Mad Men - Season 2
New releases announced today, March 5:
HBO's Generation Kill (Blu-ray) will be coming out June 16
HBO's John Adams (Blu-ray) will be coming out June 16
Mad Men - Season 2 (DVD & Blu-ray) will be coming out July 7
Get Smart - Season 3 will be coming out June 9
The Transformers - The Complete 1st Season: 25th Anniversary Edition will be coming out June 16
Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
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Kyle XY - The Complete Second Season
New releases announced today, October 17:
HBO's Generation Kill (mini-series) on Blu-ray will be coming out December 16
Greek - Chapter 2 will be coming out December 30
Kyle XY - The Complete 2nd Season: Revelations will be coming out December 30
The Secret Life of the American Teenager - Season 1 will be coming out December 30
Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
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Generation Kill
Question: After watching the finale of the excellent miniseries Generation Kill, I wondered why the miniseries format is not more popular. I guess the obvious answer is money, since popular TV shows and movies are way more profitable. Books should be adapted into miniseries rather than movies in my opinion, considering how there is enough time to cover most of the material (The Corner, Generation Kill and the wonderful Band Of Brothers come to mind). The format just makes a lot of sense to me anyway, since TV shows can drag on too long, and movies sometimes do not provide enough depth. HBO is the only channel I see willing to do miniseries, and I was wondering why there is a distinct lack of them on other networks. What do you think?
Answer: Changing times, changing habits. Used to be the networks would build their seasons and sweeps months around blockbuster miniseries "events," often based on massive best-sellers or epic historical events. Roots still ranks among TV's top-rated shows
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Question: A few months ago, I wrote in to criticize HBO's management for how they dealt with 12 Miles of Bad Road. I still hold my original opinion, but after watching the finale of Generation Kill, it's obvious that HBO still knows how to put out great original programming. I know that you and many of your colleagues have been hard on HBO since The Sopranos ended and have no problem praising the lineups of Showtime, AMC and FX. However, putting Nielsen ratings aside, if you compare the networks' quality programming over the past year, I have to give HBO the edge. Showtime is led by Dexter and Weeds. Most critics don't seem to be in love with The Tudors or Californication. FX has Damages and the final season of The Shield. And AMC had two of the best rookie dramas in years, but now the pressure in on to go three for three. I hope the six-part The Prisoner is up to the standards they've set. With shows like Big Love, The Wire (final season), Entourage (a weak season but still gets Emmy ...
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The Tudors by Jonathan Hession/Showtime
New releases announced today, August 26:HBO's Generation Kill (mini-series) will be coming out December 16 Superman - Doomsday: 2-Disc Special Edition will be coming out November 25 The Tudors - Season 2 will be coming out December 30 Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
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Question: Which mini-series do you prefer, Band of Brothers or Generation Kill? There are a lot of similarities between the two shows. For example, "Iceman" from Generation Kill is very similar to Captain Winters in Band of Brothers. (Their names are even similar.) There are dozens of comparisons one can make regarding these two great series, but overall, I prefer the scope of Band of Brothers. It really changed television. Yet Generation Kill is better then any film made about the Iraq War.
Answer: It's not an either-or with me. Both are remarkable achievements in war docudrama. Band of Brothers had the advantage of nostalgia for a "great" war and an end to the story, while by necessity Generation Kill is a much messier, more cynical and less conventionally "satisfying" narrative. Brothers feels like history writ large, and Generation much more like journalism of the moment. HBO's scheduling of Generation Kill while the war continues is a much riskier proposition than putting Band of
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Would it be a crime if some classic TV shows were to stage their comebacks in the medium that made them famous and for which they’re maybe better suited? Such wishful thinking came to mind as I headed to the movies several times over the summer, hoping for a nostalgic escape, but ended up yearning for the good old days when these shows were still on TV, where they belong.
With the disappointingly drab “The X-Files: I Want to Believe,” I left wanting more. With the criminally overlong box-office hit “Sex and the City” movie, which felt like an unnecessary one-season-too-many of contrived breakups and makeups, I wanted less. With the charmlessly heavy-handed “Get Smart” remake, starring a bland Steve Carell as a—would you believe—smart Maxwell Smart, I wanted something, anything, to evoke the ’60s spy spoof’s cheeky spirit.
My expectations were greatest for the new “X-Files” movie, given my fo
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Generation Kill by Paul Schiraldi/HBO
Cheers to HBO for staying connected to The Wire's masterminds with Generation Kill. David Simon and Ed Burns' riveting Iraq War miniseries shares many of the same virtures as their peerless urban drama. It throws you into the middle of a complex, often-confusing world and demands your full attention (I had to watch the first episode twice to figure out who was who and what was going on). But for viewers willing to commit, the rewards are rich: spot-on dialogue, a stellar ensemble (including Wire alum James Ransone in a breakout turn as fast-talking Cpl. Josh Ray Person) and a fearlessness about dealing with dead-serious issues. And the good news is HBO has already picked the pilot for Simon's next series, the post-Katrina New Orleans drama Treme. • Share your own raves and rants about other shows on the Reader Cheers & Jeers discussion board.• We may feature your Cheer or Jeer on TVGuide.com or in TV Guide magazine!
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Generation Kill by Paul Schiraldi/HBO
I’ve already officially raved about HBO’s rivetingly realistic Iraq War miniseries Generation Kill, which begins its seven-week run tonight (9 pm/ET). Most every other critic I know is on board as well. But for David Simon, the revered creator of The Wire who helped shape journalist Evan Wright’s book into a you-are-there road trip with a unit of Marines that’s alternately hilarious and harrowing, the audience he was most interested in impressing were those in uniform.Last Wednesday night, on the eve of HBO’s presentation to TV critics at the ongoing TCA press tour, the producers and cast screened part of the miniseries for several hundred Marines at the Southern California base of Camp Pendleton. “The screening at Pendleton last night was probably the one that we cared about,” Simon said. “That was one, I think, we were all a little bit terrified of.” To which Wright, who was embedded with the troops on assignment for Rolling Stone, adde...
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“It’s really pretty country out here,” says a marine, admiring the view during a mission in Iraq. “Except for the mortars,” cracks a reporter along for the harrowing ride.
War is never pretty, whether presented with the unflinching immediacy of journalism—as in HBO’s riveting seven-part docudrama miniseries Generation Kill—or in the more genteel light of bittersweet nostalgia, the approach of PBS’ engrossingly intelligent WWII-era whodunit Foyle’s War, now in its final season on Masterpiece Mystery!
While the last three chapters of Foyle’s unfold on the British home front in the waning days of that conflict, Generation Kill embeds us with sordid, graphic and profane detail in the first weeks of the ground assault on Iraq in 2003. Kill, produced by The Wire’s David Simon and Ed Burns with the same searing authenticity they brought to their Baltimore drama, i
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