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Michael Giltz
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Posted: September 4, 2010 11:43 PM
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7Inspiring Funny Hot Scary Outrageous Amazing Weird CrazyDVDs: Friday Night Lights Scores
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I don't give a hoot about football -- high school, college or otherwise -- so believe me when I say Friday
Night Lights Season Four ($29.98; Universal) is a very satisfying TV drama with one of the best
ensembles around. It's also had a long, strange journey. It began as a best-selling nonfiction book, then it
became an excellent film and finally a TV series. Every version of this story is worth checking out. The
book is thoughtful and gripping. The movie is quietly wonderful. And the TV series is honest about highschool (which TV often tackles in outrageous terms) and small town life (which TV either idealizes or
hokums out of recognition).
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The first season of FNL is excellent and can be enjoyed on its own with a distinct beginning, middle and
end. Season two is a train wreck rescued only by the top-notch cast. I would urge you to skip it and move
right to season three, which was a solid return to form. And now the show has two more shortenedseasons of 12 episodes each. Season four (just ended) and season five, which will debut on DirectTV andthen air on NBC. Season four is nearly as good as season one, which is high praise. They didn't quite
adjust to the shortened season, so some dramatic storylines feel rushed. And I was very nervous about
the new quarterback Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan) dealing with both a crack addict mom and the
lure of thug life. But the small steps feel earned. And the past star athletes who are still hanging around
town and feeling that their lives peaked a few years ago are just dead on target. (I mean you TaylorKitsch.) And the fact that Zach Gilford didn't get an Emmy nomination for his work this season as Matt
Saracen is absurd. Watch and you'll understand.
You've got to love a show that understands high school rivalries to know that the season finale doesn't
have to be about winning the state championship It can be about keeping the OTHER team from even
getting to the state championship. As good a depiction of real family life as you'll find on television right
now, thanks especially to deserved Emmy nominees Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. Is there any othershow that makes clear exactly how hard married life can be without sending you to a divorce lawyer?
Good stuff.
TEMPLE GRANDIN ($26.98; HBO) -- So you know it swept the Emmys (five wins including Best TV
Movie and Best Actress for Claire Danes) and you're wondering, is it worth renting or buying? Absolutely.This is the sort of drama TV movies were made for and the sort TV did so well for so long before the
networks grew bored with them. I first heard about Temple on NPR, where they were interviewing thiswoman who designed new slaughterhouses that were more humane for the cattle by really understanding
what the cattle were experiencing and making it as "natural" as possible. Oh and she was autistic and had
built a device during college that mimicked the way cattle were held in place which calmed Temple whena hug from another person would just be upsetting. The movie has just the right sprightly, unsentimentaltone and Danes is very good in the role of Temple, never trying to sentimentalize her or just as
importantly give Temple more of an emotional journey than she had. Temple does a lot but she doesn't
change a lot: she's pretty much always funny, direct and smart as people with highly functioning autismcan be. I'm a little surprised David Strathairn (as her teacher) and Julia Ormond (as her mother) won
Emmys as well simply because their work is so low-key. But I'm glad.
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BLACK NARCISSUS ($29.95 regular and $39.95 BluRay; Criterion)
THE RED SHOES ($39.95 BluRay; Criterion)
PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN ($34.95 BluRay; Kino) -- I'm crazy about Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the team that seemed to create a new genre every time they made a
movie. God (and Marty) forgive me, but I've never quite fallen under the spell of The Red Shoes, but it
certainly does look absolutely smashing and includes oodles of extras including Martin Scorsese, anardent fan of this hyper-melodramatic dance film. But I did savor again the vertiginous spell of BlackNarcissus (1947), which is probably one of the saner movies in their oeuvre but still comes across as a
bizarre cross between a fairy tale and a Freudian drama. Nuns head to a former brothel in the Himalayasto offer education and medicine to the locals. Perhaps the most unexpected facet of the film is the
complete indifference of the locals to the nuns and their ways while the nuns go slowly mad what with
the isolation and the height (they really are perched on a cliff) and the sexual tension. Yes, the sexualtension as embodied to a hilarious degree by David Farrar who fancies head nun Deborah Kerr
(discretely) but drives some of the others wild with desire. He's dressed in these...shorts, very silly shorts
that almost emasculate him (riding a small donkey doesn't help either). But Farrar persists in wearing theshorts and he is so...hairy and manly and does insist on walking around with his shirt unbuttoned and the
scene where he strides in without a shirt seems almost indecent. It's a crazy, nutty, weird little movie and
absolutely gorgeous to look at. More extras including Marty again. Finally, there's Pandora and theFlying Dutchman, a bizarre film by Albert Lewin that tries to do what Powell and Pressburger
accomplish with ease: create a truly strange, distinct film. It fails, despite James Mason as the Flying
Dutchman who becomes enamored with Pandora, embodied -- and I do mean embodied -- by theluscious Ava Gardner, who was driving Frank Sinatra wild at the time and no wonder. It's half-baked orover-baked or something, but boy does she look stunning in this lovely restoration.TOP VIDEO PICKS
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REPO MEN ($29.98; Universal) -- Jude Law stars as a repo man in the near future when people can
buy organs at exorbitant prices, but god help you if you miss your payments. Someone like Law will come
and literally rip your heart out. It makes the endless phone calls and letters I'm pestered with seem
downright pleasant in comparison. Not surprisingly, Law has an accident at work and wakes up to findthey've replaced one of his organs. When he finds it hard to continue doing his job, it's not long beforebest buddy Forest Whitaker is cornering him with a scalpel in hand. The film is ghoulishly amusing atfirst but it really only has just enough plot to fill a Twilight Zone episode. If it had established the conceit
in 10 minutes and had Law wake up towards the 23 minute mark and realize he was going to be hunted,
everything would have been perfect. But the film drags it out with a new romance and an ending that anysci-fi fan with half a brain can see coming a mile away. Not bad, just too much of it.
