Also in the cast are Hattie Winston, as Margaret Wyborn, the sarcastic head nurse at Dr. Becker's clinic, and the person who helps keep the clinic running smoothly. Shawnee Smith plays Linda, the 'dumb blonde' who happens to be a brunette; she comes from a rich family and works for Dr. Becker to prove she's independent. Aside from work, most of the time is spent at a local dinner, which is run by Reggie (Terry Farrell) who latter becomes Dr. Becker's romantic interested. Also working there is Alex Désert as Jake Malinak, who runs the newspaper stand. The final main character is Bob, Reggie's most loyal customer, much to her dismay.

There's a heavy dose of 'quirk' in these characters, perhaps too much as it slips into typical sitcom territory once and a while during season two. However, the ensemble cast does have a charm to it, and enough jokes hit their mark to be considered better than average for the genre.

There are no extras on the 3-disc set, nor are there subtitles. There are play-all buttons, as well as proper chapter placements.

I don't think there are many who will claim Becker is as good of a show as Cheers was, and it was undoubtedly hurt by the comparisons. However, it is still a step above most TV sitcoms out there, and it had a good mix of humor and drama. Season two is presented on a featureless 3-disc set, but it will still be worth checking out for fans of the show, even if just for a rental for all but the more hardcore fans.

However, the biggest concern with the Dick Sargent Years, including Season Seven is the show simply started to run out of steam. Like most high concept sitcoms, Bewitched had a very limited life span. Even the best of them tend to exhaust the initial premise quite quickly feels repetitive. Seeing Darrin turned into yet another animal loses its charm. That said, there are some good episodes this season, including much of the time spent in Salem for the Witch Convention. For season seven, the hit to miss ratio is down to 50/50, and that's true miss, as opposed to merely lacking in serious replay value. For hardcore fans of the show, that might be enough to still pick up this season, but I would recommend renting.

There are no extras on this 4-disc set.

The penultimate season of Bewitched comes out on DVD this week, but the show that started out so strong has hit a major slump. Many who were collecting the first five seasons will likely have given season six a pass, while there's little in Season Seven to turn things around. I would recommend renting.

Bruce Lee - Dragon Immortal - Buy from Amazon
A 3-disc, 10-movie DVD set containing some of the 'best' Bruceploitation movies. What? You've never heard of Bruceploitation movies? After the tragic death of Bruce Lee in 1973, many Hong Kong filmmakers decided that instead of moving on and finding a new martial arts action star, with a new style, they would instead copy Bruce Lee as closely as possible. His look, his style, sometimes they would even try to copy his name (Bruce Li, Bruce Le, etc.). What they couldn't copy was his talent, so what you have is a few B-movies in a sea of C- and D-movies.

Some of the highlights on this DVD are...

• They Call Him Bruce Lee - A man named Jack Lee is promoting the book on ninjutsu that Bruce Lee wrote and that some conspiracy theorists think was the reason he was assassinated in 1973. Because this book would destroy business for martial arts instructors, they decide they must get that book at all costs.
  The DVD starts off with a film that is weak, but for the most part, comprehensible, and that makes it better than most. The book is a MacGuffin, but at least there's a plot to use the plot device in. Also, some of the fight scenes are not bad, all things considered.
• Clones of Bruce Lee - After the death of Bruce Lee, a doctor extract DNA to create three clones that will be used by a secret government agency to stop the evil Dr. Nye. Dr. Nye, the Evil Scientist Guy.
  One of the better films on this DVD, at least it is so bad it is good. There are not one, not two, but four Bruce Lee imitators found in this movie (Dragon Lee, Bruce Le, Bruce Lai, and Bruce Thai). And what is with that beach scene with the naked ladies? I'm not sure what that had to do with the plot, I'm not even sure it was supposed to be part of the movie and wasn't just accidentally included, but it certainly raised the camp value of the movie at least three notches.
• The Story of Chinese Gods - An animated Bruceploitation film! The gods who live above look down and see a cruel tyrant oppressing his people, so they send help to the people, including Bruce Lee, eventually. The forces of evil have plenty of help for the tyrant, including shape-shifting demon women.
  The animation is slow, clumsy, and repetitive, while the story is confusing and nonsensical. However, I just can't stop watching.
• Bruce Lee's Deadly Kung-Fu - Bob is a waiter and Chin Chu Leo is a dishwasher in a San Francisco Chinese food restaurant. However, one day while going to work, they are attacked by some thugs and they are fired as a result of the fight. Without jobs, they decide to open a martial arts school. However, more thugs keep showing up, until Bob has to have a show down with the villain of the movie, who is also named Bob.
  Two Bobs? Not a lot of creativity shown in this movie. That said, the fight scenes are at least passable, while there's humor mixed in with the action.

