The 2012 PopCult Gift Guide Day Three: Television Series

Betraying my age here, when I was growing up, the idea of owning a collection of TV shows was incomprehensible. There was no way for a consumer to purchase movies or TV shows because home video hadn't been invented yet. Even in the days of VHS, the limitations of the format pushed the practicality of selling an entire long-running television series just out of reach.

DVD and Blu Ray has changed that. Now, if you're a die-hard fan of a television series, you can buy each season as they become available, or wait until the series has ended and buy a boxed set of the entire run. Today's gift idea is five suggested boxed sets of complete runs of TV shows. The links will take you to Amazon (this blog, unlike others, does NOT get a cut of any purchase you make), but you may find better prices at other retailers such as Best Buy, Sam's club or Costco.

Smallville

This retelling of the pre-Metropolis days of Clark Kent, before he became Superman, wrapped up ten seasons on the air in 2011, and was highly regarded as one of the best live-action depictions of The Man of Steel. With Tom Welling as Clark, and a cast that included Annette O'Toole, John Schneider, Michael Rosenbaum,Allison Mack, Kristin Kreuk, with guest appearances by Christopher Reeve, Margot Kidder and Michael McKean, Smallville turned out to be a first-class television series that brought a lot of DC Comics characters to a mainstream audience for the first time. You can relive those ten seasons with Smallville The Complete Series.

The 2012 PopCult Gift Guide Day Two: Bond...James Bond

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the quintessential spy, James Bond, on film. Theater-goers have reacted very favorably to the latest entry in the long-running franchise, "Skyfall," and new or lapsed fans can catch up instantly with the "Bond 50" box set, which collects every "official" entry in the James Bond film canon.

Starting with 1962's "Dr. No" and fizzling out with 2010's "Quantum of Solace," this set brings you all the highs and lows of the Bond franchise. "Never Say Never Again" is missing because, like the first "Casino Royale," it's not one of the EON Productions Bond movies.

Now, oddly enough, the Blu Ray version of this set, which contains an extra disc, is availalbe for much less than the DVD version. At least that's the way it is at Amazon, where the DVD version is nearly three hndred dollars, while the Blu Ray is a little more than half that. The bonus Blu Ray is an hour-long overview of the Bond Franchise.

If you don't want to dump that much money supporting a British secret agent's martini habit, you can actually go back to the source material with Ian Fleming's original James Bond novels, which can be found in nifty new editions for around fifteen bucks a pop. If your ordered them now from a local bookseller like Taylor's, you should have them in plenty of time for gifting.

And if you really want to go on the cheap, at most area Big Lots stores, you can find really good DVD editions of most of the James Bond movies for five bucks a pop. At that price, we're talking stocking stuffers.

 

The RFC 2012 Sampler Looks Back At A Great Year For Local Music

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Radio Free Charleston 175, "Dunbar Lanes Shirt," is a sampler of just a tiny amount of the great local music that we brought you in 2012. We'll revisit songs from Red Audio, In The Company of Wolves, Godmode Broadway, and The Charleston Light Opera Guild production of "The Color Purple."

Our title shirt this week comes to us from the newly reopened Dunbar Lanes, the area's coziest little bowling alley, tucked away in the heart of the hub of the Kanawha Valley, Dunbar. After the previous owners retired and left for Florida and the bowling alley lay dormant for a few months, the Dunbar landmark reopened last Friday and the new management promises to turn it into the hippest bowling alley in the state.

Host segments were shot at Joplin Park in South Charleston early Sunday morning before the gloomy clouds and rain blew through.

The 2012 PopCult Gift Guide Day One: The Beatles

We're kicking off our 8th Annual PopCult Gift Guide today and we're doing it with The Beatles. This year, there's one huge gift that the die-hard Beatle fan will definitely want. It's The Beatles complete box set of studio recordings on vinyl.

This is the vinyl debut of the digitally remastered versions of The Beatles albums which were released on CD and on iTunes just a couple of years ago. Even if you have the original vinyl, you should be able to detect subtle differences in these new pressings. All the albums are restored to their original packaging, which includes the inserts with the "Sgt. Pepper" album, the posters and photos with "The White Album," and the twenty-four page storybook that came with "Magical Mystery Tour."

Monday Morning Art: Balls

Today's art is a digital painting over a digitally-assaulted photograph of one of the bowling ball racks at the newly-reopened Dunbar Lanes. It doesn't look like that in real life. Click to enlarge.

Dunbar Lanes reopened under new management last Friday, and they also supplied the title shirt for RFC 175, "Dunbar Lanes Shirt," which will hit PopCult later tonight. Also later, The 2012 PopCult Gift Guide kicks off. So just keep hitting "refresh," okay?

Sunday Evening Video: The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Daleks

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This came up in a conversation this weekend...