The Sopranos - The Complete Series courtesy HBO Video/Associated Press
New releases announced today, June 24:The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour - The Best of Season 3 will be coming out August 1 The Sopranos - The Complete Series will be coming out November 11 T.V. Sets: Holiday Treats will be coming out October 7 Visit TVShowsOnDVD.com for the complete stories on these and other news items.
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James Gandolfini, Steven Van Zandt and Tony Sirico by Craig Blankenhorn/HBO
This Christmas, it's going to cost you four Benjamins to indulge the Sopranos fan in your life. A 30-disc boxed set featuring all seven seasons plus two bonus DVDs has been slapped with a $399.99 price tag. Among the extras in the 10-lb. package, available Nov. 11: An interview with series creator David Chase, conducted by Alec Baldwin; three soundtrack CDs; and a pair of featurettes in which cast members sit down for dinner to reflect on their favorite scenes and what not. But a special Champagne room dance from one of the Bada Bing! girls? That's gonna cost ya extra, honey. — Matt Mitovich
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Blu-ray Disc
Next week, and just in time for Father's Day (Sunday, June 15th), Wal-Mart is making it much easier to afford a high-definition Blu-ray player!The original standard DVD format went on sale in the United States back in 1997, and consumers quickly shifted over to the new format from VHS. But in 1998, HDTVs went on sale, and every year since then the high definition sets have gained in popularity. But something was missing...hi-def on home video!While DVD was noticeably better than VHS, it was noticeably not-as-good as the hi-def broadcasts of TV shows and films that people could get from cable, satellite and over-the-air HD. Folks clamored for an HD home video format, and by February 2008 the Sony-developed Blu-ray Disc ("BD") format had just won a bitter hi-def format war. But at the time, prices of a BD player started at $400, and typically ran quite a bit higher.Beginning this coming Sunday, June 8th, Wal-Mart is kicking off their newly remodeled electronics departments in their st...
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James Gandolfini by Craig Blankenhorn/HBO, Bob Saget courtesy Everett Collection, The Simpsons courtesy Fox
In honor of Father's Day, we've put together a list of 10 of the most memorable TV dads, all of which you can enjoy again and again on DVD. — Gord Lacey10. Homer Simpson, The SimpsonsHe's been on TV for 19 seasons, entertaining us with his beer-enhanced antics, zany adventures, and love of donuts. If nothing else, he gets credit for parenting three kids that never age. Buy The Simpsons at Amazon.com!9. Andy Taylor, The Andy Griffith ShowWhen you’re an elected official charged with keeping the town safe, you could easily lose sight of your duties at home. But Andy always understood that the most important badge he wore was the one as Opie's dad. Buy The Andy Griffith Show at Amazon.com!8. Tony Soprano, The SopranosTony got a gold star for heading up two families: the one at home with Carmela, Anthony and Meadow, and his other family with Paulie, Silvo and Bobby. What's a father if not a protector? Buy The Sopranos at Amazon.com!7. Al Bundy, Married with ChildrenAl put in l...
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James Gandolfini courtesy HBO
The Sopranos' patriarch may have had a debatable moral compass, but his real-life portrayer, James Gandolfini, knows how to give back. The actor is auctioning off many of his costumes from the HBO show at Christie's June 25 to benefit the Wounded Warrior Project, a nonprofit that supports soldiers who have been injured in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some of the items from Tony's wardrobe up for sale will include his monogrammed bathrobe, the blue shirt he wore in the show's opening credits and, for the more macabre among us, his blood-spattered outfit from when he was shot by Uncle Junior. Price tags are estimated to start at $500, says the Reporter, but the robe might fetch up to $1500, while the bloody duds could run closer to $3k. In addition to Gandolfini's costumes, 37 other outfits from fellow Soprano characters will be up for auction, with their proceeds going elsewhere. Gandolfini's benefit sounds like a great idea — but would you shell out the big bucks for a charitable piec...
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Question: What do you think of the future of HBO original programming? With classics like The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, Deadwood and the amazing The Wire gone, there seems to be little left. Shows like John From Cincinnati, Tell Me You Love Me and In Treatment have been fairly disappointing and not nearly as good as the some of the HBO classics. Even some of its forgotten shows like Carnivale and Rome had more going for them than recent ones. While Big Love is the only remaining critical darling, there doesn't seem to be many interesting shows on the horizon, except maybe Alan Ball's new series. While miniseries like John Adams and Generation Kill and eventually The Pacific seem promising, I think HBO's days of great original TV shows may be gone. With shows like Dexter and Brotherhood on Showtime and FX's original programming, do you think HBO is still the best premium cable network?
Answer: The real issue here, besides the fact that you don't seem to acknowledge that HBO produces
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HBO has hired a top TV talent agent to help find the pay cable network’s next big hit. Sue Naegle, most recently a partner and co-head of the television department at United Talent Agency, is taking the job as president of HBO Entertainment and will oversee all series programming and specials. As an agent, Naegle put together the deal for Six Feet Under (one of HBO’s most acclaimed hits) and also brought the network its upcoming Southern vampire series, True Blood. Naegle replaces longtime HBO exec Carolyn Strauss, who left the network. While HBO has remained enormously profitable, it hasn’t generated the kind of buzzworthy hits that viewers have come to expect from the network that brought them The Sopranos and Sex and the City. — Stephen Battaglio
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Julianna Margulies by KC Bailey/NBC
Cheers to Julianna Margulies for resuscitating her acting skills with Canterbury's Law. In easily her best role since ER — I didn't buy her as the cokehead real-estate agent with a taste for mobsters on The Sopranos — the Emmy-winner tears up the screen as a Providence, Rhode Island, defense attorney who'll cross any line to serve her clients. You almost couldn't blame the child killer she busted in the pilot for punching her in the nose. And the episode's final scene, in which she curls up in her missing son's bed and smells his pillow, was quietly heart-shattering. The show may feel a bit derivative (it's Damages meets House), but Margulies' bravely unsympathetic performance overrules any objections.• Read and react to Bruce's opinions on The Wire's series finale, Project Runway's Christian and more!• 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 T...
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The manager of Satin Dolls — aka the Lodi, New Jersey, flesh palace that doubled as the Bada Bing! (and which I drive past, but always past, every day on the way to the quarry) — tells NorthJersey.com that he has put off renovating the club because he got a call from someone working on a script for a Sopranos feature film. Asked about the buzz by the New York Daily News, David Chase seemed most skeptical, while an HBO spokesperson tells TVGuide.com the movie talk is "categorically not true." — With reporting by Ileane Rudolph
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Matt LeBlanc by Mitch Haaseth/NBC
The other day we posted that Joey - The Complete 2nd Season (the final 22 episodes of the Friends spin-off, including 8 that NBC never aired) is coming to DVD...in Canada.The American branch had not decided to go ahead with this release, but Warner - Canada decided to move forward with it, in the full knowledge that American fans could use these discs on any standard DVD player. Anybody with an Amazon account will be able to easily import these, once Amazon's Canadian branch lists it. TVShowsOnDVD will have a link to that once it's available.The release date given on Monday was May 13th, but since then Warner - Canada has issued a date correction notice. It seems the date they gave at first was too far off, and so they've revealed that they will release it sooner than expected. The new release date is April 15th.These episodes star Matt LeBlanc (reprising his Friends role), Drea de Matteo (The Sopranos) and Jennifer Coolidge (American Pie). Time to celebrate with a really big Joey-s...
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