( V )

Veronica Mars - The Complete Third Season

Hearst College jewel of the Pacific. A citadel of higher education set amid rolling lawns and swaying palms. But since Hearst is in Neptune California - and since Veronica Mars is among its incoming freshmen - you know it's also a noir netherworld of lies betrayal secrets and (of course) murder. Veronica Logan and more of your VM favorites join cool new characters for a Season 3 of seething mystery and sardonic wit. College is indeed a learning experience as Veronica aces a crim class led by a hunky prof solves the case of on-campus rapes that began in Season Two and gives a grad seminar in sleuthing when two faculty members take sudden eternal early retirements. Frosh year is gonna be freaky!Running Time: 900 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS UPC: 085391142973 Manufacturer No: 114297

Equal parts Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Nancy Drew, Veronica Mars is smartly written and well-acted. This third and final season of the critically acclaimed (but viewer-challenged) series ends as all good shows should--by leaving viewers wanting more and wondering how their favorite characters will fare in the future. By now, our spunky heroine Veronica (played by the effervescent Kristen Bell) is a college student working on a degree in criminology. Though blond, pretty, and uber-smart, Veronica doesn't have an easy time fitting in to her new setting. The series focuses as much on her personal life this season as it does on the cases she is hired (and paid) to solve. Besides dealing with rapes, robbery, and other sordid crimes, Veronica has to clear her own name when she is accused of plagiarizing. She also gets involved in helping figure out who may have given a pregnant friend a pill that caused her to lose the baby. This year's guest stars include some stunt casting with Patty Hearst, who plays a wealthy woman who disappears during an event held in her honor. Unlike the first two years where Veronica focused on solving one major crime, this season features several story arcs. Perhaps it was the producer's way of trying to attract more viewers, but diehard fans may be turned off by the change, which provides a less cohesive storyline than in the past. All 20 episodes--which aired originally during the 2006-2007 television season--are included in this six-disc set. The collection also includes a cute gag reel and an informative bonus feature that includes insightful commentary from show creator Rob Thomas. --Jae-Ha Kim

Veronica Mars - The Complete Second Season

The second season of Veronica Mars showcases the series' crackling-sharp writing and topnotch acting of star Kristen Bell and the rest of the cast. Veronica still struggles with the class wars in sunny Neptune, Calif., trying to find a balance between high school, love, helping her dad as a private eye, and doing the right thing. The ongoing thread of season 2 is the aftermath of a horrifying tragedy, and as Veronica and dad Keith try to find out what caused it, mysteries only compound. Shifty Sheriff Lamb, town powerbrokers, and various high-school cliques seem to undermine Veronica at every turn. Thankfully, Veronica has more chutzpah than Phillip Marlowe, and the side-of-the-mouth one-liners to match: "Well, actually," Veronica says dryly to a bad guy, "despite popular opinion, you really can't beat the truth out of someone." Some of the show's broad strokes echo the stellar Buffy the Vampire Slayer, yet Bell's Veronica doesn't need the supernatural to tackle a challenge. She's a real girl, conflicted, prickly, lovesick, yearning, sometimes even scared. As Veronica tries to solve the mystery, she must also handle her own heartbreaks, and the moral stumbles of those closest to her. Happily, she's got a great best pal, Wallace (the effervescent Percy Daggs III), and possibly the coolest, most understanding TV dad ever (Enrico Colantoni). The boxed set includes 22 episodes (many with deleted scenes), a behind-the-scenes mini-doc, a cute gag reel, and a short profile film, Veronica Mars: Not Your Average Teen Detective. You can say that again. --A.T. Hurley

In the wealthy, seaside community of Neptune, California, the rich and powerful make the rules. Unfortunately for them, there's Veronica Mars, a smart, fearless 17-year-old apprentice private investigator. In season two, the Mars family finds themselves embroiled in another season-long mystery hitting closer to home, following a new local tragedy. Meanwhile, after a summer of surprises and sordid murder trials, Logan and best friend Duncan Kane find themselves at odds, while Veronica must deal with her increasingly complicated romantic life and a whole new school year with familiar and surprising fresh faces.