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA ($27.95; First Run) -- Don't make the mistake I did
and keep putting off watching this Academy Award-nominated documentary about Daniel Ellsberg and
the Pentagon Papers. Anyone who has enjoyed All The President's Men should check it out immediately.
Most people know about the Pentagon Papers -- an archive that contained the "secret" history of USinvolvement in Vietnam and that pulled no punches. But the ins and outs of how it actually came to be
printed, how Nixon's government tried to quash it, of Ellsberg's own journey from true believer to true
radical (and thus true patriot) is gripping, fascinating and entertaining. As a sad commentary on the stateof journalism, we hear editors at the New York Times saying that one reason they felt compelled to printthe Pentagon Papers was the simple fact that when people discovered they had this info and HADN'T
printed it, how damaging that would be to the paper's reputation. Compare that to the current New York
Times -- which believed it had mountains of evidence that the Bush administration had lied to theAmerican people and ginned up the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a pretext for war -- but
DIDN'T print it because they were afraid it might affect the 2004 reelection campaign of Bush. And the
Bush administration pressured them to hold off. Oh for the Seventies.CES 2011 Models Afghanistan
Iran
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Kardashians
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SGT. BILKO/THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW FIRST SEASON ($39.98; MPI)
THE MOTHERS-IN-LAW: THE COMPLETE SERIES ($39.98; Paramount) -- The Mothers-In-Law
was pretty dated and tame even when it self-consciously debuted in the mod late Sixties. Overseen by
Dezi Arnaz, it's only real assets are veteran stars Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard as neighbors whose kids getmarried and find moving to the garage isn't nearly far enough away from their meddling but well-
meaning moms. It's kind of sad to see the production design and outfits try to be hip when the material
is so irredeemably square. And Arden and Ballard can't do much about it, even though they do sometimesmug enough to play to the balconies. Still, the two seasons are nicely presented and the extras are wherethe real fun is to be found, including rehearsal footage, interviews and a "lost" pilot for The Carol
Channing Show. In contrast, Sgt. Bilko is much older but far more durable. The fast-talking Phil Silvers
never had a better role than the poker playing Bilko.The episodes on this series -- which won the Emmy
for Best Comedy the first three out of four years it was on the air -- look basically the same as theepisodes on the 50th Anniversary boxed set. That's probably a good pick for casual fans, but this
landmark series deserves to be presented in its entirety. It may not be possible (I assume there was a live
audience) but I would love to hear an episode without a laugh track. I think the show would be evenfunnier that way. It's that pointed and fresh.
LOST: THE SIXTH AND FINAL SEASON ($59.99 regular and $79.99 BluRay; ABC)
HEROES SEASON 4 ($59.98 regular and $79.98 BluRay; Universal)
NUMB3RS SEASON 6: THE FINAL SEASON ($57.99; Paramount) -- The end of the road for three
shows, one championed by a passionate core of fans, one praised and then derided as it failed to deliver
on its promise and one enjoyed by your mother and father on a Friday night. Frankly, Lost lost interest
for me a long time ago and the plotlines were so convoluted it was impossible to dive back in. Justreading the plot descriptions gave me a headache. But the final season BluRay is loaded with impressive
features about shaping the finale, along with bloopers and commentaries and other top-notch extras,
including the BluRay only access via BDLive to Lost University, which is still such a hilarious nod to how
complex the show became that I love it. As someone who stepped back in at the end, the finale was oddly
moving, in a weird way, even though I couldn't possibly give a coherent answer to the many people who
asked me what it meant. If you're a fan, the BluRay looks smashing. Heroes lost me right at season two. If
they had just had a complete tale in each season a la 24, this show could have been great fun. Instead
they just layered on the confusion. The last season might have redeemed itself a tad (it was dubbedRedemption after all), but it was too little too late. Since Numb3rs never pretended to be anything more
than a police procedural with a little mathematics to gussy it up, it comes off best at the end. RobMorrow and David Krumholtz have great fun in their roles as an FBI agent and his brilliant but oddball
brother. Modestly engaging if you ever checked it out and ending with its dignity intact. But somewhere
an adviser with a degree in matehmatics who used to double check the numbers of the writers to makesure they didn't mess up is out of work and desperately hoping Sudoku: The Game Show is greenlit.
