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Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP’s look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: A spidery, skinny woman busts up men, Michael Scott hands out the Dundie for Bushiest Beaver and Richard Gere suits up.

Pick of the Week

For people who can memorize a sizable family tree and not get confused: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Unless you’ve been living not only under a rock, but under a rock within the confines of a town not unlike the one from The Village, you have at least heard of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the first of three novels written by Swedish author/journalist Stieg Larsson before his death in 2004 at the age of 50. The book, which has sold phenomenally well nearly everywhere (if not everywhere), was also adapted for the screen and distributed to Swedish theaters in 2009. (The movie premiered here, too, in a limited fashion in March 2010).

Produced for $13 million, the 152-minute piece grossed a smidge over $100 million in worldwide receipts. It maintains an 84% fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes and earned three Guldbagge Awards (big Swedish film prize), including film audience award, best actress (Noomi Rapace) and, most notably, best film.

I haven’t seen the adaptation, but have devoured the book and one of its sequels. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (actually Men Who Hate Women if you directly translated the Swedish) follows an investigative journalist named Mikael Blomkvist, who is commissioned by a rich man to find out what happened to the man’s foster child, Harriet, who went missing dozens of years ago.

Disc includes: Interview with Noomi Rapace, The Vangar Family Tree featurette, trailer





For people who have yet to injure themselves using a George Foreman grill: The Office: Season One & Two Value Pack (Back-To-Back)

Most Office fans will tell you that the show’s best season is its second season. Besides its genuine quality, I think much of this
reasoning rests on the fact that it was such a vast improvement over the show’s speedy six-episode seasonette that debuted as a midseason replacement in 2005.

“Vast improvement,” actually, may not be strong enough language to reflect how much the comedy series matured following those initial half-dozen episodes. For example, the season two premiere, “The Dundies,” felt like a different program altogether. The pacing quickened, the jokes stuck and Michael Scott’s hair actually looked good. Plus, the episode treats us to the first of what would turn out to be many Jim and Pam kisses.

I don’t mean to suggest that season one is awful. Much of it isn’t, actually. In fact, I’d be down to watching “Diversity Day” and/or
“Basketball” if A) I had either one at my disposal and B) I didn’t have a BOP column to write. There’s comedy in season one. It’s just different.

What’s especially nice about today’s two-fer is it provides a great opportunity for Office newbs to see the distinct differences between the two seasons. Whereas I generally tell Office novices to skip the show’s frosh season because little to nothing is carried over to subsequent seasons, I’ll quash that argument for now in favor of an educational comparison.

Season one disc includes: Audio commentary, deleted scenes

Season two disc includes: Deleted scenes, outtakes, audio commentaries, NBC.com webisodes, Fake PSAs featurette, Steve on Steve featurette

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