Veronica Mars - The Complete First Season

In the wealthy seaside community of Neptune California the rich and powerful make the rules. Unfortunately for them there's Veronica Mars a smart fearless 17-year-old apprentice private investigator dedicated to solving the town's toughest mysteries. Veronica used to be one of the popular girls but it all came crumbling down around her after her best friend Lilly was murdered and her then-sheriff father Keith was removed from office for naming Lilly's rich father as the lead suspect. During the day Veronica must negotiate high school like any average teenage girl. But at night she helps with her father's struggling new private investigator business--and what she finds may tear the town of Neptune apart at the seams.Running Time: 935 min.System Requirements:Running Time 935 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 012569727748

The smartest high school drama since Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Veronica Mars is The O.C. as penned by Raymond Chandler. Veronica (Kristen Bell, Deadwood) is Nancy Drew by way of Lauren Bacall, while Neptune makes Peyton Place look like Mayberry. The first season begins in the aftermath of a dizzying array of cataclysmic events: Her best friend, Lilly (Amanda Seyfried), was murdered, her sheriff father was fired over his handling of the case, she was sexually assaulted, and her mother left. Since then, Keith Mars (Enrico Colantoni, Just Shoot Me) has become a private eye and drafted Veronica as his assistant. She may lack Buffy's physical prowess, but the "tiny blonde one" turns out to have a special talent for sleuthing. In the wake of her sophomore year, the popular crowd abandoned Veronica--even boyfriend Duncan (Teddy Dunn), Lilly's brother. (Hence the theme song: "We Used to Be Friends.") Veronica is on her own until she meets Wallace (Percy Daggs III), the only student unfamiliar with her past, unlike Duncan's sarcastic pal, Logan (Jason Dohring), one of her more ardent foes. He was Lilly's boyfriend and his father is movie star Aaron Echolls (Harry Hamlin). By the end of her junior year, Veronica and Logan will make their peace, but it won't be so easy to win over the school--let alone the town. Throughout the season, Veronica will solve several mysteries both big and small--including the murder of Lilly Kane. But a few questions remain. For instance, at the end of the season finale, Veronica opens the door to greet an unseen visitor with "I was hoping it would be you." So who was it? Fortunately, UPN renewed the critically acclaimed (if ratings challenged) teen noir and that tantalizing question will be answered in the second season premiere. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

The Venture Bros. - Season Two

An inspired spoof of 1960s action cartoons such as "Johnny Quest" The Venture Bros. follows the bizarre mis-adventures of Hank and Dean who believe themselves to be an unusually gifted team of "brains" and "braun" while actually possessing very little of either. The boys travel the world with their renowned scientist-father Doctor Venture -- and treat even the most mundane situation as a bold new adventure. As a result they often find themselves in danger with a host of oddball villains -- but rarely find their way out. The rely instead on their body-guard/undercover government agent Brock Sampson voiced by Patrick Warburton of "The Tick" and "Seinfeld" fame to save them.Running Time: 295 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ANIMATION/ADULT SWIM UPC: 053939781625 Manufacturer No: T7816

How do you launch a second season of a series when you concluded the previous one by murdering the title characters in cold blood? As is often the case on The Venture Bros., Adult Swim's hilariously funny poke at '60s adventure cartoons like Johnny Quest, the answer comes down to: weird science. It would be a crime to reveal how Hank and Dean Venture's beleaguered dad, Doc Venture (voiced by James Urbaniak) brings his hapless offspring back from the grave, but suffice it to say that the boys are back by the end of Episode One ("Powerless in the Face of Death") and making life miserable for their dad and bodyguard Brock Sampson (Patrick Warburton) shortly thereafter. But Team Venture's exploits share the spotlight this season with the misery of their main antagonist, the Monarch, who struggles to reclaim his lady love, Dr. Girlfriend (voiced by series co-creator Doc Hammer) from the suave Phantom Limb (also Urbaniak). Over the course of the sophomore season's thirteen episodes, the Monarch endures countless humiliations in the name of love (not the least of which is a disastrous double date with Dr. G and Limb in "Victor. Echo. November), while the Venture boys encounter countless historical figures (not the least of which is a thinly disguised Scooby-Doo and friends), screw up their own dates, and generally make a mess of things in their own cheerful but ridiculous ways. Meanwhile, the Ventures' neighbor, the overwrought Dr. Orpheus (Steven Ratazzi), also gets his own story arc, in which he re-assembles his "team" of vampire hunter Jackson Twilight and sexually ambiguous monk The Alchemist (voiced by Dana Snyder of Aqua Teen Hunger Force), with disastrous results. Exceptionally sharp writing that's rich with pop culture references and excellent voice performances make this series one of the smartest and funniest in Adult Swim's anarchic stable; here's hoping the network doesn't allow another two years to pass before they greenlight a third season.