BLURAY ROUNDUP BLURAY ROUNDUP BLURAY ROUNDUP BLURAY ROUNDUP
The flood of BluRay titles lets us revisit old friends after a face lift: they usually haven't looked this goodin years. BluRay players are so cheap you should buy one: even if you don't buy BluRays, the players will
make your standard DVDs look better on a hi-def plasma or LCD screen that can display the difference.
And you can always rent BluRays. I'm annoyed that they are trying to keep them at a higher price point,but often when released they're very close to the same sale price as standard DVDs. What are you gonna
do? They're not going anywhere and the next standard may well be downloads. Here are some catalog
titles newly out.
STALLONE: RAMBO -- THE COMPLETE COLLECTOR'S SET ($54.99 BluRay; Lionsgate)
BULL DURHAM ($24.99 BluRay; MGM)
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK ($24.99 BluRay; MGM)
ELVIS ON TOUR ($34.99 BluRay; Warner Bros.)
INSOMNIA ($24.98 BluRay; Warner Bros.)
NANNY MCPHEE ($26.98 BluRay; Universal)
THE BREAKFAST CLUB ($26.98 BluRay; Universal) -- Sylvester Stallone is enjoying his biggest hit in
nearly 20 years with The Expendables, so it's a good time to check in on his second-biggest franchise,
Rambo. The first movie is the only one you really need to see, though the second has a cartoon appeal for
capturing the Reagan era well. As a boxed set the BluRays are cleanly presented and BOY are they loud!
Bull Durham just gets better and better. I still get misty over Field Of Dreams but clearly this is the
baseball movie for the ages. Escape From New York, however, just looks silly. If you saw it as a kid, you
might enjoy it on a nostalgic level, but I found it ridiculous, with Kurt Russell as Snake whispering all his
dialogue and with his jeans so tight and hair so coiffed I thought he was gonna head straight to Greenwich
Village and to hell with the President. Looks oddly like a video game, with our hero facing new challengesat each level. Elvis On Tour is pretty fascinating in a grim way; did Elvis realize how tired and exhausted
and stuck in a Graceland bubble the movie made him look? Maybe it was a cry for help. Insomnia is
typical Christopher Nolan, smart, well-acted, and cold. Nanny McPhee is just not very good family fare,
no matter how much I adore Emma Thompson. And The Breakfast Club may have its problems. But so
what if the blame always rests squarely on the parents and these teenagers are helplessly earnest?Sometimes, that's exactly what teenagers are like. And the cast is so good, no wonder they all went on tosubstantial careers.
TRUE BLOOD COMPLETE SECOND SEASON ($79.98 BluRay: HBO)
THE SIMPSONS THIRTEENTH SEASON ($59.99 BluRay; Fox)
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON THREE ($89.98 BluRay; Universal) -- If you're wondering
about all the fuss over genuine phenomenon True Blood , you can read the amiable, less envelope-
pushing series of books by Charlaine Harris. Then you can skip season one and dive right into season two,
where the series found its mojo. The BluRay edition lets you access extra features and a timeline and
updates but it's mostly notable for just looking terrifically good, like the cast of vamps and psychic
waitresses and the rest on this HBO series. I could moan that 13 seasons should have been enough for the
lovable but won't-go-away series The Simpsons . But even the titles of the episodes made me giggle and
brought back good memories: "The Sweetest Apu;" "The Blunder Years," and "The Parent Rap" are just
three. Standard-setting extras, as The Simpsons has done for years. And really, I take a visceral pleasure
in how compact the entire season can be. Finally, unlike Lost and Heroes and so many other shows,
Battlestar Galactica knew exactly where it was going all along. It may have taken a questionable detour
here and there, but the confidence is there as they steer towards a satisfying finale in season four. Andwhy oh why doesn't the criminally under-appreciated Tricia Helfer get more work? She can do it all andlooks stunning to boot. Someone call Marty.
ERROL FLYNN ADVENTURES ($49.98; Warner Bros.)
