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Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP's look at the latest DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: CBS lodges a stake into its vampire drama, Saw fills the pockets of Lionsgate fat cats and Syracuse wins a football game.

Pick of the Week

For people who jumped on the vampire bandwagon later than CBS would have liked: Moonlight: The Complete Series

Had Moonlight not been on CBS, and had the series began its network run during the current broadcast television season and not the year prior, I'd be willing to bet Moonlight would still be going strong...instead of "celebrating" its May cancellation with a complete series DVD.

Think about it. No ardent supporters of the generic, police procedural garbage that CBS puts out daily are going to lend a lick of their attention to a show featuring a near century old vampire with the face of a 30-year-old. And as we learned in book sales (1.3 million Breaking Dawn's moved in a single day), box office numbers (Twilight's $69.6 million opening weekend) and TV ratings (True Blood's 6+ million viewers per week), 2008 is the year of the vampire...not 2007.

The short-lived series, which lasted for just one, truncated 16-episode season, follows private investigator Mick St. John (Alex O'Loughlin), who was turned into a vampire five decades ago by his bride, Coraline (Shannyn Sossaman), on their wedding night. Unlike other vampires, Mick follows a set of rules, meaning he protects women, children and innocent people (instead of eating them). Set in the present day, Mick struggles with his attraction to a mortal woman (Sophia Myles) while dealing with the many vampire baddies in Los Angeles.

Disc includes: Audio commentary





For people who enjoy watching gorgeous people die slow, yet painful deaths: Saw V (Unrated)

If the last few Saws have taught us anything at all (and believe me, they haven't taught us a whole lot), it's that there's at least a roof (monetarily speaking) covering this utterly awful franchise. The box office returns are decreasing, by a relatively significant number of millions each October, that sooner or later Lionsgate will possibly, maybe, hope to god at least ponder the thought of bringing the venerable franchise to a close. (Though with these movies' moderately low budgets, we'll be on to Saw XX or so before any discussion of the canceling nature comes to fruition). Hey, a dude can dream.

Tobin Bell's signature character, Jigsaw, has been dead for awhile now, yet the actor still manages to get a mention in the credits (thank you, flashbacks). So he's hanging around. Also still happening: Young, pretty people manage to trap themselves in unfortunate circumstances, video and cassette tapes pass around and Billy the puppet rides circles around Jigsaw's victims. Essentially, not much has changed if you've at any time stopped wasting your money on the king of Hollywood torture porn.

And yes. For the curious, Lionsgate already greenlit Saw VI. Expect to see it later this year in October.

Disc includes: Audio commentary, The Pendulum Trap featurette, The Cube Trap featurette, The Coffin Trap featurette, The Fatal Five featurette, Slice the Cube: Editing the Cube Trap featurette

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