched in 2005, the series continues breaking cable records with each new season. The most recent, available today, premiered a year ago to 9.55 million viewers, the most ever for a scripted series (a.k.a. numbers that even NBC and the other broadcasting guys wouldn't mind scoring, too).
Disc includes: The Art of Interrogation featurette, gag reel, deleted scenes.
For people who didn't vote for George W. Bush: Vantage Point (Deluxe Edition)
Scoring kudo points for originality, Vantage Point, about an assassination attempt on United States President Henry Ashton (William Hurt), is the "same" 23-minute film looped about five or six times, with each new perspective adding pieces to an ever-growing (and thus more complicated) puzzle. Ending with the perspective of the very terrorists orchestrating the attack, the film also chronicles the viewpoints of a television news producer (Sigourney Weaver), U.S. Scret Service agents (Matthew Fox and Dennis Quaid), an American tourist (Forest Whitaker) and others, all of whom witness the event in Salamanca from differing angles.
Disc includes: Bonus digital copy of the film, both widescreen and full-screen versions, deleted scene, An Inside Perspective: Interviews with the Cast and Crew featurette, Plotting an Assassination: Interview with First-time Screenwriter Barry Levy featurette, commentary with director Pete Travis.
For people patiently waiting for Super Size Me 2: Denny's – 30 Days: The Complete Second Season
Documentarian Morgan Spurlock's groundbreaking Super Size Me has a little known sister sibling airing on FX. Like Super Size Me, in which Spurlock forced himself to eat nothing but McDonald's food for 30 days alongside certain regulations set by himself, the appropriately titled cable show 30 Days tracks Spurlock (or some other lab rat) spending a full month immersed in a particular lifestyle to which Spurlock (or the lab rat) is unfamiliar. Highlights from the series' brief six-episode second season include an episode featuring an atheist who must live with a devout Christian family, a pro-choice woman who must live inside a crisis pregnancy center and Spurlock himself residing in Henrico County Jail in Richmond.
Disc includes: Audio commentary.
July 1, 2008
6 to 9 (Special Edition)
Against All Odds: Quest For Malta
Alien Nation: The Complete Series (Set)
All About Us
Aria
Baby, It's You
Batman: The Movie
Behind The Lines Collection (Set)
Between The Lines
Birth Rite
Blue Seed: Complete Collection (Set)
Casualties Of War
City of Bees
City of Men (Widescreen)
Colorado
Daniel
Dead & Gone (Widescreen)
Desert Punk Box Set (Boxed Set)
Desperate Characters
Dirty
Dreams on Spec
Drillbit Taylor (Special Edition)
DWP
Elie Wiesel Goes Home
A Few Good Men
Freedomland
French Postcards
Ganges
Gangs Of New York
Get Smart's Bruce and Lloyd: Out of Control
Glory
Heathers (20th Anniversary Edition)
Heaven
Hella Crazy (Special Edition)
House of Payne: Volume 2
Hurricane
In The Line Of Fire
John Mayer: Where The Light Is Live In Los Angeles
Journey to the Center of the Earth
Kanon: Volume 6
King's Highway
Little Rascals
Lost In Space: Season Two Volume Two
Lost In Space: The Complete First Season
Lucky Star Volume 2
Millennium: The Complete First Season
Millennium: The Complete Third Season
On the Edge
Only The Valiant
The Pink Panther
Point Break
The Pretender: The Complete Second Season
Rhapsody
Rhubarb
Robert's Ridge
The Royal Diaries (Full Screen)
Serial
Sex and Death 101
Shotgun Stories (Widescreen)
The Streets of San Francisco: Season 2, Volume 1
The Summer of the Massacre
Sunflower
Swing State Ohio
Till Death Do Us Part
Time Bomb
Tori & Dean Inn Love: Season 1
Triloquist (Widescreen)
Tru Calling: The Complete First Season
Tru Calling: The Complete Second Season
Unborn Sins (Full Screen)
Vaccinations
Walker, Texas Ranger: The Fifth Season
Wide Awake