Our Picks Reviews - Page 24

From its humble origins (a wooden slingshot!) to its heyday astraddle an empire of baby boomer playthings, the Wham-O “fun factory” is practically synonymous with inexpensive, far-out, kids-just-gotta-have-it toys. This colorful salute to the company behind the Frisbee, the Hula Hoop, Silly String and Hacky Sacks also points the playful way to hundreds of other, lesser-known Wham-O delights, like Instant Fish, the 27-Color Pencil and SuperElasticBubblePlastic. Super-Book paints a rainbow of retro-toy memories.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Until his death in 2004, renowned photographer Richard Avedon captured with his camera the many moods and personalities of movie actors, comedians, singers, Broadway stars and other famous folks who lived in—and for—the spotlight. This collection of more than 200 large-format images, culled from Avedon’s archives and stretching across the last half century, open an elegant window on a shiny, days-gone-by show-biz world as seen through one of world’s most celebrated celebrity-trained lenses.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Take a Halloween hop to the dark side with this wide-ranging collection of freaky facts, way-out stories and scary, stranger-than-fiction tales. Nature’s oddities, history’s mysteries, weird laws, famous hoaxes, murderers, madmen, phobias, UFO encounters, ghost sightings, haunted houses and hundreds of other delightfully unsettling, wildly entertaining tidbits will keep you riveted until long after the leftover trick-or-treat candy is gone.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Hip, irreverently hilarious and politically prickly, Tom and Dick Smothers’ network TV variety series lasted for three years before CBS censors pulled its plug in 1969. These 11 final-season episodes present a who’s who of musical and comedic guest stars, a bonanza of bonus materials—including segments originally deemed too controversial for prime time—and a retro reminder of just how far the show was willing to go for a laugh during a turbulent era when the nation really, really need one.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Dennis Quaid, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ellen Page and Thomas Haden Church star in this hilarious but heartwarming grown-up comedy about a withdrawn college professor, his loveably dysfunctional family and the romantic sparks that fly when he re-connects with one of his former students. Even “smart” people, it turns out, still have a few things to learn. Bonus features include bloopers, interviews and coverage of the movie’s premiere at the Sundance Film Festival, where it charmed the critics.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Before they moved on to devote all their efforts to West Wing, writer Aaron Sorkin and director Thomas Schlamme created this Emmy-winning half-hour comedy-drama about a fictitious cable-TV sports show, which hit the airwaves in 1998 and lasted two seasons. This deluxe re-release includes all 45 episodes and two full discs of additional features, including a profile on actor Robert Guillaume, whose real-life stroke during the first season was worked into the plot, and commentary from ESPN employees on just how well the show captured the details of a fast-paced workplace very much like their own.
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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Michael Keaton is the gross-out ghost with the messy most in Beetle-juice, director Tim Bur-ton’s outrageous 1988 classic that also featured Winona Rider, Alec Baldwin and Geena Davis in an eye-popping funhouse of hocus-pocus hilarity. The new 20th Anniversary Deluxe Edition DVD includes three episodes of the TV cartoon series spawned by the movie.
Neil Pond, American Profile

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Is it Halloween, or is it Christmas? Both calendar dates collide in The Nightmare Before Christmas, a delightfully demented 3-D animated fable from 1993 that puts an entirely new spin on the holiday season. DVD bonus features include a look at how Disneyland decks out its Haunted Mansion for Christmas.
Neil Pond, American Profile

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In the early 1960s, Casper, “the friendly ghost,” made the leap from comic books to a series of TV adventures. Casper Classic Coll-ection, Vols. 1 & 2, each with a dozen 5-minute episodes featur-ing Casper and sidekick Wendy, “the good little witch,” make for a nostalgic visit with the sweetest little spirits to ever haunt your television.
Neil Pond, American Profile

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Joe Mantegna heads the cast of this gritty CBS network drama about an elite group of FBI profilers constantly trying to outsmart the country’s most deviant criminals. In these 20 episodes from last season, the unit juggles some of their toughest cases while trying to deal with various personal problems that threaten to undermine the workplace. Bonus features include cut-ups and goof-ups, deleted scenes and several documentaries that take you behind the scenes. (Rated PG-13)
—Neil Pond, American Profile

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