THE KIM NOVAK COLLECTION ($39.95; Sony) -- What a contrast! The Errol Flynn collection
contains just a tiny sliver of this star's work: five good to very good movies (with one clunker) filmed and
set during World War II, four of them with the great director Raoul Walsh. You'd need five other boxedsets just to get an idea of everything he could do. On the other hand, The Kim Novak Collection has five
films that tell you pretty much everything you need to know about her, with the exception of Hitchcock'sVertigo and The Man With The Golden Arm (and depending on how you feel about it, Billy Wilder's Kiss
Me, Stupid ). Flynn's set is notable for the WW II focus and is definitely highlighted by Objective, Burma!
which has some new extras. It's a good sign that the TCM brand is a good bet for solid prints of classic
movies. And I love the extras where you can pair movies with newsreels and shorts. Novak's set is also
solid, with Middle Of the Night a 1959 Paddy Chayevsky passion project of hers that shows there might
have been much more than this stunning blond was allowed to show. And Pal Joey is so well cast it's an
eternal shame they tamed down the Broadway musical.
JOY ($29.95; Severin)
JOY & JOAN ($29.95; Severin)
LOOSE SCREWS: SCREWBALLS II ($19.95; Severin) -- For various reasons (okay, one big reason),
I'm not the best judge of erotica that dances on the edge of pornography a la Emmanuelle. However, I
can tell you that the prints are decent, that Joy contains a chat with star Claudia Udy (who inexplicablyturned down the sequel (which stars hardcore turned legit actress Brigitte Lahaie (of Henry & June , no
relation) and that like Porky's, Loose Screws promises more than it ever delivers. But most of all, I must
pay tribute to the DVD copy, which is wildly entertaining and lurid. Joy, it claims, was restored from "aprint discovered in the screening room of a Paris brothel" and it contains, uncut and uncensored, the
complete "Secret Orgy Dungeon" sequence. Joy & Joan, was restored from a print seized in a Marseilles
vice raid! Loose Screws just has audio commentary and other extras, but it does present the international
version in "Authentic VHS-Vision!"
*****
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that
reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion
makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also
available for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews.
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I do love Friday night lights!
Correction to my post: That would be Zach Gilford who plays quarterbac k Matt Saracen.
Friday Night Lights is my favorite show on television today, bar none, for many of the reasons
described. It's the kind of show that only comes along once in a decade, and Season 4 is the bestseason since Season 1.
I have to disagree with Michael about Season 2. While in totality, it is the weakest written season (in
terms of continuity due to the writers strike), I would never recommend skipping it. There is aproblemati c storyline among fans that I personally had no problem watching. Without a doubt, there
are some fantastic episodes and many, many of the 'small moments' that make this show what it isthat are not to be missed.
Back to S4, Michael failed to single out an episode called "The Son," which received an Emmy nom
for the writer and should have received one for Zach Taylor, who plays beleaguere d quarterbac k
Matt Saracen. One of the best written/ac ted episodes of the entire show. Kyle Chandler and Connie
Britton were not only Emmy worthy, but should have taken the statues home for their submittedepisodes: S41 (East of Dillon, Kyle Chandler) and S42 (After the Fall, Connie Britton).
S4 also received another deserved Emmy nom for casting. Four new characters were successful ly
introduced in S4 so that, realistica lly, former students could graduate and move on with their lives.
The news cast, along with Taylor Kitsch, Amy Teegarden, and Jesse Plemmons also turned inRecency | Popularity
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No doubt about it, it is a fantastic show and I am puzzled about people not knowing about
it, much less watching it. As far as I'm concerned every cast member is superb.
So glad to see this show getting some love. Zach Gilford as Matt Saracen is just heart-brea
kingly real. Fantastic actor and great writing made me cry weekly.
this is a good show, I agree. But Texas was first settled by Latinos and there aremany many good football players with long family history of playing this sport. Whyare they not represente d as much as the white players and AA?
Thanks for reading and commenting WeCanDoIt. I did reference the Zach Gilford episode, Ijust didn't name it or what it was about so as not to spoil the season. It was a great, trulygreat hour of television .
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Michael Giltz
Freelance writer and raconteur
Posted: September 4, 2010 11:43 PM
BIO
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7Inspiring Funny Hot Scary Outrageous Amazing Weird CrazyDVDs: Friday Night Lights Scores
Again
What's Your Reaction:
Read More: Dvds , Erroll Flynn , Friday Night Lights , Hbo , Movies , Rambo , Temple Grandin , True Bood , TV
Shows , Entertainment News
I don't give a hoot about football -- high school, college or otherwise -- so believe me when I say Friday
Night Lights Season Four ($29.98; Universal) is a very satisfying TV drama with one of the best
ensembles around. It's also had a long, strange journey. It began as a best-selling nonfiction book, then it
became an excellent film and finally a TV series. Every version of this story is worth checking out. The
book is thoughtful and gripping. The movie is quietly wonderful. And the TV series is honest about highschool (which TV often tackles in outrageous terms) and small town life (which TV either idealizes or
hokums out of recognition).
