This Week in DVD

Twilight: I couldn't avoid the hype for this one when it opened in theaters, and I can't avoid the hype accompanying its impending DVD release. After all, I did go to the mall two weekends in a row. But my daughter is about to turn 1, and I guess a "Twilight" invasion of my house is inevitable. I mean, I'm sure now that she's older, it's only a matter of time before she asks for a vampire theme party, to say nothing of the t-shirts, stickers, and notebooks. Ah, they grow up so fast.

Mr. Belvedere Season 1: In a perfect world, all the girls would be going wild for Christopher Hewett as the irrepressible Mr. Belvedere. Tragically, Hewett is no longer with us and unable to enjoy the hysteria surrounding his own DVD spotlight.

Barney Miller Season 3: This series resumes after Sony took several decades off. The hash brownies episode is probably the most famous one on here, if not the most famous of the entire run; WGN America chose it as one of the 4 it spotlighted in a retro week mini-marathon last year.
I remember an AP History class in high school. The last day, our teacher abandoned the lecture format and showed an episode of "Barney Miller." I was cool enough to appreciate that but not cool enough to not be in class on the last day of school.

The Punisher: War Zone: I've investigated it, and there's no truth to the rumor that Cannon Pictures tried in the eighties to get a Punisher movie made starring Christopher Hewett. With that out of the way, we can talk about this kind of sequel not to the 1989 Dolph Lundgren version, but the 2004 Thomas Jane installment.

Uh...you know what? I know very little about it. Amuse yourself with this memory of "Mr. Belvedere." Remember the annoying little kid that was Belvedere's foil? I think Belvy used to always say, "WESLEY, you insufferable little twit," or something like that. Anyway, the kid's name was Brice Beckham, and one of the funniest things I have ever seen in my life--perhaps this exposes it for the uneventful life it's been--is when I saw a pin-up of him in one of my younger sisters' teen magazines. It was something like "Bop." Beckham was standing with his fists on his hips wearing--so help me--a wife beater and jeans. Even my sisters found this hilarious. Maybe ESPECIALLY my sisters found this hilarious. BRICE BECKHAM?

That's a goofy anecdote, I grant you, but it's got to be better than "Punisher: War Zone."

The Three Stooges Volume 5: At this point, it's an insult to Sony to express shock that this series continues so quickly and with such good results. So I won't do it.