The two-disc set offers raucous commentary by Hammer and co-creator Jackson Publick on all 13 episodes (Urbaniak and Michael Sinterniklaas, who voices Dean Venture, join them for several commentaries), as well as a barrage of deleted scenes from each story, and an amusing mock behind-the-scenes look at Astro-Base Go, the orbiting moon station where Hammer and Publick create the series with the help of SoulBot, a big-hearted robot which also lends its bloops and bleeps to the Ventures' mechanical assistant, H.E.L.P.E.R. Praise should also go to the exceptional packaging art and menu design (which feature Publick's character sketches), which evoke the series' retro feel with style. -- Paul Gaita

Vanishing Point

When an ex-cop and race car driver named Kowalski makes a bet that he can deliver a 1970 Dodge Challenger from Colorado to San Francisco in less than fifteen hours he meets a variety of colorful characters along the way and is soon chased by the police.
Genre: Feature Film-Action/Adventure
Rating: R
Release Date: 6-FEB-2007
Media Type: DVD

Art film and road movie collide for Vanishing Point, an existential car chase across the desert in a post Easy Rider America. Barry Newman stars as Kowalski, a taciturn driver who bets that he can drive a new Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in 15 hours. He loads up on amphetamines and begins his odyssey through the contemporary west while a funky black DJ (Cleavon Little) turns the driver into a folk hero and broadcasts advice on dodging the cops. It's like a counterculture precursor to Smokey and the Bandit, with the road as the last bastion of freedom and the DJ as a combination commentator and mystical guide. The slim plot offers a network of society drop-outs that aid the "last free Man on Earth" (as the DJ describes him) on his obscure but obviously symbolic quest while flashbacks paint Kowalski as a world-weary hero. It doesn't really make much sense, but the amazing car chases and excellent stunt work are stunningly set against the American west, beautifully captured by cinematographer John A. Alonzo. Vanishing Point is most assuredly a product of its time, the heady, anything-goes era of rebellion in the early 1970s. --Sean Axmaker

The Venture Bros. - Season One

Once a child prodigy Dr. Venture now fails as both a scientist and father. Luckily his twins Hank and Dean are too stupid to care. And they've got their vicious macho bodyguard Brock looking out for them. Together they'll get in all sorts of situations involving wild alligators street ruffians and booby traps. Brock really likes the booby traps.Running Time: 338 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: ANIMATION/ADULT SWIM UPC: 053939752625 Manufacturer No: T7526

If Jonny, Haji, Race Bannon, and the rest of the Jonny Quest gang were idiots, their animated adventures might play out like The Venture Bros., a consistently funny spoof on '60s adventure cartoons from the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim programming. The premise should be immediately familiar and nostalgic for any Saturday morning TV aficionado who grew up in the '60s and '70s: Dr. Venture (James Urbaniak from Henry Fool) is an inventor, while sons Hank and Dean's insatiably curiosity lands them in hot water with supervillains, robots, magicians, and the like. Brock Sampson (voiced by the very funny Patrick Warburton of The Tick) is the good doctor's right-hand man, who rescues the boys with good old-fashioned manpower. The twist in The Venture Bros. is that every single character, down to the supervillains' henchmen, are complete and utter dolts, and their adventures are inspired more by foolishness, personal obsessions (for Brock, it's sex and violence, and for Dr. V, it's diet pills and a daddy fixation), or just plain cosmic weirdness than any sense of post-Kennedy-era adventure and derring-do. The result is subversive and occasionally shocking insanity (Dr. V loses his kidneys in the series opener "Dia de Los Dangerous"; Dean suffers an unmentionable personal injury in "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean"; the boys believe that Dr. Venture's stomach tumor is actually a pregnancy in "Return to Spider Island"), but with enough flashes of surreal brilliance to make this a must-have for modern animation fans. The Season One two-disc set contains all 13 episodes, as well as two bonus episodes--the show's original pilot, "The Terrible Secret of Turtle Bay" (for Hank and Dean, the secret is something decidedly salacious), and "A Very Venture Christmas," as well as a handful of deleted scenes. Commentary by the show's creators and cast can be heard on five episodes, including "Turtle Bay," and the extras are rounded out by "Behind the Scenes of the Live-Action Movie," a 20-minute mockumentary that features much of the voice-over talent dressed in some ridiculous costumes. --Paul Gaita

Victor/Victoria

Blake Edwards's delightful Victor/Victoria may be one of the last of the great, old-style movie musical comedies--it is so good, it was turned into a hit Broadway stage musical years later. And both versions starred Edwards's wife Julie Andrews (the former Mary Poppins) in the title role--as Victor and Victoria. She's a down-and-out singer who hooks up with a flamboyantly gay theatrical veteran (Robert Preston), and together they become the toast of 1934 Paris by dreaming up a provocative nightclub act in which Victoria assumes the identity of a man in drag. So, in other words, Andrews plays a woman playing a man playing a woman ... and that's only the beginning of the sexual identity confusions that provide the fuel for this splendidly classy slapstick musical farce. (Yes, it's all those things.) James Garner, as a Chicago club owner, finds himself strangely besotted with this stylish, androgynous creature--even though he thinks Victor/Victoria is a man. Legendary Hollywood composer Henry Mancini (a longtime collaborator with Edwards) won his last Oscar for the score; Andrews, Preston, and Lesley Ann Warren, as Garner's cheeky girlfriend, were also nominated. Musical highlights include Victor/Victoria's sizzling "Le Jazz Hot" (in which Andrews shows off her incredible vocal range); another showstopper for Victor/Victoria, "The Shady Dame from Seville"; Preston's witty ode to "Gay Paree"; Warren's hilarious burlesque number, "King's Can-Can"; and a charmingly casual yet elegant side-by-side number, "You and Me," done in a small club by Preston and Andrews in tuxedos. --Jim Emerson

VeggieTales - Heroes of the Bible - Lions, Shepherds and Queens (Oh My!)