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The first season of FNL is excellent and can be enjoyed on its own with a distinct beginning, middle and
end. Season two is a train wreck rescued only by the top-notch cast. I would urge you to skip it and move
right to season three, which was a solid return to form. And now the show has two more shortenedseasons of 12 episodes each. Season four (just ended) and season five, which will debut on DirectTV andthen air on NBC. Season four is nearly as good as season one, which is high praise. They didn't quite
adjust to the shortened season, so some dramatic storylines feel rushed. And I was very nervous about
the new quarterback Vince Howard (Michael B. Jordan) dealing with both a crack addict mom and the
lure of thug life. But the small steps feel earned. And the past star athletes who are still hanging around
town and feeling that their lives peaked a few years ago are just dead on target. (I mean you TaylorKitsch.) And the fact that Zach Gilford didn't get an Emmy nomination for his work this season as Matt
Saracen is absurd. Watch and you'll understand.
You've got to love a show that understands high school rivalries to know that the season finale doesn't
have to be about winning the state championship It can be about keeping the OTHER team from even
getting to the state championship. As good a depiction of real family life as you'll find on television right
now, thanks especially to deserved Emmy nominees Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton. Is there any othershow that makes clear exactly how hard married life can be without sending you to a divorce lawyer?
Good stuff.
TEMPLE GRANDIN ($26.98; HBO) -- So you know it swept the Emmys (five wins including Best TV
Movie and Best Actress for Claire Danes) and you're wondering, is it worth renting or buying? Absolutely.This is the sort of drama TV movies were made for and the sort TV did so well for so long before the
networks grew bored with them. I first heard about Temple on NPR, where they were interviewing thiswoman who designed new slaughterhouses that were more humane for the cattle by really understanding
what the cattle were experiencing and making it as "natural" as possible. Oh and she was autistic and had
built a device during college that mimicked the way cattle were held in place which calmed Temple whena hug from another person would just be upsetting. The movie has just the right sprightly, unsentimentaltone and Danes is very good in the role of Temple, never trying to sentimentalize her or just as
importantly give Temple more of an emotional journey than she had. Temple does a lot but she doesn't
change a lot: she's pretty much always funny, direct and smart as people with highly functioning autismcan be. I'm a little surprised David Strathairn (as her teacher) and Julia Ormond (as her mother) won
Emmys as well simply because their work is so low-key. But I'm glad.
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BLACK NARCISSUS ($29.95 regular and $39.95 BluRay; Criterion)
THE RED SHOES ($39.95 BluRay; Criterion)
PANDORA AND THE FLYING DUTCHMAN ($34.95 BluRay; Kino) -- I'm crazy about Michael
Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the team that seemed to create a new genre every time they made a
movie. God (and Marty) forgive me, but I've never quite fallen under the spell of The Red Shoes, but it
certainly does look absolutely smashing and includes oodles of extras including Martin Scorsese, anardent fan of this hyper-melodramatic dance film. But I did savor again the vertiginous spell of BlackNarcissus (1947), which is probably one of the saner movies in their oeuvre but still comes across as a
bizarre cross between a fairy tale and a Freudian drama. Nuns head to a former brothel in the Himalayasto offer education and medicine to the locals. Perhaps the most unexpected facet of the film is the
complete indifference of the locals to the nuns and their ways while the nuns go slowly mad what with
the isolation and the height (they really are perched on a cliff) and the sexual tension. Yes, the sexualtension as embodied to a hilarious degree by David Farrar who fancies head nun Deborah Kerr
(discretely) but drives some of the others wild with desire. He's dressed in these...shorts, very silly shorts
that almost emasculate him (riding a small donkey doesn't help either). But Farrar persists in wearing theshorts and he is so...hairy and manly and does insist on walking around with his shirt unbuttoned and the
scene where he strides in without a shirt seems almost indecent. It's a crazy, nutty, weird little movie and
absolutely gorgeous to look at. More extras including Marty again. Finally, there's Pandora and theFlying Dutchman, a bizarre film by Albert Lewin that tries to do what Powell and Pressburger
accomplish with ease: create a truly strange, distinct film. It fails, despite James Mason as the Flying
Dutchman who becomes enamored with Pandora, embodied -- and I do mean embodied -- by theluscious Ava Gardner, who was driving Frank Sinatra wild at the time and no wonder. It's half-baked orover-baked or something, but boy does she look stunning in this lovely restoration.TOP VIDEO PICKS
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REPO MEN ($29.98; Universal) -- Jude Law stars as a repo man in the near future when people can
buy organs at exorbitant prices, but god help you if you miss your payments. Someone like Law will come
and literally rip your heart out. It makes the endless phone calls and letters I'm pestered with seem
downright pleasant in comparison. Not surprisingly, Law has an accident at work and wakes up to findthey've replaced one of his organs. When he finds it hard to continue doing his job, it's not long beforebest buddy Forest Whitaker is cornering him with a scalpel in hand. The film is ghoulishly amusing atfirst but it really only has just enough plot to fill a Twilight Zone episode. If it had established the conceit
in 10 minutes and had Law wake up towards the 23 minute mark and realize he was going to be hunted,
everything would have been perfect. But the film drags it out with a new romance and an ending that anysci-fi fan with half a brain can see coming a mile away. Not bad, just too much of it.
