Adventures of a Fan Turned Producer
Big thanks to Laura who just gave me the heads up that Seabiscuit is being rerun tonight on ABC at 8:00 p.m. Pacific Time, 7:00 p.m. Central Time. (Check your local listings.)
I really enjoyed this movie and what makes it even better is that our own Eddie Jones has a role in it. He plays the character Samuel Riddle.
Of all the I-Man DVDs available for purchase, the U.K. version is the best one out there, in my opinion. Not only do you get the episodes, but you also get some really great special features:
Some pretty cool features, eh? Well, we have Ian Atkins to thank for these beauties and, of course, let’s not forget our cast who willingly gave of their time to do those great interviews.
Now if you’re looking at the pictures of the two boxed sets (above) and thinking one set is season one and one set is season two, stop right there. Unfortunately, they are not two seasons. Both sets are of season one, which was divided into two sets. It’s a rather common misconception and I want to thank Rebecca who reminded me to make that clear.
The first box set contains the following episodes:
The second box set contains the rest of the season one episodes:
A few video and audio clips from the DVDs are available at the Gold Street Entertainment website. Just scroll down to around the middle of the page to download them.
A Little History and What About Season Two?
As I’ve already mentioned, we owe a lot to Ian Atkins for putting together such great sets. Ian is a self-proclaimed “huge fan” of The Invisible Man. As the former Product Manager of Contender Entertainment, the company that released the U.K. DVDs, it was his job to oversee the release of the DVDs. He has even stated that he took the job “primarily to be involved in the I-Man DVD releases.”
Now if you’re wondering why Contender never released season two on DVD, it’s because they had to see how season one sales went before they could make a decision about going ahead with season two…a logical business decision. And even though Ian had said that he would “be fighting like crazy to get season two underway” as soon as possible, the season two DVDs never happened. Since Ian no longer works for Contender and they never released season two, I can only surmise that sales of season one just weren’t strong enough.
I can’t say that surprises me. The Invisible Man wasn’t well known in the U.K. It aired on lesser-watched networks and didn’t get much publicity, so it’s fan base is relatively small in comparison to other countries.
What does surprise me is that Contender was willing to take the gamble and commit to the season one DVDs in the first place. It’s a gamble that I wish had paid off better for them. Regardless, I’ll always be thankful for what we did get, because no other I-Man DVD releases have the kind of extras that Ian put together for this version.
Where You Can Purchase the U.K. DVDs
Following is a list of some of the online sites where you can purchase the U.K. I-Man DVDs. I, again, want to thank Rebecca who gave me a hand with finding some of these sites. This list is by no means complete, but it’s a start.
Please note that as of this date, Amazon and HMV appear to be out of box set one. You may wish to inquire about availability before placing your order.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The U.K. DVDs are made for region two and are produced in the PAL format. If you are ordering these from the U.S. and Canada (region one) or any other region, check to make sure your TV/DVD is compatable with this format. I’ll be explaining the ins and outs of regions and formats in a future post.
Amanda beat me to the punch with her post.
I’ve uploaded my scene if you’d like to watch it. I don’t really consider this to be too illegal since Fox did everything in their power to kill this movie, including not spending a dime on advertising (the first film to have that distinction in 41 years) and waiting 2 1/2 years to release it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9k-OcviNNQ
As I said before, I played this as Eberts. There’s very little distinction between “Collins” and Eberts and in fact it’s very easy for me to believe that after the Agency Eberts transfered to the Army’s research division. The Army was good and bad to Eberts, he lost 20 pounds but got bad eyesight and grew a mustache.
Trivia:
*If you look of my right shoulder there’s a picture that’s mostly obscured. That’s a shot of my 3 day old son. Kiernan was born and two days later I was in Austin, TX shooting this. I brought a picture and they put it in the frame. His first big break in show business.
*I do say the “N” word, so be advised. About a year after we shot the film Mike Judge brought me to the Fox lot (The Marge Simspson recording room no less!) to record some additional dialogue. He gave me that line and I thought it was funny. I think in the context it’s not me or Collins being racist, but rather Collins trying to become a pimp by changing his language. I probably wouldn’t qualify any of this if Michael Richards hadn’t totally lost his mind.
*Mike Judge is an amazing guy and I’m sad his movies get treated so badly. He sounds exactly like Hank Hill in real life. He lives in Austin and records all his “King of the Hill” lines there.
* The pimp is rapper Scarface. He showed up for the photo shoot with an entourage of about 7 guys. Most of them passed out from being hung over the previous night. Scarface started hitting on Maya Rudolph during the photo shoot. He was probably just kidding but Maya wasn’t having any of that and looked pissed. It was funny, though.
* Some of the photo shoot of Collins with the pimp was in a real bar. It was about 2 pm and there were locals already there. They didn’t seem to notice or care when an Army Lt. Colonel, 2 pimps and 15 “ho’s” (Mike Judge’s words) walked in and began to take pictures.
As I said before, I think this character is probably Eberts. It’s a funny ending for his character…at least until the I-Man movie. Who knows, maybe while he’s rotting in a military prison, The Official will offer him a pardon. All he has to do is participate in a little experiment…
Well, that’s what I got for right now. You can check my MySpace blog to read about my auditions and I’ll stop by here occasionally to update you on the movie from my perspective and the doing of other cast members. Until then, Shoom on.
Mike
This post was actually supposed to be up on Tuesday but I’ve been waylaid by the flu and am only now starting to feel well enough to spend more than a few minutes at my computer. If I could only get my coworkers to stop coming to work sick and sharing their germs with everyone. That kind of generosity I could do without. You know what I mean?
Anyway, I wanted to let everyone know that as of Tuesday, January 9, Mike McCafferty’s film, Idiocracy, is now available for purchase on DVD.
Idiocracy stars Luke Wilson as Army Private Joe Bowers, an “average American” who has been put in a deep-freeze hibernation experiment as part of a top-secret Army program. Things go wrong and Bowers doesn’t wake up for 500 years. However, America has changed for the worse, becoming so dumbed-down that Bowers is now the smartest person in the world.
There has been all kinds of speculation about why this film has received so little support from the studio. It took two years for this film to get released, and then it only got a very limited release in seven cities with virtually no marketing, no advertising, and no official website. Needless to say, some fans have been unhappy with the way this film has been handled.
So if this film wasn’t released in your area and you’ve been waiting to see it, you don’t have to wait any longer. DVDs are now available at Amazon.com.
Vincent Ventresca will appear CSI: Miami tonight at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on A&E. As usual, check your local listings for the time and channel in your area. The episode is called Invasion and Vince plays a character named Zellar.
This is a rerun, so if you have already seen it, you might prefer to catch Paul tonight in Close to Home, which is a new episode and happens to air at the same time. If you haven’t seen it, then you’ve got a decision to make. Vince? Paul? Vince? Paul? It’s like choosing your favorite child…impossible. But then times like these are why VCRs were created.