It seems like forever since I’ve had a really challenging pick of the week. Hardly at all this summer have I had to really choose between two or three items that I was really interested in. More than once the picks have been between something kind of interesting and something else that might be ok. It not that there hasn’t been anything that I think will be good, and looking back on the things I did pick I recognize there’s been some really nice releases. But I don’t recall a week where I was blown away by all the great things coming out in a very long time.
I don’t know if that’s because the studios are concentrating on their big summer blockbusters wanting people in the theaters instead of at home, or if the home video market spends the summer releasing the type of big budget, exploding popcorn movies that I have little interest in, or something else entirely.
This week isn’t all that different. There’s a few television seasons that I like and a re-release of some classic horror, but nothing that makes me check my bank balance and run to the store early Tuesday morning.
That being said I really rather enjoyed Series 1 of Line of Duty and am looking forward to seeing Series 2. I’m especially looking to see how they deal with the loss of a pretty pivotal character and how they’ll move forward without him. I fully expect to be grabbing the series soon and will no doubt binge right through it (and hopefully review it here in these pages.) The three paragraphs I wrote above shouldn’t make any reader dismay at my picking this show as I really am excited about it.
Yet I still stand by those three paragraphs. Line of Duty was too easy a choice. I want to have to debate my picks. I want to post it and immediately wonder if it was the right choice. I want many amazing things coming out every week. But nobody ever asks me, and now it’s time to go watch something.
Also out this week that looks interesting:
It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia: The Complete Season 9: I love this show but I have to digest it in small bites. It is ridiculously funny but there’s so much yelling and so much hilarious awfulness that I just can’t take more than a few episodes at a time. Still, I’m looking forward to what the new season has in store.
New Girl: Season 3: I love me some Zooey Deschanel and I really want to like this show, but every time I turn it on I’m completely underwhelmed by the mediocrity of it all.
Gray’s Anatomy: Season 10: When this first came out I thought my wife would love it. We watched the first season and did enjoy it, but we’ve never managed to come back to it. Ten seasons in I doubt we ever will.
Universal Classic Monsters: Complete 30-Film Collection: This big set includes movies from Dracula, Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, The Invisible Man, The Creature From the Black Lagoon, and Phantom of the Opera. All of these films have come out in various forms before, and there doesn’t seem to be any new extras so this set is only for folks who have yet to add any of these classics to their collection.
The Hammer Horror Series 8-film Collection: Includes Brides of Dracula, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Phantom of the Opera, Paranoiac, The Kiss of the Vampire, Nightmare, Night Creatures and The Evil of Frankenstein.
