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DVD New Releases – 8/25/2009

Every week I make a list of notable discs being released so I can figure out what I “need” to buy. ;) There’s sort of a bumper crop of discs this week.

• Adventureland – 500 Days of Summer received way too much hype this summer, or I have a darker view of falling in love. After my summer working a theme park and falling in love with a girl who…well, she wasn’t out of my league…she just wasn’t “the college type”, I know what it’s like to stare at the hot girl across the midway. Also I think the friend who convinced me to take the job and I were the only employees of the park who took AP classes ever, but we partied just as hard with that motley crew of worker ants that summer. Anyway, this is a movie I can identify with: beautiful, darkly funny, and heart breaking.
• Childern of the Corn – I remember when I was old enough to rent my own movies, we picked this up at a mom-and-pop video place around the corner. Seconds before and just after the scene where the car hits the kid in the middle of the road, there was a glitch in the tape due to excessive rewinds. I loved this movie then and the Blu-Ray transfer should be several magnitudes superior to that VHS copy.
• Life: Season Two – I seem to make habit of loving TV shows that get canceled quickly. At least they all end before they have a bad season — I’m looking at you Heroes and Lost — and this show is the rare one that ends with a completed major story arc (though one arc is left open.) Damian Lewis is a stunningly astute zen detective solving unsolvable crimes, including why he spent several years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit. I’ll rewatch the final episode dozens of times before I tire of it.
• Sunshine Cleaning – Somewhere between playing a Disney Princess and a conflicted foodie blogger, Amy Adams filled the role of a woman who decides to make a killing cleaning up murder scenes. (Catch that pun?) I missed this in the theater, but I can’t wait to catch it now.
• Scrubs: The Complete Eighth Season – Was there a bad season of Scrubs? This is (probably) the season finale and includes evil Courtney Cox, Sesame Street hallucinations, Cox as Chief of Medicine, the adorable ukulele player, and !KIT PONGETTI! as Janitor’s Lady friend.
• Shaw Brothers Collection II – The Shaw Brothers Studio is known for the classic Hong Kong fu movies that graced USA’s Kung Fu Theater for so long. If you bought the first set then you’ll surely want another box full of cheap sets, weird Chinese mysticism and crazy wire work.
• Thirtysomething: The Comple First Season – i was TwentySomething when this came out, and I only have 8 months before Fortysomething begins, so I hope they stream this on Netflix so I can learn what I was supposed to experience. It is from the creators of one of my all-time favorite shows, My So-Called Life, so it has to be good…right?

• Yo Gabba Gabba: Halloween – As good as Sponge Bob Square Pants, but with a less complicated plot. Just as good sober as not.

Blu-ray:

DVD:

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