Fans of Bruce Lee generally fall into one of two camps when it comes to Bruceploitation films. Either they consider them little more than camp diversions, or they consider them atrocities against the legacy of a true master. If you are in the latter, then Bruce Lee - Dragon Immortal is a DVD absolutely worth skipping. Even if you are a fan of these movies, unless you are a hardcore fan, a rental will be enough, as there's little replay value here.

There are some strong episodes this season, including the aftermath of the hurricane, Gone with the Wind - Part 2, which includes a guest shot with Patrick Warburton. Anything with Patrick Warburton is good in my book. He makes a number of guest appearances in this season, as does Tammy Lauren as Julie, Beth's sister-in-law, and she is a great addition to the cast. Looking back at the second season, a lot of the episodes tend to blend together. I remember some funny bits and humorous dialogue (especially when the four main characters (Dave, Beth, Kenny, and Shel) play poker), but the plots are not as memorable.

There are no extras on this 3-disc set, nor are there any subtitles. There are play-all buttons and proper chapter placements.

Dave's World is based on some of the funniest writings I have read, however, while enjoyable on its own, it doesn't live up to the source material. Season Two is presented on a 3-disc set without any special features, which further hurts its value. Call it a rental for most, a soft purchase for dedicated fans.

Dexter - Season One - Blu-ray - Buy from Amazon
Michael C. Hall stars a Dexter, a serial killer whose parents were killed under suspicious circumstances when he was a kid and he was raised by a cop, Harry Morgan. Harry taught Dexter a code. Dexter's a monster, but Harry pointed him in the path of other monsters. He's a serial killer who hunts other serial killers. But Harry also taught him to think like a cop, to avoid getting caught, and not just forensics, but how to pass for normal within society. (To this end, he even as a girlfriend, Rita (played by Julie Benz) although, as he puts it, she is almost as damaged as he is, so they are a good match. Now Dexter works for the Miami PD as a blood spatter expert with his sister, Debra, two colleagues, Angelo and Vince, and then there's Doakes. The only cop that Dexter works with who thinks Dexter is a little off. Season one has him taking on a number of smaller serial killers, but his big prey is the Ice Truck Killer, who seems to have a connection to Dexter.

I reviewed Season Two when came out on DVD last August, and I loved the show. I recommended picking it up, even though the DVD had no real extras. Season One is as good as season two. Also there are more extras with audio commentary tracks on two episodes, as well as BD-Live features including the first episode of season three. (I didn't bother watching, because this is a show that works best in a marathon run.) Other BD Live extras include some of the featurettes that were on the DVD, but now you have to download them. Not cool.

On a side note, on one of the episodes, Return to Sender, Dexter mentions he doesn't get birthdays. I don't get birthdays either. Even as a kid I never saw the significance of that one day, when you get one day older every day. I didn't avoid celebrating them; after all, any excuse for cake and presents. But is seemed so arbitrary.

So far there have not been many TV shows released on Blu-ray, so I'm not sure how large of an audience there is for these releases. On the one hand, Dexter is an amazing show that is worth watching. On the other hand, Season One - Blu-ray does not have a large number of extras, and some of the extras you have to download instead of watch off the discs like they were in the DVD release, and it costs 60% more. I'm not sure it's worth that premium.

Election - Blu-ray - Buy from Amazon
Reese Witherspoon stars as a type-A personality student determined to become the president of her high school. Matthew Broderick stars as one of her teachers who, as we learn in an opposing voiceover, sees her for what she is, and he is determined to put a stop to her political rise now before she enters the real world and can cause some serious damage. To that end, he recruits the popular, but not too bright Paul Metzler, who was the quarterback, till he broke his leg skiing. Also joining the race is Tammy Metzler, Paul's rebellous sister, whose parents have threatened to send her to an all-girls Private School if she messes up once more. They think this is the ultimate punishment. She has other opinions on that outcome.

