How to Spend $20
By Eric Hughes
August 31, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Imma skip over those for the silver screen this time around. I’m sure you understand.
Pick of the Week
For people who ride bikes: Sons of Anarchy: Season Two
FX’s Sons of Anarchy is a high-octane thrill ride that rarely disappoints. It’s got good character development, loaded storylines and as much excitement as a Hollywood movie actually done well.
The reason I got into the show to begin with was because of repeated comments by the bloggers over at TV By the Numbers, who’d say over and over during the show’s second season just how freakin’ good the previous night’s episode had been. They wouldn’t give much away – it’s a ratings site, after all – other than to repeat and repeat and repeat how Katey Sagal unanimously deserved seven Emmys for her work as family matriarch Gemma Teller Morrow.
That’s right. I invested time in a show because the woman best known for playing Peggy to Ed O’Neill’s Al Bundy was killing it on a cable drama.
Little did I know just how smart, provocative and funny Sons of Anarchy would turn out to be. It’s Shakespearian after all, having been loosely based on Hamlet from the onset. There are gangs and gang fights. Corrupt cops and federal agents. And certainly no Sams or Bobs or Johns, but Clays and Jaxs and Tigs.
Set in the fictional Northern California town of Charming, Sons of Anarchy revolves around the workings of an outlaw motorcycle club whose full name – Sons of Anarchy is just a piece – requires too much typing. They’ve got pull in Charming, having earned the “respect” of officials by maintaining some kind of order there while towns outside Charming deal with heavy amounts of crime, drugs and gang activity.
In season two, the Sons face off against a white separatist group called the League of American Nationalists, who move in to remove the Sons from Charming and, consequently, tap into Northern California’s heroin trade.
But back to Katey, who again is the reason I started watching the show to begin with. She’s simply magic as the tough-as-nails Gemma. And her character’s arc, from enduring heinous events in the season two premiere to what transpires in the finale is one of the most memorable I’ve seen of any character in recent memory.
Disc includes: The Moral Code of Sons of Anarchy featurette, Sons of Anarchy Roundtable featurette, audio commentary
For people who like watching families bicker: Parenthood (2010): The Complete First Season
Television doesn’t get much more ensemble than NBC’s Parenthood. I mean Peter Krause, Lauren Graham, Dax Shepard, Monica Potter, Erika Christensen, Mae Whitman, Craig T. Nelson, among others. None of these guys are A-listers by any means, but they’ve certainly got attractive and recognizable faces.
Anyway, Parenthood marked NBC’s return to the 10 p.m. drama when the series filled in one of five primetime holes vacated by The Jay Leno Show. Parenthood performed modestly in the ratings game. But of course, modest for broadcast TV standards is extraordinary for NBC. One of the lone bright spots of the network’s schedule, the series was picked up for a second season to debut in mid-September.
And you know what? It deserves it. I wouldn’t have said so, though, after that first batch of episodes, which I found to be slow and lacking in hooks. But then, the series underwent a significant creative upswing and sustained through its 13-episode order. It’s soapy family drama, but executed extremely well. A lot of it has to do with the cast, which is totally rich with talent.
Mae Whitman, actually, is of particular interest to me. She’s the series’ dark horse and is more fine an actress than I ever could have imagined following her star turn as uber Christian Ann Veal on Arrested Development. In Parenthood, her character is the opposite of Ann hog. She does drugs. She screams at her mother. She… has sex! And yet Mae plays her with considerable ease. She’s going places. You just wait.
And the pairing up of Peter Krause and Monica Potter is truly inspired. Both are so good at playing well-intentioned, conservative parents of a rebelling teenage daughter and an eight-year-old son with Asperger syndrome. For me, their dynamic as a family really sets the groundwork for the entire show.
Disc includes: Audio commentary, deleted scenes, Behind the Scenes featurette
For people who like alternate versions of time travel: FlashForward: The Complete Series
ABC’s promo department made little effort to hide the fact that they hoped V would be the next Lost. Hello, Elizabeth Mitchell, science fiction and a countdown clock during an episode of Lost that severely angered Lost devotees.
And yet, the network made a similar push with FlashForward, which, like V, debuted to a big audience that largely fell by the wayside over successful new airings. Also like V, FlashForward had a former Lost cast member, Dominic Monaghan, as a series regular.
Canceled after a full 22-episode order, FlashForward is about a mysterious event that causes just about everyone on the planet to lose themselves for two minutes and 17 seconds. During that time, the people who blacked out see visions of their lives set about six months in the future.
Disc includes: N/A
For people who don’t get their bloodsucker fix from True Blood: The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season
What’s more surprising than the overall success of The Vampire Diaries – biggest CW series premiere ever at 5.7 million viewers (including DVR) – is that it took its parent network more than five weeks to commit to a full season and then another three months to get a season two pickup. What gives, CW? Was it because you finally could claim you have a hit outside of Tyra’s little model show?
Initial critical opinion of the show was mixed, yet the consensus seems to be that the show got better with age. And while on the Lost train, I may as well mention that, yes, Ian Somerhalder is a vamp on the show.
Disc includes: Into Mystic Falls featurette, When Vampires Don’t Suck! featurette, A New Breed of Vampires: Casting the Series featurette, unaired scenes, Vampires 101: The Rules of the Vampire, audio commentary, A Darker Truth webisodes, gag reel, downloadable audiobook of bestselling novel The Vampire Diaries: The Awakening by L.J. Smith
August 31, 2010
Blu-ray
9th Company Collector's Edition
Beatdown
Black Blood Brothers Collection
Carnivorous
The Evil Dead
Flesheater
Harry Brown
House: Season Six
Jane's Addiction: Live Voodoo
Marmaduke
National Geographic: Glacier National Park
NCIS: Los Angeles - The First Season
Red Riding Trilogy
Sons of Anarchy: Season Two
Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too?
The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season
DVD
9th Company (Collector's Edition)
Beatdown
Bee Gees: One Night Only (Anniversary Edition)
Black Blood Brothers Collection (Boxed Set)
Brothers & Sisters: The Complete Fourth Season
Carnivorous
FlashForward: The Complete Series
Harry Brown
House: Season Six
Jane's Addiction: Live Voodoo
Leonard Cohen: Bird on a Wire
Lonesome Dove, The Series: Complete Season One
Marmaduke
The Middle: Season One
NCIS: Los Angeles - The First Season
Parenthood (2010): The Complete First Season
Red Riding Trilogy
Son Of The Navy
Sons of Anarchy: Season Two
Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married Too?
The Vampire Diaries: The Complete First Season
Would I Lie To You (Widescreen)