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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
Brand: LIONS GATE HOME ENT.
EAN: 0031398188056
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: Lionsgate
Languages: EnglishOriginal LanguageDolby Digital 2.0 StereoSpanishOriginal LanguageDolby Digital 2.0 StereoEnglishSubtitledSpanishSubtitled
Manufacturer: Lionsgate
MPN: D18805D
Number Of Items: 2
Publisher: Lionsgate
Region Code: 1
Release Date: July 11, 2006
Running Time: 283 minutes
Studio: Lionsgate
Theatrical Release Date: August 07, 2005
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Movie DVD
Amazon.com:
With its fantastic comedy series Weeds, cable network Showtime finally gave up its also-ran status to HBO and found itself with a controversial, buzz-worthy show that was as hilarious as it was dark, one about a truly desperate housewife. A recent widow with two growing sons, Nancy Botwin (Golden Globe winner Mary-Louise Parker) looks like a typical resident of the affluent Southern California suburb of Agrestic. She keeps a clean, upscale house (with the help of a live-in maid), attends PTA meetings, goes to her kids' soccer games, makes frequent stops at the local coffee franchise.... and sells marijuana in order to make it all possible. Left with no way to support herself after her beloved husband's fatal heart attack, Nancy turns herself into the "suburban baroness of bud," dealing to her neighbors in the area, with the help of her supplier Heylia (Tonye Patano) and point man Conrad (Romany Malco). Nancy's clients run from the local councilman (Kevin Nealon) to the just-barely-legal students at the local community college, but many in Agrestic are still in the dark as to how she keeps her family afloat, including her best friend, the sardonic Celia (Elizabeth Perkins), a wife and mother whose blistering, withering put-downs could make Dorothy Parker cringe in fear. But like many small-business owners, Nancy yearns for more success and cash, and like her workaholic neighbors, finds keeping a balance between work life and home life to be extremely precarious at best.
While Desperate Housewives yearned to be a suburban satire with bite, Weeds was the real deal, skewering upper-middle class mores with a sharp eye, a keen wit, and a mostly forgiving heart. In episode after episode, the show's creative team (led by creator Jenji Kohan) pulled back the layers of Agrestic's superficiality to show what lies beneath the squeaky-clean exteriors and smiling faces; it turns out that hunger, fear, desire, and, yes, desperation aren't that far down. However, Weeds forsakes pulpiness and florid drama for biting yet affectionate humor--its heroine is a woman with sliding morals, but one you'll root for to the very end. The effervescent Parker, the only actress who can mix perkiness with morbidity in just the right amounts, anchored the show with her amazing turn as Nancy, who by the end of the first season had become a kind of soccer-mom version of Michael Corleone, entering a corrupt world with both trepidation and fascination--and totally enamored of the power it brought her. Also perfectly cast, Perkins found the role of a lifetime as the bitterly hilarious Celia, and entering the show in its fourth episode, Justin Kirk (Parker's co-star in Angels in America) proved to be a potent secret weapon as Nancy's brother-in-law Andy, a slacker who wasn't above peddling t-shirts to elementary school kids. As icky as these characters might appear on the surface, Weeds made them all immensely appealing and great company to be around. Don't say we didn't warn you: one hit and you'll be hooked on this show. The DVDs feature six episode commentaries with cast and crew, outtakes, original featurettes, a music video, and most enjoyably, Agrestic Herbal Recipes (for entertainment value only, we assume) and the "Smoke and Mirrors" marijuana mockumentary. --Mark Englehart
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
Good season of the show. Interesting storyline and the characters at this point are pretty likable. If you have heard about this show, this is the season to get. Writing is fresh and the concept hasn't been worn out. Humor is funny, rather than dark, as it is in later seasons. Great acting. Kevin Nealon is wonderful here. Everybody is. Characters will probably remind you of somebody you know.
Rating: -
"Saving Grace" was a funny little British comedy about a frumpy, middle-aged widow who is shocked to realize that her deceased husband had left her with a pile of debts rather than a bucolic English mansion. Fueled by lots of funny "look-at-the-innocent-old-ladies-with-the-ganja" jokes and a young, manic Colin Ferguson, "Saving Grace" worked and worked well.