THE MOST DANGEROUS MAN IN AMERICA ($27.95; First Run) -- Don't make the mistake I did
and keep putting off watching this Academy Award-nominated documentary about Daniel Ellsberg and
the Pentagon Papers. Anyone who has enjoyed All The President's Men should check it out immediately.
Most people know about the Pentagon Papers -- an archive that contained the "secret" history of USinvolvement in Vietnam and that pulled no punches. But the ins and outs of how it actually came to be
printed, how Nixon's government tried to quash it, of Ellsberg's own journey from true believer to true
radical (and thus true patriot) is gripping, fascinating and entertaining. As a sad commentary on the stateof journalism, we hear editors at the New York Times saying that one reason they felt compelled to printthe Pentagon Papers was the simple fact that when people discovered they had this info and HADN'T
printed it, how damaging that would be to the paper's reputation. Compare that to the current New York
Times -- which believed it had mountains of evidence that the Bush administration had lied to theAmerican people and ginned up the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as a pretext for war -- but
DIDN'T print it because they were afraid it might affect the 2004 reelection campaign of Bush. And the
Bush administration pressured them to hold off. Oh for the Seventies.CES 2011 Models Afghanistan
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SGT. BILKO/THE PHIL SILVERS SHOW FIRST SEASON ($39.98; MPI)
THE MOTHERS-IN-LAW: THE COMPLETE SERIES ($39.98; Paramount) -- The Mothers-In-Law
was pretty dated and tame even when it self-consciously debuted in the mod late Sixties. Overseen by
Dezi Arnaz, it's only real assets are veteran stars Eve Arden and Kaye Ballard as neighbors whose kids getmarried and find moving to the garage isn't nearly far enough away from their meddling but well-
meaning moms. It's kind of sad to see the production design and outfits try to be hip when the material
is so irredeemably square. And Arden and Ballard can't do much about it, even though they do sometimesmug enough to play to the balconies. Still, the two seasons are nicely presented and the extras are wherethe real fun is to be found, including rehearsal footage, interviews and a "lost" pilot for The Carol
Channing Show. In contrast, Sgt. Bilko is much older but far more durable. The fast-talking Phil Silvers
never had a better role than the poker playing Bilko.The episodes on this series -- which won the Emmy
for Best Comedy the first three out of four years it was on the air -- look basically the same as theepisodes on the 50th Anniversary boxed set. That's probably a good pick for casual fans, but this
landmark series deserves to be presented in its entirety. It may not be possible (I assume there was a live
audience) but I would love to hear an episode without a laugh track. I think the show would be evenfunnier that way. It's that pointed and fresh.
LOST: THE SIXTH AND FINAL SEASON ($59.99 regular and $79.99 BluRay; ABC)
HEROES SEASON 4 ($59.98 regular and $79.98 BluRay; Universal)
NUMB3RS SEASON 6: THE FINAL SEASON ($57.99; Paramount) -- The end of the road for three
shows, one championed by a passionate core of fans, one praised and then derided as it failed to deliver
on its promise and one enjoyed by your mother and father on a Friday night. Frankly, Lost lost interest
for me a long time ago and the plotlines were so convoluted it was impossible to dive back in. Justreading the plot descriptions gave me a headache. But the final season BluRay is loaded with impressive
features about shaping the finale, along with bloopers and commentaries and other top-notch extras,
including the BluRay only access via BDLive to Lost University, which is still such a hilarious nod to how
complex the show became that I love it. As someone who stepped back in at the end, the finale was oddly
moving, in a weird way, even though I couldn't possibly give a coherent answer to the many people who
asked me what it meant. If you're a fan, the BluRay looks smashing. Heroes lost me right at season two. If
they had just had a complete tale in each season a la 24, this show could have been great fun. Instead
they just layered on the confusion. The last season might have redeemed itself a tad (it was dubbedRedemption after all), but it was too little too late. Since Numb3rs never pretended to be anything more
than a police procedural with a little mathematics to gussy it up, it comes off best at the end. RobMorrow and David Krumholtz have great fun in their roles as an FBI agent and his brilliant but oddball
brother. Modestly engaging if you ever checked it out and ending with its dignity intact. But somewhere
an adviser with a degree in matehmatics who used to double check the numbers of the writers to makesure they didn't mess up is out of work and desperately hoping Sudoku: The Game Show is greenlit.