This is an excellent movie that is based on an Oscar nominated screenplay that was co-written by its director, Alexander Payne. However, it has been out on DVD for almost exactly a decade now, so chances are if you liked the movie enough to own it, you would already. The real question is, is it worth upgrading? Sadly, this is shovelware. This is shovelware for a DVD that had just an audio commentary track as its lone extra to begin with. Additionally, that audio commentary track has quite a few dead spots along the way. Finally, this is not a movie that shines in High Definition. In fact, it doesn't look all that much better than the DVD from 1999.

Election is a great movie that offers almost no reason to upgrade to Blu-ray: There are no additional extras, the A/V quality is average at best, and the price is too high for shovelware. If you can find it in a bargain bin at half price, then it is worth picking up. This is a major shame, as it could have used a 10th anniversary special edition this year.

It's the 19th of March, and Jake Bianski (played by Jay Jablonski) is buying a new suit, getting flowers, and buying a beautiful ring, because today he is going to propose to his girlfriend. However, there's a problem. His girlfriend dumped him. Eight years ago. And she's now married and has kids. In order to get him out of his funk, his friends take him to the Italian singles club to get a date, but he is convinced that no Italian woman would date a non-Italian, he goes on a crash course to learning to be Italian, or at least fake it.

It's a romantic comedy, so you know it is going to be filled with cliché, and it is, but that won't matter as long as it is also charming. It is not. The main problem is the lead character, Jake, who early on comes across as some psychopath for stalking his ex-girlfriend for eight years, and that's something the filmmakers never found a way to get around I the end. Finally, the ethnic stereotyping that is the basis of much of the humor seems lazy, which further hurts the film's much needed charm. In the end it feels too much like an idea that would work best as a 30-minute sitcom episode, and not a 105-minute long feature film.

Extras start with an audio commentary track with the writer / director, Jason Todd Ipson, and the editor, Mike Saenz. It's a breezy track that movies along nicely and isn't overly praising of the final film. There are also eight and a half minutes of deleted scenes that are presented in one long section. There is also a 10-minute making of featurette and 12 minutes of cast auditions.

Everyone Wants to be Italian earned zero positive reviews and crashed and burned during its short limited release. While one could argue that the film didn't deserve that fate, it is hard to argue that the DVD is worth anything more than a rental, and that's only if you are a hardcore fan of romantic comedies. For most people, this movie is safely skippable.

Friday the 13th - Uncut - DVD or Blu-ray
First a note, I do not have the Blu-ray and I can't do a direct comparison between the two formats. However, if it arrives later, I will update this review.

Tragedy has struck Camp Crystal Lake a number of times in the past. In 1957 there was a boy who drowned and in 1958 two councilors were murdered. Since then the place had so many things go wrong that townsfolk have called the place Camp Blood. But someone is trying to get the place going again and has hired a new batch of councilors to get the place ready, and it appears someone is trying to stop them again.

One of the earliest Teenage Slasher films, a sub-genre of horror that arguably began with the original Black Christmas, which was released in 1974, four years before Halloween. (Although Halloween made a lot more money at the box office, which could explain that impression.) As an early example of the sub-genre, it put into motion a lot of what has become cliché now. Picking off the kids one by one, killing anyone who has sex, etc. It is still effective, although less so that it was nearly 30 years ago.

Extras on the DVD include an audio commentary track featuring a number of the cast and crew, recorded separately. There is a reunion Q&A with many of the cast and crew and most of the same cast and crew, and a few more, sit down for interviews in Fresh Cuts: New Tales from Friday the 13th. The director, Sean S. Cunningham, sits down for an interview about the film and its lasting impact. Combined these three featurettes have a running time of just over 40 minutes. The final featurette on this DVD is Lost Tales from Camp Blood: Part I, a seven and a half minute long short film that I assume continues on the next two DVDs released this week.

I don't have the Blu-ray, so I can't compare video / audio quality, but apparently there are no additional extras on board.

Friday the 13th - Part 2 - Buy from Amazon
According to the cover, this film has twice the fear, twice the carnage, and twice the terror. In reality, it is less than half as good as its predecessor was

The film takes place five years after the events of the first film at a nearby camp counselor training camp that is on the same lake as the camp where the infamous killings took place years before. The locals believe the area is guarded by Jason Voorhees, who drowned in the lake in 1957, and that anyone who goes up there is doomed. What follows next is the one-by-one the counselors, and a few others, get killed off.

