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The DVD Dossier is the free newsletter published weekly by DVD Direct 4 Less.
This is the archived issue for August 28, 2005.
Click Here To Subscribe To The DVD Dossier Newsletter
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Published weekly by DVD Direct 4 Less, the online source for DVD Discounts & Deals
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In This Issue
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August 28, 2005
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We'll start this week with two older films with SNL stars headlining.
The first is the 25th Anniversary Edition of "The Blues Brothers," available in both widescreen and full screen versions. This is the beloved action comedy starring "Saturday Night Live" legends Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi as Jake and Elwood Blues and featuring musical performances by Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, James Brown and other R&B legends.
The new DVD release includes the original theatrical version of the film - never before available on DVD - plus the extended Director's Cut version and many all-new bonus features.
Also out this week is 1995's "Tommy Boy," one of two comedies Chris Farley made with David Spade. It's your classic road picture, with Farley as a party animal and Spade as a smug number-cruncher.
As for new theatricals, "Monster-in-Law" brings Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez together as you've always wanted them and - surprisingly - it works. Fonda is a Mother From Hell who is not eager to welcome her new daughter-in-law into the fold.
Matthew McConaughey, Penelope Cruz and Steve Zahn star in "Sahara," available in widescreen and full screen versions. Apparently, marine life planetwide is dying off in staggering proportions, and if adventurer Dirk Pitt (McConaughey) can't find the solution, all life is in danger.
So what's he doing looking for the answer in the middle of the Sahara desert? We still are not entirely sure.
In "Chrystal," Billy Bob Thornton plays a guy who plunges the family car off the road with his wife (the title character) and their young son inside. Sixteen years later, he returns from prison seeking what was lost on that night. Directed by: Ray McKinnon, the film is a slow moving, but oddly compelling Southern tale of loss and redemption.
Tony Jaa, the martial arts superstar, stars in "Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior" as a religious young warrior who swears an oath of peace. But when the head of his village's sacred Buddha statue is stolen, he heads for Bangkok to recover it from a ruthless crime lord at any cost.
If you go for this sort of stuff, you'll like this one... the action is relentless and no stunt doubles or special effects were used.
Disney's entry this week is the direct-to-home-video sequel "Lilo & Stitch 2: Stitch Has a Glitch." In this completely new adventure, Stitch’s molecular makeup goes haywire - which brings out his worst behavior - and his friendship with Lilo is threatened by misunderstanding.
"Lilo & Stitch 2" features the same voice cast as the first film, completely new music and some classic Elvis tunes,
In the high-profile English “McLibel” case (1996-2005), London’s Royal Courts of Justice found McDonald’s marketing to have claimed “a positive nutritional benefit which their food did not match” and that McDonald's “exploits children” with their advertising strategy.
Additionally, the company was found to be “culpably responsible for animal cruelty” and it was fair comment to say that McDonald's employees worldwide “do badly in terms of pay and conditions” and that “If one eats enough McDonald's food, one's diet may well become high in fat, with the very real risk of heart disease.”
A new film chronicling the trial, “McLibel,” is out on DVD this week.
Directed by Franny Armstrong, the film tells the true story of Helen Steel and Dave Morris, two ordinary people whom, after being sued for libel by McDonald’s, stood up to the multinational power and its McSpies. The case has been described as the biggest corporate PR disaster in history.
They refused to apologize for distributing a leaflet that asked consumers to ponder the question: “What’s Wrong with McDonald’s?” and listed the company’s transgressions. Filmed over a 10-year period, the documentary follows the lives of Steel and Morris as they transform from anonymous non-profit activists into unlikely global heroes.
Another new documentary, "Gay Republicans," focuses on members of the Log Cabin Republicans as they grappled with the issue of whether or not to support the President in his 2004 campaign following his call for an amendment to ban gay marriage.
From television this week comes the long-awaited First Season of "Roseanne" starring Roseanne Barr and John Goodman. It's the story of a lower class family struggling with life's essential problems: marriage, children, money and parents-in-law.
Larry David is back with Season Four of his HBO show, "Curb Your Enthusiasm."
