Sales Rank:1 List Price: $49.98 Lowest New Price: $30.97 Lowest Used Price: $35.66 MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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Steve Carell (Get Smart) returns in his Golden Globe®-winning role of The World s Greatest Boss Michael Scott in Season Four of the hit comedy series The Office! This must-own four-disc set includes every irreverent episode from Season Four including the five extended full TV-hour specials plus hours of hilarious deleted scenes and bonus features! Rejoin Jim (John Krasinski) and Pam (Jenna Fischer) as they bring romance to the workplace Dwight (Rainn Wilson) as he continues his quest to be Michael s right-hand man and newly deemed Wunderkind Ryan (B.J. Novak) who s working to drag Dunder Mifflin into the digital age. Developed for American TV by Primetime Emmy® Award winner Greg Daniels (King of the Hill The Simpsons) The Office is the intelligent and edgy Primetime Emmy® Award-winning series that critics are hailing as the funniest show on TV (Gavin Edwards Rolling Stone). You ll enjoy the inappropriate remarks uncomfortable silences and petty behavior again and again!System Requirements:Running Time: 405 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 025195017329 Manufacturer No: 61102114
Sales Rank:6 List Price: $34.98 Lowest New Price: $22.99 Lowest Used Price: MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
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Sarah Jessica Parker
Kim Cattrall
Kristin Davis
Cynthia Nixon
Chris Noth
As light and frothy as the Vivienne Westwood wedding gown that's an unofficial fifth star, the film version of Sex and the City is both captivatingly stylish and sweetly sentimental. Viewers who loved hanging with Carrie Bradshaw and her three pals during the series' TV run will feel as though no time has passed. Except that it has: Carrie and Big are poised to make a Big Commitment; Miranda and Steve are facing the breakup of their wonderful family; Charlotte and Harry have added to their brood; and Samantha (are we sitting down?) has been devoted to hunky Smith for five full years. Still, in all that time, the women's style, conviviality, and appetite for bons mots have only grown. When practical attorney Miranda learns that Carrie is considering moving in with Big (in possibly the coolest apartment in Manhattan), she can't help but frown in that but-you-might-lose-everything way. Carrie's retort: "For once, can't you feel what I want you to feel--jealous?!"
The cast is spot-on, as always. Sarah Jessica Parker is effortless as the angst-ridden yet practical, stylish yet vulnerable Carrie. Kim Cattrall is deliciously decadent as Samantha, but she's wiser now and knows herself and her needs for a real relationship. Kristin Davis, as Charlotte, has quietly become the most gorgeous among the beauties, her sleek presence both winsome and sophisticated. And Cynthia Nixon (Miranda) shows nuance as a woman torn between betrayal and grudging hope. Supporting roles include Candice Bergen as the Vogue editor who anoints Carrie "The Last Single Girl in New York," and Jennifer Hudson, as a starry-eyed, ambitious romantic who represents the new generation of SATC women. Through it all, New York is a benevolent cocoon that envelopes and nurtures the women and their friendships and careers. No matter that none of them appears to have any semblance of "real" family; as long as they have each other, and Manhattan, all will be right with their world. --A.T. Hurley
Sales Rank:11 List Price: $39.98 Lowest New Price: $25.99 Lowest Used Price: MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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Adrian Grenier
Jeremy Piven
Sure it would be great to have it all but at what price? For Vince Eric Drama and Turtle life in Hollywoods fast lane can be an intoxicating ride. In Season Four in fact Eric and Vince have taken on new roles as producers. Will their film be hailed as a critical masterpiece or will it end up on the trash heap of broken Tinseltown dreams?Running Time: 360 min.System Requirements:Running Time: 360 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 883929014156 Manufacturer No: 1000037648
Sales Rank:21 List Price: $134.99 Lowest New Price: $38.49 Lowest Used Price: $19.91 MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)
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After the worldwide success of A Hard Day's Night, the Beatles and director Richard Lester reunited for a follow-up film, Eight Arms to Hold You. Well, that wasn't the final title; a pleading Lennon-McCartney tune provided the catchier handle: Help! A loose semispoof of the globe-trotting James Bond pictures, Help! has always been considered a somewhat disorganized comedown from its predecessor; but it presents "the famous Beatles" even more clearly as the English cousins of the Marx Brothers. The plot has an Eastern religious cult declaring that the new ring on Ringo's finger is the key element in a human sacrifice; they will stop at nothing to obtain it. Meanwhile, a mad scientist (crazed Victor Spinetti, who also appeared in A Hard Day's Night and Magical Mystery Tour) believes that if he has the ring, he could--dare we say it?--rule the world. The songs, including "Ticket to Ride" and "You've Got to Hide Your Love Away," are filmed with gleeful ingenuity, in locations such as the Bahamas, an Austrian ski resort, and the Salisbury Plain. The relentless nonsense becomes nearly the equivalent of a swinging-'60s Alice in Wonderland: for instance, Paul shrinks to the size of a gum wrapper, John fishes a season ticket out of his soup, George wears a top hat on the ski slopes, the lads sing the "Ode to Joy" to a lion. Oh, and the film is dedicated to Elias Howe, "who in 1846 invented the sewing machine." Brilliant. --Robert Horton
