This Week in DVD and Instant Watching

It's "Hey, those movies actually came out in theaters?" week on DVD...

Olympus Has Fallen: Between this and "White House Down," that's two "White House under siege" movies in recent months. Man, imagine if they just combined their resources and casts into ONE fi;m. Then they'd...still be following in the footsteps of "24," which did the same thing a few years ago.

The Big Wedding: My first reaction at seeing the cast writer/director Justin Zackham assembled for this (De Niro, Sarandon, Keaton, Heigl, Robin Williams, Seyfried, Ana Ayora--just seeing if you were paying attention) is, "Wow, this guy must have written one fantastic screenplay." My second reaction is, "Wow, this guy's father must be really well connected."

The Company You Keep: All I can say is it's sad when an espionage movie directed by Robert Redford and written by the guy who did "The Limey" can't get more pub.

Hatchet III: Finally a chance to tie up all the loose ends of "Hatchet II!"

Emperor: The idea of Tommy Lee Jones as General Douglas MacArthur? A really good one, actually. But I prefer to ponder the idea of Tommy Lee Jones dressed up as a penguin and waddling around an arctic landscape. That's just how I roll.

Perry Mason Season 9 Part 2: Bravo to CBS for getting the entire series out, even if it took a while, but just remember, the next time you want to make fun of a company for labeling something "the complete x season," well, here's why they do that: Some companies love their incomplete season sets.

Eight is Enough Season 4: Are you as excited as I am about the addition of Merle the Pearl to the cast? Well, if so, I hope you're a lot richer than I am. You're gonna need to hock some diamonds to afford the whole season of this at 60 bucks.

Family Ties: The Seventh and Final Season: I don't mean to alienate any Brian Bonsall fans, but the addition of a new kid a few seasons prior meant this show had long since run out of ideas even before it started doing "Skippy episodes."

Shane: Only Alan Ladd could be so, shall we say, not tall, and make the name Shane so bad-ass. The Blu-Ray should make this iconic Western  look like a million bucks--which is still less expensive than a full season of "Eight is Enough."

In Instant Watching...

Affair of the Heart: It's a slow week when the most interesting Netflix add is a Rick Springfield documentary. I mean, I don't mean to make fun of it--Rick Springfield fans are even more rabid than Brian Bonsall fans--and I might even check this out, but still...