The Fourth Season finds Larry buying medical marijuana, taking a hooker to a baseball game, stealing a golf club from a corpse, ruining Ben Stiller's birthday party, attempting to cash in on his "tenth anniversary present" with Gina Gershon and tripping the light fantastic on Broadway in "The Producers" with Mel Brooks and David Schwimmer.
Alan Partridge (as played by Steve Coogan in the BBC hit "Knowing Me, Knowing You with Alan Partridge") is the hilariously unprofessional host of the cheesiest talk show imaginable.
Self-absorbed and further handicapped with an ABBA fixation, Alan confronts an endless parade of C-list celebrities week after week with mounting frustration and antagonism. This 2-Disc set includes all 6 episodes of the series, as well as the Christmas Special "Knowing Me, Knowing Yule."
Rounding up this week's crop of TV DVDs is the First Season of "House," the Second Season of "Nip/Tuck" and the Fourth Season of "Married With Children."
We'll be back here next week with more DVD news... see you then!
Regards,
DVD Direct 4 Less
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| This Week's New DVD Releases - Street Date: August 30, 2005 |
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Visit us online to see a comprehensive list of new DVD releases for the next six weeks.
Links above are for Region 1 (USA) Editions. Availability and release dates elsewhere may vary.
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The long-awaited Tenth (and Final) Season of "Friends" arrives on DVD in a 4-Disc Deluxe Collector's Edition November 15th.
It marks the end of an era and the final chapter for one of America’s most beloved sitcoms and the end of one of the best selling TV-on-DVD franchises ever. This new boxed set will include all 17 of the season's episodes with never-before-seen footage and exclusive special features, including a 43 minute gag reel.
During the Final Season of the Emmy® Award-winning "Friends," loyal fans tuned in every week to see how their decade-old “Friends” would say goodbye.
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An audience of more than 51 million people watched the series finale, making it one of the most-watched TV shows in modern television history.
Speculation ran wild all season: would Ross and Rachel reunite; would Chandler and Monica start a family; would Phoebe get married... and would Joey move to Los Angeles?
The Tenth Season answers all of these questions and also has fun guest star appearances from Christina Applegate, Greg Kinnear and Danny DeVito.
Bonus features include an extra-long gag reel (with botched scenes from Seasons One through Five and Season Ten); "Friends Final Thoughts," in which the cast and crew reminisce about their ten years together on the series; "Friends of Friends, Part IV" (interviews with Christina Applegate, Paul Rudd and Aisha Tyler); the "Joey Joey" Music Video (an all-new music video featuring Matt LeBlanc); episode previews and commentary on three episodes by the executive producers.
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"Friends" starred Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe), Courtney Cox-Arquette (Monica), Jennifer Aniston (Rachel), David Schwimmer (Ross), Matthew Perry (Chandler) and Matt LeBlanc (Joey).
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Throughout its wildly successful run on NBC’s “must-see TV” line-up, "Friends" won several Emmys®, People’s Choice, Screen Actors Guild, Golden Globe and American Comedy awards. The last episode aired May 6, 2004.
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Also on November 15th - and just in time for the holidays - Warner Home Video will release "Friends: The One With All Ten Seasons," the must-have gift for any "Friends" fanatic. This Limited Edition Collector’s Set will showcase all ten seasons in an exclusive collectible case.
If you've been buying each season as it came out, they haven't forgotten about you: there's a special offer that gives you the opportunity to get the same Limited Edition collector’s box for your existing "Friends" DVD collection.
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The mail-in offer will be promoted inside all Season Ten DVD boxed sets and will be available only "while supplies last," so you might want to act fast on this one if you're at all interested.
Pre-order the Tenth Season of "Friends" now and save 35%. |
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| How Much Would You Pay for Sex? |
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For six seasons Carrie Bradshaw and her friends Samantha, Miranda, and Charlotte offered us their hilarious, outspoken and outrageous look at dating, mating and relating in the big city.
Now HBO has announced a new lavishly packaged 20-Disc "Sex and the City Collector's Gift Set," what they're calling the definitive "Collector's Edition," to be released on November 1st.
