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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: John Lithgow plays a tortured soul, Brendan Fraser gets held up by bears and some acclaimed TV gets released on the home media market.

Pick of the Week

For people who can sympathize with serial killers: Dexter: The Fourth Season

Dexter doesn’t pick up again until late September, so that’ll give newbs (or the diehards) plenty of time to watch (or re-watch) the Showtime series’ masterful fourth season. Like season three, season four of Dexter is a slow burn – especially in relation to the two that preceded it. But holy smokes… that season finale? I could still talk anyone’s ear off about it.

The finale, actually, was watched by 2.6 million viewers, a record for Showtime’s original series and the network’s highest rated telecast in more than 10 years.

One thing we all figured out very quickly was that John Lithgow plays creepy waayyyyy too well. His season-long turn as Arthur Mitchell won him a Golden Globe, probably will win him an Emmy and honest to god makes a friend of mine freeze up whenever she sees an older gentleman walking a dog at night. The dude could very well be the nicest man on the planet, and yet my friend will at first glance assume he probably kills people in cold blood.

In the show’s fourth season, Dexter faces off against the Trinity Killer, a murderer who disposes of bodies in one particular sequence: young woman in bathtub, old mother falling to her death and a father bludgeoned to death. Meanwhile, Dexter adjusts to his new role as a family man with the birth of his first and only son, Harrison.

Disc includes: Interviews with Actors featurette, Californication (season 3, episodes 1 and 2), The Tudors (season 4, episodes 1 and 2)





For people who think what Ricky Gervais touches is mostly gold: Cemetery Junction

A film that surprisingly received little to no press before or around the time of its release was Cemetery Junction. I say surprisingly because it’s a product of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, the tag team behind some of England’s most fascinating TV shows (The Office and Extras). Ricky Gervais is also, well, Ricky Gervais – the guy who memorably hosted the Golden Globes earlier this year and, no matter your leanings, is a pretty big deal in Hollywood.

And yet, Cemetery Junction – a movie he has been quoted as saying is a delicious combination of The Office and Mad Men – was only released theatrically in the U.K. Expansion into other European countries is expected through November, though the same doesn’t hold true for the United States. At the box office, the flick earned £641,218 over its opening weekend, and £1,329,002 total.

Though Ricky appears in the film, his character is by no means a lead character. Instead, Cemetery Junction is a the coming-of-age story of a handful of young, professional men at an insurance company in 1970s England.

Disc includes: Watch The Directors: A Conversation with Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant featurette, audio commentaries, deleted scenes, bloopers, The Lads Look Back: The Stars Discuss Cemetery Junction featurette

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