This film is too similar to the first movie, including the pre-credits first kill and the end of the movie 'dream sequence'. Unfortunately, it is weaker in nearly every way, or at the very least, doesn't improve upon anything from the first film and therefore feels very unnecessary.

Extras are also not as strong as the previous release. Things star with Inside 'Crystal Lake Memories' an 11-minute interview with the author of Crystal Lake Memories. Friday's Legacy runs just under seven minutes and talks about horror conventions. Jason Forever is the biggest featurette on this DVD running nearly 30 minutes and has four of the actors who played Jason talking about the films and how playing the iconic Slasher. Finally there's Lost Tales from Camp Blood - Part 2.

Friday the 13th - Part 3 3D - Buy from Amazon
Yep. The DVD is in 3-D and it comes with 2 pairs of 3-D glasses. At least it has that going for it.

The film starts with a flashback style recap of the end of the previous film before switching to 3-D for the rest of the story. Apparently a couple years before the events of this movie, Chris was attacked by a man wearing a sack on his head while she was walking in the woods. Now she wants to return to the woods to confront her fears, which is a powerfully stupid thing to do. Once they get to the camp, which takes about 25 minutes, Jason kills off all of the superfluous characters one-by-one till the inevitable final confrontation.

This movie was made during the 80s rebirth of 3-D films, most of which sucked. The plots were weak and poorly thought out, It seems all creative juices were exhausted figuring out stupid reasons to thrust objects at the camera so that the 3-D aspect of the movie meant something. Quite frankly, that is just not enough for me to give a damn about this movie. Fans of the franchise will take note that this is the first time Jason dons his famous hockey mask, so it has that going for it.

There are no real extras on this DVD, although you can watch the movie in both 3-D and 2-D formats.

Of the three Friday the 13th movies coming out this week, only the first one is any good. Also, its DVD and Blu-ray releases are the only ones that have a lot of extras. Granted, Friday the 13th - Part 2's DVD release has respectably extras, but the final film coming out this week has nothing. Hardcore fans of the series will likely pick up all three releases, but I would recommend buying only the first, renting the second, and skipping the third.

This film earned weak reviews when it opened, and sadly I have to agree with the majority opinion here. There is very little that happens in this movie that feels fresh. The 'Really Bad Day' learning she has cancer, losing her job, and then being dumped didn't feel authentic, and instead felt like a rather forced attempt to make sure Melody was completely severed from her old life and could begin anew. Also, I knew right from the start that she wouldn't die in the end. If she did, there wouldn't be the 'dramatic' conclusion to the movie where she was able to be reborn in a life she truly wanted. Overall there was just not enough that worked to recommend the movie.

As for extras, I don't know if there are any, as I received a true screener burned onto a DVD by the studio. This has just the movie and nothing else. No extras, no subtitles, not even a menu on startup. If I do get the full DVD later, I will update this review with the extras.

The Guitar is the first film from Amy Redford, daughter of Robert Redford. That might be the most interesting aspect of the movie. The movie doesn't have very high replay value, and the DVD adds nothing to that. Call it a rental.

Extras on the DVD include one audio commentary track with the director and writer. There is also a making of featurette, and two music videos. In comparison, the Blu-ray has an additional audio commentary, several deleted scenes, but it only has one music video. These additional extras are more than I gave the movie credit for, and at just 33% more, the Blu-ray is clearly the way to go.

That said, I disliked Henry Poole Is Here enough that I can't recommend renting to the average person. The film is content to preach to the choir, and unless you are part of that choir, you are not welcome.

The Single-Disc DVD edition has one audio commentary track and one 'preview' featurette. I would say it a little light given the price.

The 2-Disc Special Edition DVD has those extras, an additionally audio commentary track for each part, while each part also has a making of featurette. Finally, Hulk vs. Wolverine has a featurette on the 2008 Comic Con and Hulk vs. Thor has a featurette on comic legend Jack Kirby. For the price, this is worth picking up.

Finally, I received the Blu-ray this week, which has all of the extras above, which fit onto one disc, which is handy. The audio and video are good, but the animation is not sufficiently high quality to really show off the format. That said for $20, it is worth paying the extra money.

I enjoyed Hulk Vs., especially the first film with Wolverine. There 'features' combined are barely long enough to be considered a full movie, but with plenty of extras, it is still worth picking up over just renting, while the Blu-ray is worth grabbing over the 2-Disc Special Edition DVD.