Some interesting stuff this week. And, some not-so-interesting.

I hope there’s something for you. Let us know.

Safe shopping, RoundUppers!

I'll be picking up The Eyes Of Laura Mars and Happy Birthday To Me at some point.

Thanks for the prices, Mike!

Thanks so much for the RoundUp.

I'm currently working on the Film Noir X box set and should have the review for it posted by tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks for all of your hard work, Mike! Nothing for me this week, thank GOD!!

Bullet Train and maybe E.T. at some point.

@Mike Frezon -

The review for Film Noir X is now live!

Matt Hough said:

@Mike Frezon -

The review for Film Noir X is now live!

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@Matt Hough

Thank you, Mike!

I'd like to see the new bonus features for E.T., but they're not enough to get me to do a full price double dip on that. I'm curious if the iTunes digital copy which I redeemed from the previous edition may update to include the new bonus features next week.

This week, I'm actually interested in a title that you didn't list in the Roundup. I can't remember the last time that happened. Abbott Elementary is coming out with its complete first season on Tuesday. Amazon is selling it for $19.99 as of this writing. I think this is easily the best show on television right now. Unfortunately, it is only being released on DVD with no Blu-ray counterpart. And there are no bonus features whatsoever listed in the press release. Those things combine to make it a little lower priority, so I don't know if I'll get it right away. But the show is really something special, so I expect to add it to my physical disc collection eventually.


For anybody who hasn't seen the show at all, I would highly recommend it. You can stream new episodes on Hulu, and the first season is on HBO Max. The weekly network airing is on Wednesdays at 9pm/8c on ABC.

Thanks for supplying info on the release of Abbott Elementary, Jake!

I'm happy to have highlighted it.

It's a really great show. I'd recommend anybody checking it out one way or another whether you buy the DVD or not.

Another sure sign of Father Time going undefeated...I remember in my youthful college days (1990s) when I first saw Blazing Saddles and thinking "wow this is one of the best comedies I've ever seen, but it couldn't be made today".

Well it seems Tropic Thunder may have entered that territory (I think it's safe to just say it like that and leave it there, so we don't run afoul of the HTF rules). I remember clear as day laughing my head off in the theater...and also a bit later with my fellow HTFers at Paramount Studios when Mr. Ben Stiller introduced the unseen-until-then Director's Cut to us and proceeded to stay and watch the movie with us.

That seemed not so long ago, but we're coming up on, what 14 years?

Still one of my favorite all time comedies, along with Blazing Saddles and This is Spinal Tap. Thank goodness optical discs don't have physical wear like LPs (let's not talk about laser rot or layer delamination ) because if it did, the "grooves" on my Tropic Thunder BD would have been worn out by the repeated viewings. Now I get a 4K release, Christmas really did come early for me!

As an aside, due to where I work, I constantly meet and befriend people of younger age (actually, their age range stays the same, I'm the one moving in the wrong direction). As the age gap widens, I occasionally field the question about why I continue to purchase physical media, because I also have Netflix, HBO, Disney and Prime. The last couple of times that was asked, I organized movie nights and had a few of them over and we watched one of those aforementioned comedies (which people at their age still found funny) and then I said "try to find these on streaming". Of course I'd done my advanced research and confirmed at the time of the showing that no service offered whichever movie it was at the time. And then simply said "I love certain movies, and I want them at my fingertips at any time, and I don't want to pay a rental fee because often I'll just watch a clip or scene, or have it in the background while I do chores, and I also don't want to surf the dark web looking for an illegal stream" and they understood. Now I don't think any of them are going to suddenly start buying discs, young folk today live very different lives centered more around TikTok, Instagram and YouTube clips rather than movies, but now they understood why I do. And ironically they often ask "when the next movie night is".

Mission Accomplished.

I was looking forward to Abbott Elementary when they started running promos for the series before the premiere. Once it started, I couldn't make it through the first episode before shutting it off. This was primarily due to the documentary/mockumentary style that I just HATE, and seemingly didn't realize this was the format until I started watching the actual show.

Similar in style to Modern Family and The Office, two other shows that I cannot watch, where characters are talking directly to the camera. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me and I cannot deal with it regardless of the quality of the underlying show. I'm never able to get into the show because I'm cringing at the format.

Malcolm R said:

I'm never able to get into the show because I'm cringing at the format.

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Why do you dislike the format of having characters talk to the camera so much? I'm not trying to be argumentative here, nor am I trying to convince you to like the show if you don't. Just curious. Obviously, if it bothers you, then you're correct that Abbott is not the show for you. But obviously the format works for lots of other viewers because Office and Modern Family which you cited were both huge hits.

For anybody else who isn't aware of Abbott Elementary yet and is curious to see what we're talking about, here is a trailer:

I think it's because it makes it too much like a reality show, a format I despise. I may as well be watching Big Brother or The Bachelor. I want my TV and movies to be fictional fantasy. I don't want the documentary/reality style.

I know there are hit shows in this format. It's a personal preference. I can't watch it.

I totally understand Malcolm, it's completely personal preference.

For me, I'm not a big fan of those shows either, but I think there's a key difference in that one of the reasons they shoot like that, IMHO, is to mock Big Bro and Bachelor (and the OG, MTV's The Real World). Things that initially were sold to us as "reality TV" and then later on we learned that there was a whole lot of "guiding/influencing" happening from the showrunners...hence we now have the term "scripted reality TV".

So for me, while I understand the end result is the same (breaking the fourth wall type of looking and speaking into the camera), the scripted reality shows were trying to sell us that we were watching "real people", the comedies/shows employing that are doing so in full mockumentary mode.

Malcolm R said:

I think it's because it makes it too much like a reality show, a format I despise

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That's interesting. I also despise reality shows. But I don't mind the rockumentary format. Different strokes, I guess.