The first of two "best of" VeggieTales programs packs together 75 minutes of the Christian-lite group into one volume. The three stories here include "Daniel and the Lion's Den" from the first VeggieTales video, Where Is God When I'm Scared?, and complete programs of Dave and the Giant Pickle and Esther, the Girl Who Became Queen. All three tales illustrate the VeggieTales' creed at its best: entertaining stories from the Bible with a good deal of wackiness that make the lessons go down easy--for both kids and grownups. "Daniel" showcases the remarkable variety of original music the series produces, while Dave may be the quintessential VeggieTales episode. Each segment begins with energetic youngsters discussing the themes. --Doug Thomas

What do you get when you cross vegetables with classic Bible stories? You get courageous cucumbers, ambitious asparagus and heroes of epic proportions! VeggieTales Bible Heroes: Stand Up! Stand Tall! Stand Strong! is a 75-minute compilation featuring the following stories: - Dave and the Giant Pickle - Esther: The Girl Who Became Queen - Daniel and the Lions? Den

V - The Final Battle

Though followers of current science fiction television series may dismiss V: The Final Battle as a quaint relic from the pre-computer animation days, the six-hour miniseries about an alien invasion of Earth was a ratings juggernaut for NBC in 1984 and should still provide some entertainment for hard-bitten devotees and fans of '50s-style sci-fi. The Final Battle picks up four months after the shock conclusion of the 1983 prequel miniseries, with a small group of humans known as the Resistance struggling to convince their fellow humans that a fleet of seemingly friendly visitors from space are in fact bent on world domination.

Executive producer Kenneth Johnson (who oversaw most aspects of the first series) only supervised the sequel's script (which underwent several changes before its airing), and the writing occasionally suffers due to the lack of his attention. But the series still delivers its share of action and intrigue, as well as one showstopping gruesome moment involving the birth of interspecies twins. Acting is again a stumbling block, with leads Marc Singer and Faye Grant as bland as any performers from the American International Pictures stable; character actor Michael Ironside makes the strongest impression as a tough Resistance member, and a pre-Freddy Krueger Robert Englund is amusing as a kind-hearted alien. The miniseries was followed by an inevitable weekly series featuring most of the same cast, which was demolished in the ratings by Dallas, but a faithful Resistance-like following remains to this day. --Paul Gaita

Marc Singer, Robert Englund and Michael Ironside in the thrilling sequel miniseries about human resistance to alien invaders - from the birth of the first interspecies child to a harrowing countdown to nuclear doomsday.

DVD Features:
Interactive Menus
Scene Access

V - The Original TV Miniseries

In its day, V was a monumental event that for one generation remains a pop-culture touchstone. Close Encounters of the Third Kind may have reassured us that perhaps we have nothing to fear from alien visitors and E.T. introduced us to a benign extraterrestrial who only wanted to go home, but Kenneth Johnson's 1983 television miniseries knew better. Visitors who claim to come in peace are revealed to be nothing but human-looking reptilians on human conversion and conquest. As in the dark days of fascism, some collaborate with the enemy; others form the resistance.

At the time, the epic scale of this production was unprecedented. Those 50 motherships that hover over Earth's major cities anticipate Independence Day by more than a decade. The special effects and makeup are still awesome. Less so is the often-hackneyed dialogue. But thanks to their signature roles, the mostly no-star cast, most of whom would be reunited for a sequel and subsequent television series, have ensured themselves standing invitations to sci-fi conventions. Marc Singer is cameraman-turned-freedom-fighter Mike Donovan. Julie Parrish is a medical student-turned-rebel. Richard Herd is the aliens' supreme commander. Jane Bradler is Diana, the ravishing but ruthlessly ambitious alien science officer. Leonardo Cimino lends dignity to his heavy-handed allegorical role as a Holocaust survivor. Look for a pre-Freddy Krueger Robert Englund as one of the aliens.

The DVD is presented for the first time in widescreen format. Supplemental features include an amiable and enlightening director's commentary and a brief "making of" segment. --Donald Liebenson

Aliens pretending to be friendly come to Earth and are received openly. The aliens have masqueraded themselves to look just like humans. When it is discovered that the aliens' planet is dying and that they have come to rape the Earth of its natural resources, the war for Earth begins. An important key to the humans' success is distinguishing the their own from the aliens.