BLURAY ROUNDUP BLURAY ROUNDUP BLURAY ROUNDUP BLURAY ROUNDUP
The flood of BluRay titles lets us revisit old friends after a face lift: they usually haven't looked this goodin years. BluRay players are so cheap you should buy one: even if you don't buy BluRays, the players will
make your standard DVDs look better on a hi-def plasma or LCD screen that can display the difference.
And you can always rent BluRays. I'm annoyed that they are trying to keep them at a higher price point,but often when released they're very close to the same sale price as standard DVDs. What are you gonna
do? They're not going anywhere and the next standard may well be downloads. Here are some catalog
titles newly out.
STALLONE: RAMBO -- THE COMPLETE COLLECTOR'S SET ($54.99 BluRay; Lionsgate)
BULL DURHAM ($24.99 BluRay; MGM)
ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK ($24.99 BluRay; MGM)
ELVIS ON TOUR ($34.99 BluRay; Warner Bros.)
INSOMNIA ($24.98 BluRay; Warner Bros.)
NANNY MCPHEE ($26.98 BluRay; Universal)
THE BREAKFAST CLUB ($26.98 BluRay; Universal) -- Sylvester Stallone is enjoying his biggest hit in
nearly 20 years with The Expendables, so it's a good time to check in on his second-biggest franchise,
Rambo. The first movie is the only one you really need to see, though the second has a cartoon appeal for
capturing the Reagan era well. As a boxed set the BluRays are cleanly presented and BOY are they loud!
Bull Durham just gets better and better. I still get misty over Field Of Dreams but clearly this is the
baseball movie for the ages. Escape From New York, however, just looks silly. If you saw it as a kid, you
might enjoy it on a nostalgic level, but I found it ridiculous, with Kurt Russell as Snake whispering all his
dialogue and with his jeans so tight and hair so coiffed I thought he was gonna head straight to Greenwich
Village and to hell with the President. Looks oddly like a video game, with our hero facing new challengesat each level. Elvis On Tour is pretty fascinating in a grim way; did Elvis realize how tired and exhausted
and stuck in a Graceland bubble the movie made him look? Maybe it was a cry for help. Insomnia is
typical Christopher Nolan, smart, well-acted, and cold. Nanny McPhee is just not very good family fare,
no matter how much I adore Emma Thompson. And The Breakfast Club may have its problems. But so
what if the blame always rests squarely on the parents and these teenagers are helplessly earnest?Sometimes, that's exactly what teenagers are like. And the cast is so good, no wonder they all went on tosubstantial careers.
TRUE BLOOD COMPLETE SECOND SEASON ($79.98 BluRay: HBO)
THE SIMPSONS THIRTEENTH SEASON ($59.99 BluRay; Fox)
BATTLESTAR GALACTICA SEASON THREE ($89.98 BluRay; Universal) -- If you're wondering
about all the fuss over genuine phenomenon True Blood , you can read the amiable, less envelope-
pushing series of books by Charlaine Harris. Then you can skip season one and dive right into season two,
where the series found its mojo. The BluRay edition lets you access extra features and a timeline and
updates but it's mostly notable for just looking terrifically good, like the cast of vamps and psychic
waitresses and the rest on this HBO series. I could moan that 13 seasons should have been enough for the
lovable but won't-go-away series The Simpsons . But even the titles of the episodes made me giggle and
brought back good memories: "The Sweetest Apu;" "The Blunder Years," and "The Parent Rap" are just
three. Standard-setting extras, as The Simpsons has done for years. And really, I take a visceral pleasure
in how compact the entire season can be. Finally, unlike Lost and Heroes and so many other shows,
Battlestar Galactica knew exactly where it was going all along. It may have taken a questionable detour
here and there, but the confidence is there as they steer towards a satisfying finale in season four. Andwhy oh why doesn't the criminally under-appreciated Tricia Helfer get more work? She can do it all andlooks stunning to boot. Someone call Marty.
ERROL FLYNN ADVENTURES ($49.98; Warner Bros.)