We love "Sex," but we're left to wonder... exactly whom has this $300 (SRP) boxed set been created for?
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We didn't bother asking this about the complete "Friends" set because "The One With All Ten Seasons" is simply a collection of all ten boxed season sets.
Whether you've been buying them one at a time as they came out or whether you buy the complete series now, everybody gets the same episodes and special features.
But "Sex and the City" has already had a best selling megapack release (still available here at 43% off) offering all six seasons. This new gift set includes all that content, but will be packaged like a book, with spiral bound pages inside holding 19 DVDs with the show's episodes and featuring lots of photos (most of which we've already seen in the other boxed sets).
The big appeal here is evidently a "bonus" disc with lots of special features.
Now, assuming that you're a fan and that these are special features that you'll actually want to see (and not more reheated behind-the-scenes stuff shown previously on HBO), is it worth $300?
The way we see it, most fans have already bought individual season sets or they waited until the complete series was available and bought the whole shebang. Releasing a "Collector's Edition" now with exclusive content demonstrates tremendous disrespect for the show's dedicated fans.
HBO should do the right thing and sell the bonus disc separately for those who have already purchased the complete series, much like Warner is doing with its "Friends" collector's box.
And what's with that price?
Is HBO programming really so much better that it can command that kind of premium? Even with a heavy discount (Amazon knocks 30% off the SRP and brings the cost down to just under $200), you'll still be spending a pretty penny. Not quite the cost of a pair of Manolo Blahniks, but still...
You can pick up ten seasons of "Friends" for the same retail price as six seasons of "Sex." And the "Friends" set has forty discs, compared to SATC's twenty.
Similarly, on November 15th, "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" (the Complete Series) will also be released in a mammoth 40-Disc "Collector's Set." The SRP on that one is only $200 (with an expected street price of about $140).
In other words, it's twice as big, has twice as much content, but will cost a third less than "Sex."
Granted, "Buffy" has been gone a little longer and is now more of a catalog title than "Sex and the City," but is "Sex" really worth an extra hundred bucks? Let us know what you think.
Pre-order the "Sex and the City" Complete Series Gift Set now and save 30%. |
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The First Season of "Veronica Mars," perhaps the best show on TV that you're not watching, arrives on DVD October 11th.
The cult favorite starring newcomer Kristen Bell was named one of the six best dramas on TV by Time Magazine
In the wealthy, seaside community of Neptune, California, the rich and powerful make the rules. Unfortunately for them, there's "Veronica Mars," a smart, fearless 17-year-old apprentice private investigator dedicated to solving the town's toughest mysteries.
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Veronica used to be one of the popular girls, but it all came crumbling down around her after her best friend, Lilly, was murdered, and her then-sheriff father, Keith, was removed from office for naming Lilly's rich father as the lead suspect.
During the day, Veronica must negotiate high school like any average teenage girl. But at night, she helps with her father's struggling, new private investigator business - and what she finds may just tear the town of Neptune apart at the seams.
Pre-order the First Season of "Veronica Mars" and save 30%.
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| Preview of Next Week's Releases - Street Date: September 6, 2005 |
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The DVD Dossier is a free weekly newsletter that contains objective information about new DVD releases that has been researched and written by the editors at DVD Direct 4 Less, as well as advertisements and promotional information provided by movie studios.
We send this newsletter only to those who request it. Each newsletter we send directly to you includes an "unsubscribe" link. (This is an online archived issue of The DVD Dossier which does not contain that link.)
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Academy Award(s)® and Oscar(s)® are the registered service marks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Golden Globe(s)® is the registered service mark of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association. Emmy is the trademark property of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
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Savings percentages quoted apply to preorder purchases from amazon.com and were in effect at the time of publication; preorder savings may vary at other online merchants.
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Please note: all DVDs were available for sale as of the original publication date of this newsletter. Some may no longer be in inventory at the present time and preorder savings may not be in effect. If you're having difficulty finding a particular title, you can search current availability for any DVD here.
No DVDs were harmed in the making of this newsletter.
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