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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: Futurama, Ian McShane, the Talking Heads, and Sam Raimi all have a little somethin' somethin' to offer. Really, you should be prepared to spend $150. Or start putting things on your Christmas wish list.

Pick of the Week

For people who know exactly how to spend their $300 tax rebate - Futurama: The Complete Collection

Anyone who has followed Box Office Prophets will know about our love for Futurama, a show created by Matt Groening that follows its main character, Philip J. Fry from the final seconds of 1999 to the year 2999, where he takes a job as a delivery guy for Planet Express, which is run by his great (x30) nephew Hubert J. Farnsworth, a senile and mad old scientist. He works with and befriends Turanga Leela, the beautiful, one-eyed captain of the Planet Express ship and Bender, a robot who drinks, steals, belches and well, bends things. Also hanging around the Planet Express offices are Dr. Zoidberg, a lobster-like alien and the staff physician, Amy Wong, a stuck-up, cute and spoiled intern, and Hermes Conrad, the Jamaican accountant. Many hilarious and infinitely quotable adventures took place in the four seasons it aired.

For those who might be wondering what makes the Complete Collection worth owning, it's about as total a package as you could hope to see. Along with all four seasons of the show, the collection also includes the four movies (Bender's Big Score, The Beast With a Billion Backs, Bender's Game, Into the Wild Green Yonder) and such fantastic bonus features as audio commentary, Zapp Branigan's Guide to Making Love at a Woman, Bender's Movie Theater Etiquette, and lots more. It's packaged in a collectible Bender head complete with detachable antenna. What more could a true fan of the show desire? And if you haven't seen the show, well, here's your starting, middle and ending point.





For people who got attached to Ian McShane on Deadwood, then were sad when Kings was canceled: Lovejoy: The Complete Collection and/or Wuthering Heights

Ian McShane is glorious. Anyone who has watched him chew scenery as the iniquitous but complex Al Swearengen on Deadwood knows this to be true. The thing is, most of us haven't had an opportunity to see him in some of his earlier British performances, because it took Deadwood for Hollywood to recognize that he's a real force to be reckoned with (though he did feature in Dallas back in the day). Sure, it'd be nice to see him in something besides Death Race or The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, so it's nice that a couple of DVD releases give viewers the opportunity to see him in some different roles.

The first of these is the complete series of Lovejoy, a show that aired on BBC1 from 1986 to 1994. In the series, McShane plays the titular character, a British antiques dealer who is slightly lacking in scruples but also has a talent for distinguishing special antique items as well as finding fakes. It's a very well-regarded series with something of a following, and here's the perfect opportunity to discover the actor in his "native environment".

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