DVD Diggers

Welcome back to another addition of DVD Diggers. If you didn’t like the first or second edition, try this one. I hear third time’s the charm. We even have a new logo to prove it.

Usually this column is focuses on the week’s DVD releases, but I’m going to break from that for a moment and talk about an upcoming release. It was announced this week that the first season of “Arrested Development” will be out on DVD on October 19th, news that has me very excited. This is a fantastically funny television show, as smart as it is witty, and deserves to be seen. Fans were fortunate that the show was renewed for a second season, and hopefully the DVD release will add some more fans to the base, keeping the show around for some time.

Also on the subject of future releases, Hellboy will have a director’s cut coming out in November. Why is this important to you? Because this week, the 2 disk theatrical release of Hellboy comes to stores. The two versions will have almost identical extras, and the director’s cut will have a third disk. With additional character development, which was the best thing the movie had going for it, why would you waste your time buying this film right now? Put your money away, or if you absolutely have to, go to your local rental store and rent a copy of this week’s release, but wait another couple of months and buy the superior version. It’ll be worth it.

The big extraneous release this week is a new edition of Showgirls. The movie’s the same, but in this “VIP edition” you get the souvenirs of a strip club - shot glasses, a deck of cards, and a “pin the pasties on the Showgirl game”. How’s that for merchandising. What I don’t get is if nobody really likes this movie, or nobody’s really seen it, how do they expect to sell a $40 gift set? I mean, if people are already denying seeing it, why would they want pictures of Elizabeth Berkeley stripping lying around for people to see? Besides, if this was expected to be popular, don’t you think they’d be trying to piggyback the next “Saved By The Bell” set to come out the same week?

It’s also ‘80s week with two of the most campy, silly television shows of the decade coming to DVD: “Sledge Hammer!” - Season One and “V”-The Complete Series. I don’t know which was worse, the intentionally over the top cop parody or the unintentionally over the top science fiction show. The really amazing thing is that both shows had a following (probably the same audience for both shows) and that undoubtedly many copies of both will be sold to people who will go home and realize the show isn’t as good as they remember it. Sometimes it’s great to have old shows come out on DVD, and sometimes nostalgia should be left as is.

You know it’s a slow week when Hanson: Underground Acoustic Live is listed on Amazon’s best selling list for the week, so that about covers all the releases worth mentioning... what? The Whole Ten Yards comes out on DVD this week? Hmmm...

Yeah, that’s it for this week. We’ll see you next time.