Getting older is so strange. I turn 50 next year. That’s unbelievable to me. Every day it seems like there is something in my social media feed about how some movie, or TV series, or album that I loved as a kid, or a teenager, or in college, or later, or even later, is experiencing some kind of anniversary – 10, 15, 20, 25, or dare I say it, 30 years ago this or that was made and all it does it make me feel so old.
Buy Murder, She Wrote: The Complete Series Blu-rayStranger still is revisiting those things as an older man. There are a great many things I loved back then that I’ll revisit only to discover that they aren’t as good as I remembered. But the opposite is true too, there are so many things that I scoffed at as a teenager that I found myself thoroughly enjoying now.
Murder, She Wrote is the perfect example of this. I had no desire to watch it when it originally aired in the 1980s through the early 1990s. It was the very definition of Uncool. It was made for old people, and I was young and hip (or at least I wanted to be). But now I’m old and tired. I love a good cozy mystery. I adore Angela Lansbury, and watching her play a mystery writer who solves actual mysteries every episode is a joy. No, it isn’t technically a great show. It doesn’t fit in any sort of prestige TV category. The mysteries are often silly, and the idea that this little old lady single-handedly solves so many murders is ridiculous. But who cares? Not me. It is a comfort watch and a thoroughly enjoyable one.
The series ran for 12 seasons, racking up an incredible 264 episodes, and there were four TV-movies made after that. This set includes all of them, and all for a reasonable price. Now that’s what I call an easy Pick of the Week.
Also out this week that looks interesting:
Sabrina 4K UHD: This classic Billy Wilder romantic comedy starring Audrey Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, and William Holden gets the UHD treatment from Kino Lorber and is loaded with extras.
Looney Tunes Collector’s Vault: Volume 1: I absolutely adore the classic Looney Tunes cartoons, and this set looks terrific. The advertisement indicates it contains 25 previously unreleased shorts on DVD or Blu-ray. That’s enough to thoroughly intrigue me. But they have released all sorts of these films under all sorts of different names and collections, and it is quite confusing trying to sift through it all and know what you have and what you are missing. I wish they would stick with a collection name and just run through them all until they are done.
Jaws 50th Anniversary 4K UHD: Jaws is one of my all-time favorite films. It is absolutely perfect in my book. For its 50th anniversary, Universal is putting out a pretty sad little disc. You get a steelbook with some lousy-looking artwork, and that’s about it.
Midnight (1939): Claudette Colbert, Don Ameche, and John Barrymore star in this romantic comedy about a penniless showgirl who impersonates a Hungarian countess and finds love in the strangest of places. Criterion has the release.
Thelonious Monk: Straight No Chaser: The Criterion Collection is releasing this documentary full of concert footage about this jazz giant.
Exact Revenge: The Eunuch & The Deadly Knives: Eureka Entertainment presents these two wuxia films from Shaw Brothers studio.