THE KIM NOVAK COLLECTION ($39.95; Sony) -- What a contrast! The Errol Flynn collection
contains just a tiny sliver of this star's work: five good to very good movies (with one clunker) filmed and
set during World War II, four of them with the great director Raoul Walsh. You'd need five other boxedsets just to get an idea of everything he could do. On the other hand, The Kim Novak Collection has five
films that tell you pretty much everything you need to know about her, with the exception of Hitchcock'sVertigo and The Man With The Golden Arm (and depending on how you feel about it, Billy Wilder's Kiss
Me, Stupid ). Flynn's set is notable for the WW II focus and is definitely highlighted by Objective, Burma!
which has some new extras. It's a good sign that the TCM brand is a good bet for solid prints of classic
movies. And I love the extras where you can pair movies with newsreels and shorts. Novak's set is also
solid, with Middle Of the Night a 1959 Paddy Chayevsky passion project of hers that shows there might
have been much more than this stunning blond was allowed to show. And Pal Joey is so well cast it's an
eternal shame they tamed down the Broadway musical.
JOY ($29.95; Severin)
JOY & JOAN ($29.95; Severin)
LOOSE SCREWS: SCREWBALLS II ($19.95; Severin) -- For various reasons (okay, one big reason),
I'm not the best judge of erotica that dances on the edge of pornography a la Emmanuelle. However, I
can tell you that the prints are decent, that Joy contains a chat with star Claudia Udy (who inexplicablyturned down the sequel (which stars hardcore turned legit actress Brigitte Lahaie (of Henry & June , no
relation) and that like Porky's, Loose Screws promises more than it ever delivers. But most of all, I must
pay tribute to the DVD copy, which is wildly entertaining and lurid. Joy, it claims, was restored from "aprint discovered in the screening room of a Paris brothel" and it contains, uncut and uncensored, the
complete "Secret Orgy Dungeon" sequence. Joy & Joan, was restored from a print seized in a Marseilles
vice raid! Loose Screws just has audio commentary and other extras, but it does present the international
version in "Authentic VHS-Vision!"
*****
Thanks for reading. Michael Giltz is the cohost of Showbiz Sandbox, a weekly pop culture podcast that
reveals the industry take on entertainment news of the day and features top journalists and opinion
makers as guests. It's available free on iTunes. Visit Michael Giltz at his website and his daily blog.
Download his podcast of celebrity interviews and his radio show, also called Popsurfing and also
available for free on iTunes. Link to him on Netflix and gain access to thousands of ratings and reviews.
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I do love Friday night lights!
Correction to my post: That would be Zach Gilford who plays quarterbac k Matt Saracen.
Friday Night Lights is my favorite show on television today, bar none, for many of the reasons
described. It's the kind of show that only comes along once in a decade, and Season 4 is the bestseason since Season 1.
I have to disagree with Michael about Season 2. While in totality, it is the weakest written season (in
terms of continuity due to the writers strike), I would never recommend skipping it. There is aproblemati c storyline among fans that I personally had no problem watching. Without a doubt, there
are some fantastic episodes and many, many of the 'small moments' that make this show what it isthat are not to be missed.
Back to S4, Michael failed to single out an episode called "The Son," which received an Emmy nom
for the writer and should have received one for Zach Taylor, who plays beleaguere d quarterbac k
Matt Saracen. One of the best written/ac ted episodes of the entire show. Kyle Chandler and Connie
Britton were not only Emmy worthy, but should have taken the statues home for their submittedepisodes: S41 (East of Dillon, Kyle Chandler) and S42 (After the Fall, Connie Britton).
S4 also received another deserved Emmy nom for casting. Four new characters were successful ly
introduced in S4 so that, realistica lly, former students could graduate and move on with their lives.
The news cast, along with Taylor Kitsch, Amy Teegarden, and Jesse Plemmons also turned inRecency | Popularity
HUFFPOST COMMUNITY MODERATOR
aznurse 02:02 AM on 9/06/2010
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WeCanDoIt 03:24 AM on 9/05/2010
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9 Fans
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59 FansGrade A performanc es.
No doubt about it, it is a fantastic show and I am puzzled about people not knowing about
it, much less watching it. As far as I'm concerned every cast member is superb.
So glad to see this show getting some love. Zach Gilford as Matt Saracen is just heart-brea
kingly real. Fantastic actor and great writing made me cry weekly.
this is a good show, I agree. But Texas was first settled by Latinos and there aremany many good football players with long family history of playing this sport. Whyare they not represente d as much as the white players and AA?
Thanks for reading and commenting WeCanDoIt. I did reference the Zach Gilford episode, Ijust didn't name it or what it was about so as not to spoil the season. It was a great, trulygreat hour of television .
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WhatEverHappenedToGarp 01:34 PM on 9/05/2010
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GatorGrrrl 08:10 AM on 9/07/2010
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Michael Giltz 12:54 AM on 9/08/2010
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