Sales Rank:41 List Price: $29.99 Lowest New Price: $10.88 Lowest Used Price: $8.99 MPAA Rating: G (General Audience)
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Joe Jonas
Demi Lovato
Nick Jonas
Kevin Jonas
Meaghan Jette Martin
Camp Rock is a Disney Channel original movie about a rockin' teen summer camp that's highly appealing to tweens and young teens despite the movie's failure to favorably compare with truly great Disney Channel movies like High School Musical. Joe Jonas (of the Jonas Brothers stars as Shane Gray, a member of the rock band Connect 3, who is compelled to serve as an instructor at Camp Rock in order to counteract his increasingly negative public image. Tess Tyler (Meaghan Jette Martin) is the camp diva whose self-absorption defies description, Caitlyn (Alyson Stoner) is a past Tess groupie who's now ostracized from the popular kids at camp, and Mitchie (Demi Lovato) is a camp newcomer whose mother is the camp cook. Caitlyn initially befriends Mitchie, but the friendship wanes when Mitchie makes up an elaborate story about her family to get accepted into Tess's exclusive clique. As Mitchie struggles to maintain her façade around camp, Shane begins to reform his bad-boy ways and find his own personal voice and he and Mitchie become friends--unfortunately, their new relationship is based partially on Mitchie's lies. In the end, Mitchie's deception is exposed as is Tess' true villainy and the perfect summer camp experience threatens to turn into the worst summer ever for everyone involved. Camp Rock is infused with lots of energy, fun choreography, and a ton of good, if not particularly memorable, music. Add in the cast of generally unlikable characters with extreme characteristics whose changes of heart at the end of the film are not particularly believable, and Disney's got an entertaining film for tweens and teens that adults might just as well skip. --Tami Horiuchi
Sales Rank:17 List Price: $29.98 Lowest New Price: $18.50 Lowest Used Price: $22.65 MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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Johnny Galecki
Jim Parsons
The delightful sitcom The Big Bang Theory revolves around a character type rarely seen on television: The alpha geek. Physicists Leonard (Johnny Galecki) and Sheldon (Jim Parsons) get their lives shaken up when an attractive young woman named Penny (Kaley Cuoco) moves in to the apartment across from theirs. The key to the show, though, is not that they both fall haplessly in love--Leonard does, but Sheldon remains impermeably aloof and caustic about anything resembling romance or human relationships in general. While the push and pull of Leonard's yearning for Penny motivates much of the series' ongoing plot, the show's real drive comes from Sheldon's fantastic combination of obsessive-compulsive neurosis and grandiose obliviousness. He's a brilliant comic creation, imperious and dorky, a seamless collaboration of clever writing and an inspired performance by Parsons. Whether Sheldon loses his job for insulting his new boss, or finds his ego bruised by a child prodigy, or finds himself unable to bear being part of a lie that Leonard has told, he attacks the world with a relentless need to assert his supremacy--and the results are deeply funny.
The triumph of The Big Bang Theory is that everyone is written with genuine affection; what could have been a lifeless parade of stereotypes--Two Nerds and a Hot Chick--becomes instead a charming collision of cultures. The familiar stuff (computer games, comic books, social incompetence) has the grit of specificity; the show understands the difference between Halo and Halo 3, knows what the Bottle City of Kandor is, and grasps the infinite variety of ways in which a conversation can go terribly awry. (Penny gets less nuance, but Cuoco still gives her a distinctive personality.) Kudos as well to supporting players Simon Helberg and Kunal Nayyar, who bring their own variations on geekiness to the table, and to great appearances by some of Galecki's former cohorts on Roseanne--Sara Gilbert as geekette Leslie and Laurie Metcalf as Sheldon's fundamentalist mother. All in all, one of the most winning sitcoms in years. --Bret Fetzer
Sales Rank:26 List Price: $14.99 Lowest New Price: $8.77 Lowest Used Price: $5.85 MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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Ventriloquist Jeff Dunham's second live-performance DVD, Spark of Insanity, is much funnier than his first, Arguing With Myself, perhaps because his new puppets allow him to cover more controversial territory beyond skits about family beefs and office humor. Though some puppets reappear, like the beloved Peanut, a purple monkey who loves wordplay, new characters emerge as the stars of this hour-long stand-up show. A tense laughter ripples through the audience, for example, when Dunham announces his wish to talk with a terrorist as he brings out Achmed the Dead Terrorist, a turban-sporting skeleton who's refrain is "I will kill you!" Previous show star, Jose Jalapeño, a Mexican chili pepper on a stick, returns for a discussion about whether the puppet has a green card. If his racial jokes rode a line slightly too Caucasian to clarify his point of view before, Dunham has achieved real satire in Spark of Insanity, showing his audience how ridiculous it is to create stereotypes of any sort. Additionally, Dunham mocks his own culture with Walter, a grumpy old white man whose parental chiding rings true for many. Moreover, Dunham impresses with his ventriloquism skills, and shows off some new vocalization techniques that will stun anyone interested in this fascinating art. --Trinie Dalton
