How to Spend $20
By Eric Hughes
January 19, 2010
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Pick of the Week
For people who can easily pinpoint when Showtime's formerly fantastic dramedy jumped the shark: Weeds: Season Five
My my, Jenji Kohan, what in god's name have you done to your baby? What was once a snarky, smart, can't-miss comedy about a MILF who makes ends meet by dealing drugs amongst a neighborhood of Peeping Toms has been retooled as a spotty, mostly generic piece of television that is all but begging to be put out of its misery following Showtime's two-year pick up in 2008. The sixth (and final?) season airs sometime later this year.
More often than not I respect reinventions that work. When a band significantly modifies its sound for a new album, that's a good thing. If anything, it shows that the band isn't afraid to take risks, has grown some, and so on. For a TV show to do something similar, however, is a bigger battle. As is generally the case – as it is here with Weeds – the show's writers wrote themselves into a hole and had little choice but to "reinvent the universe" to give principle characters something new to do. It's an act of desperation, and no show that I follow – past or present – has ever fallen quite the way Weeds has.
Season four introduced viewers to Weeds' new home in Ren Mar, California, following spoiler alert!** Nancy Botwin's rash decision to literally burn her former neighborhood to the ground in the season three finale. **end spoiler** Because of some good casting (Albert Brooks and Julie Bowen guesting in multiple episodes) and decent storylines, I concluded that Weeds' reinvention was a good thing (with minor reservations).
Then season five set in, and I quickly realized how very wrong I was. For starters, Nancy didn't deal a single drug in season five. Instead, her character was trapped in a boring and soapy struggle that even a show like Days of our Lives wouldn't touch. Even worse, most every character – from the entire Hodes clan to Doug Wilson – has no reason to be in the show anymore. While in Agrestic they served some purpose – whether to be a foil to Nancy's character (Celia) or to display the uneven principles of a working professional (Doug) – in Ren Mar they're there because, well, Nancy is.
Just this past year, shows like Dexter and especially Mad Men ended on respective cliffhangers that in many ways can be viewed as game changers. I'm anxious to see how both programs handle the adjustments.
Disc includes: Audio commentaries, bloopers, History of Weed featurette, Yes We Cannibis featurette, Crazy Love: A Guide to the Dysfunctional Relationships of Weeds featurette, Little Titles by Jenji Kohan featurette, University of Andy featurette, Really Backstage with Kevin Nealon featurette
For people who like eating and talking about tacos and sushi: Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening
Hardly any comedian can claim to have a year as big as Aziz Ansari, who quickly went from that funny guy you may remember from X to one of the industry's hottest commodities. He guested on Reno 911! and multiple eps of ABC's Scrubs; appeared in Funny People, I Love You, Man and Observe and Report; performed stand-up comedy across the country and, by year's end, sold three (!) projects to Judd Apatow and Universal Pictures. And let's not forget about NBC's Thursday night darling, Parks and Recreation, which in less than a year already routinely outshines the network's more established comedies. On Parks, Ansari plays series regular Tom Haverford.
Over the summer, I actually got to go to the thing that's available today in both CD and DVD formats. Taped over the summer in Los Angeles – and finally airing on Comedy Central just two days ago – Ansari's one-hour special is nonstop funny. Dudes like Dane Cook and David Cross don't hold a candle to Aziz, whose brand of comedy feasts on pop culture and the utterly insane things that happen to him daily. (His true story of being invited to Kanye's house, only to listen to the self-indulgent rapper bob his head to his own beats is a stand-out, as well as everything that went down once Aziz infiltrated his cousin Harris' study group on Facebook).
Aziz also does a mean R. Kelly, and that'll always be good for a laugh.
Disc includes: 30 minutes of extra stand-up material not used in the special
For people who are terrified of Glenn Close: Damages: The Complete Second Season
Glenn Close is chillingly great as Patty Hewes, a powerful, New York City-based attorney who'll stop at nothing to win. She's nasty and foreboding, but faces her first formidable opponent in Ellen Parsons, a young protégé at Patty's firm who wages a secret war against her malicious boss after learning some pretty compromising information at the tail end of the series' first season. Though already boasting a stellar cast in its two female leads (in addition to Tate Donovan and Ted Danson), season two included season-long arcs by William Hurt, Marcia Gay Harden and Timothy Olyphant.
Hardly anyone watches Damages, but that really says nothing about the show's quality. Though I preferred the drama's debut season to the one released today, Damages is the unanimous king of plot twists**, which, of course, makes for some pretty entertaining television.
**Yes, Lost included
Disc includes: Cast and crew commentaries, deleted scenes, season one recap, Season Two: Post Mortem featurette, character profiles (7)
For people who think Michael C. Hall should make the jump to theaters only when necessary: Gamer
It's a terrible shame that a truly gifted actor like Michael C. Hall – who finally won a Golden Globe on Sunday for his work on Dexter after settling for mere nods between 2007 and 2009 – signed on to star in a train wreck like Gamer. Though I never got around to seeing it (really, do you blame me?), it didn't take a brain surgeon to deduce that this thing was bad news from the beginning. One look at that trailer, which featured Hall sportin' a fancy, albeit ridiculous accent was enough for me to cry shenanigans and hope to the industry gods that the boy would never appear in a movie like Gamer ever again.
Dudes like Gerard Butler can afford this kind of slop. His 2009 also included The Ugly Truth and Law Abiding Citizen. But Hall? Certainly not, especially when his background includes pay cable hits Six Feet Under and the aforementioned Dexter, which after four seasons is coming off its best season to date.
Disc includes: Visual commentary, Gamer cheat codes, audio commentary, Inside the Game: Making Of featurette, First Person Shooter: The Evolution of Red featurette, never-before-seen theatrical trailer, digital copy
January 19, 2010
Blu-ray
According to Greta
Across the Hall
Artie Lange: Jack & Coke
Boogie Nights
The Bourne Identity
The Bourne Supremacy
The Bourne Ultimatum
Che (Criterion Collection)
Children Of The Corn / Hellraiser (Double Feature)
Deadly Duo
Death in Love
Fool's Gold
Gamer
He's Just Not That Into You
The Invention of Lying (Special Edition)
The Lake House
License to Wed
Magnolia
Nights in Rodanthe
No Reservations
P.S. I Love You
Pandorum
Smokin' Aces
Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball
Status Quo: Pictures Live at Montreux 2009
The Wedding Singer
Weeds: Season Five
The Women
DVD
21 Jump Street: The Complete First Season
According to Greta
Across the Hall
Artie Lange: Jack & Coke
Aziz Ansari: Intimate Moments for a Sensual Evening
Che (Criterion Collection)
Cranford: Return to Cranford (Widescreen)
Dallas: Complete Seasons 1-12 (Set)
Dallas: The Complete Twelfth Season
Damages: The Complete Second Season
Death in Love
Defying Gravity: The Complete First Season (Widescreen)
Durham County: Season One
Fraggle Rock: The Animated Series
The Game: The Second Season
Gamer
Girlfriends: The Complete Series (Set)
Girlfriends: The Final Season
Hunter: The Complete First Season
The Invention of Lying (Special Edition)
Law & Order: The Seventh Year (Widescreen)
Pandorum
Smokin' Aces
Smokin' Aces 2: Assassins' Ball
Thirtysomething: Season Two
Weeds: Season Five