"Weeds" is the American retelling of this charming tale. While "SG" poked a lot of fun at the stiff English upper lip sent all aquiver after a few luxurious drags, "Weeds" sets its gunsights squarely on American Suburbia. Set in the androgynous, heartless Eden that is Agrestic, California, "Weeds" does nothing if it does not shred the ideal picture of life in America for those who are not Wealthy, but who are in fact very well off.
Our heroine, Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker), is a struggling widow following the shocking death of her husband - a sudden heart-attack for a guy who appears to have been healthy as a horse (we see him in some home movies). She's got a huge house in Agrestic for her two boys, a nanny, and no job. So naturally she turns to dealing pot, as everyone in Agrestic who appears to be virtuous and true (PTA members, lawyers, accountants) is actually nothing but a ravenous pot-head. Indeed, perhaps the only adults we don't see getting baked are Nancy's dealers, a shockingly-black family in this lily-white enclave. Nancy is a natural dealer, both charming and desperate enough to do what's necessary. She's also got an entrepreneurial gift, and soon she's the Godmother of the local pot infrastructure.
While Nancy is our focus, there are plenty of minor characters who flesh out this story. There are too many to name, but Elizabeth Perkins' Celia - PTA witch, suffering wife, and now coping with breast cancer - almost steals the show. But it's unfair to single her out too much - this isn't a true ensemble cast a la "The Wire," but there are lots of terrific "minor" characters here.
More savage than "dirty," there's more than a fair amount of "adult subject matter" that will make you think twice about allowing your kids to watch "Weeds." It's too bad, because this is one of the best-written shows on TV today.
Rating:  -
It took me awhile to try this series, having read many reviews, I thought it had a 50-50 chance of working for me. I finally found it fairly cheap somewhere at the end of the summer when not much was on TV. I am not sure why this DVD is classified as a comedy, I didn't find myself laughing much. I guess the hypocrasy was supposed to provide the humor, but I find too much of it in every day life anymore, I just couldn't find it entertaining. Sad, but not entertaining. There are bright points in the writing, the whole story line on how the family deals with the loss of their husband/father did draw me in, but that is more drama than comedy. In the end, the drug dealing and sex story lines which take up most of the air time are just distracting to me. If the writers focused more on the emotions of the various characters dealing with their reality, it would probably make a pretty good drama series.
You won't find too many movies or TV shows about a drug dealing housewife and the show does have a few good moments, so I don't want to totally discourage others from trying it. On the other hand, the writers seem to rely heavily on the typical hollywood point of view of right and wrong, so this may be offensive to some. They also seem to rely heavily on sex scenes to impress the audience (sex sells, right?) For me, I think I will pass on the rest of the series unless I can find it super cheap somewhere.
Rating:  -
I bought this at the recommendation of a friend. They dropped the price on the HD digital download so I thought I'd give it a shot. Ugh. This is dark comedy? I giggled when little Johnny fell and broke his arm while he was watching daddy on the camcorder, does that count? "Oh golly gee, life is so horrible in suburbia. Why, I hate it so much, I'm going to start selling dope so that I can stay here. Oh the horror. I gots ta head ova to mah stereotypical black drug supplyahs dawwwwg!" (the banter between her and the dealer family full on shreds the limits of credulity). I mean, geez, if she were doing it to survive it would be one thing, but doing it to maintain a lifestyle? I guess maybe some people could find that to be a sympathetic thing to identify with but sheesh. I could really give a crap less about the dope use. There are no characters that I like in this show. I detest them, they treat their children like garbage. The writing is bad. When I read Wuthering Heights, I hated every character in that as well, but it was so well written, I zipped right through it. This.. has nothing. No moral struggle, at all. Just cynical snickers. The only way this thing would be interesting is if they had an episode that released crazed velociraptors into the area to gnaw on these boring freaks.
After watching all three seasons of Dexter I had hopes that this would be somewhat of the same quality. Couldn't be more wrong. And Breaking Bad is just way, way better. Avoid this at all costs unless watching jaded, self-hating Red Diaper Doper Babies struggle under the weight of their own excrement is your bag.
All in nice shiny HD (the only good thing, I'm sorry to say).
Rating: -
This was a great buy. It came in a timely manner and was in great condition. Plus the show itself is great!
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