Sales Rank:62 List Price: $24.96 Lowest New Price: $16.00 Lowest Used Price: $15.99 MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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The Three Stooges--political satirists? Laugh if you will, but as demonstrated by the shorts "You Nazty Spy" and "I'll Never Heil Again"--both of which are featured on this two-disc, digitally remastered set--the boys were the first act in Hollywood to bring attention to the Nazi threat in the days prior to America's involvement in World War II. "Nazty," which was released in 1940 some nine months before Chaplin's The Great Dictator, and 1941's "Heil," have Moe donning the greasepaint mustache to play Moe Hailstone, a dull-witted wallpaper hanger who runs amok as the dictator of Moronica along with his sidekicks Larry (the Goebbels stand-in) and Curly (Mussolini, natch). If the hijinks aren't exactly drawing room humor, one must still marvel at the foresight of the team and director Jules White for conceiving the idea, and by the sheer ballsiness of the Howard brothers and Fine--all Jews--taking the air out of the most insidious anti-Semitic figure of the period. One might also view 1940's "Boobs in Arms," with the boys accidentally joining the Army, as another riff on the absurdity of the slowly mounting war. Of course, the Stooges were better known for their wild slapstick comedy, and Volume 3 of this long-overdue collection presents some of the funniest shorts in their lengthy careers. Chief among these is "What's the Matador," which pits the boys' bullfighting routine against some real live beef, and the delirious "Sock-A-Bye Baby," with the Stooges attempting to care for an abandoned child. Elsewhere, the two main themes of the shorts--the Stooges as agents of fair play, as seen in "Nutty But Nice" (Curly finds a kidnapped man by yodeling) and "So Long Mr. Chumps" (the boys free an unjustly jailed man)--or menaces to society, as shown by the devastation wreaked at a dinner party in "An Ache in Every Stake," is in full effect. As with the two previous volumes, the shorts featured here (eight of which have never been available on DVD) are presented in chronological order and pristine condition, which soitenly makes up for decades of neglect from previous fly-by-night Stooge releases. --Paul Gaita
Sales Rank:66 List Price: $49.99 Lowest New Price: $27.75 Lowest Used Price: $26.31 MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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After 10 seasons of sick, wrong, brilliant, subversive, and groundbreaking humor, South Park just keeps getting a little more sick, a little more wrong, and a lot more funny. What could possibly be left for the boys from the small, redneck mountain town of South Park, Colorado to accomplish? Plenty, as it turns out. Cartman, for example, fights a midget in the season opener, pulls a practical joke that gets poor Butters sent to a special camp for gay children, sets a new town record for the most number of homeless people jumped over on his skateboard, and fakes having Tourette's syndrome in order to get away with saying whatever he wants at school. Stan gets pulled into a bizarre and hilarious conspiracy surrounding Easter in a plot that parallels The Da Vinci Code, and Kyle becomes a Guitar Hero, only to lose his best friend to the glittering lights of rock stardom. Clearly the brightest star in this season, though, is the two-part episode Imaginationland, where the boys have the entire contents of the world's imaginations, religions, and superstitions, laid before them for better, and for worse. It's a brilliant episode that encapsulates everything that continues to make South Park so strong: imaginative story lines; sharp animation; indelible characters thrust into ridiculous situations; and all of it tied together with a strong ekimthread of subversive humor. It's a formula that results in the sort of TV that just won't be seen elsewhere, and considering that one whole story line revolves around a plot where Randy Marsh (Kyle's Dad) tries to outdo Bono (lead singer of U2) for the record of World's Largest... umm, Stool, well, maybe that's a good thing. But for fans of the show who can't get enough of goin' down to South Park to see some friends of theirs, season 11 will continue to give plenty of reasons for making the trip. --Daniel Vancini
Sales Rank:45 List Price: $14.99 Lowest New Price: $7.77 Lowest Used Price: $4.81 MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
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Arguing With Myself, a recorded live performance of ventriloquist Jeff Dunham, portrays a comedian whose revival of an old-fashioned art has made ventriloquism more relevant to modern societal concerns. Starring his six main characters, from Bubba Jay, a Nascar-obsessed hick, to Peanut, a flamboyant gay monkey, Dunham’s puppets have dirty but relatively inoffensive senses of humor that mock the American Dream. One can easily see why Jay Leno champions Dunham, as his skits contain a similar sly sarcasm disguised as wholesome teasing aimed at men indebted to their ugly wives, for example, or people who live their lives working in cubicles. At times, though, Dunham’s humor seems to lose its ironic distance, especially as he interacts with puppets like Jose Jalapeño, a Cuban chile pepper, or Sweet Daddy D, a Black pimp, both reliant on the antiquated humor once popularized in cartoons by racial caricature. Since the entire audience in the film is white, it is difficult to assess whether or not African-Americans or Latinos would find Dunham funny. In other words, Dunham’s humor isn’t overtly offensive enough to make fun of ethnic heritage. However, his skills as a ventriloquist alone make him a fascinating entertainer, and anyone interested in how puppetry and ventriloquism has progressed over the decades would benefit from watching Dunham bring life to his wooden friends. --Trinie Dalton