{"id":21249,"date":"2016-04-09T11:00:31","date_gmt":"2016-04-09T18:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qgp.ykq.mybluehost.me\/cinephiled\/?p=21249"},"modified":"2016-04-09T11:02:36","modified_gmt":"2016-04-09T18:02:36","slug":"videophiled-tvd-freak-geeks-on-blu-ray-plus-grease-live-and-childhoods-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinephiled.com\/videophiled-tvd-freak-geeks-on-blu-ray-plus-grease-live-and-childhoods-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Videophiled TVD: ‘Freak & Geeks’ on Blu-ray, plus ‘Grease Live!’ and ‘Childhood’s End’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"FreaksGeeksBD\"Freaks & Geeks: The Complete Series<\/i><\/b> (Shout! Factory, Blu-ray) \u2013 Somewhere between Dawson\u2019s Creek<\/i> and Welcome to the Doll House<\/i> is this sharp, funny, and surprisingly poignant high school dram-edy (for lack of a better word), which premiered in 1999 and lasted for a single season.<\/p>\n

Junior Linda Cardellini (of the Scooby-Doo<\/i> movies and Mad Men<\/i>) grounds the series as the former class brain who, in the first episode, is in the midst of a startling identity crisis. Rejecting everything she once took for granted, including her place in the school hierarchy, she gravitates toward the \u201cfreaks,\u201d a group of stoners, under-achievers, and minor key rebels, sort of led by rebel without a clue Daniel (James Franco, looking perpetually stoned). Meanwhile her Freshman brother (John Francis Daley) is a Steve Martin-quoting, Dungeons and Dragon-playing, skinny little \u201cgeek,\u201d hanging with his friends, pining for a pretty cheerleader, and trying to avoid the mean-spirited pranks and hazing that he seems to be the perpetual butt of.<\/p>\n

Set in 1980 Michigan and executed with a brilliant sense of fashion, music, and pop-culture zeitgeist, the hour long show is no sitcom (though it\u2019s funnier than most) and the humor is often a sneaky way to explore the pain of teenage social nightmares, from the bullying, humiliating torments of bigger and older students to crushes, dating, and the social rites of passage that put kids on stage without giving them the script. It\u2019s compassionate without losing itself in sentimentality and understanding of the crises that drive these kids to their often self-destructive behavior without letting them off the hook for their decisions. No show on TV better captured the subtleties or the dynamics of the high school caste system. The Pilot<\/i> features a longer \u201cdirector\u2019s cut\u201d with footage not seen on TV and the 18 episode series (of which only 15 were originally shown on NBC before it was yanked from the schedule for good) is returned to its intended order, ending on a satisfying and moving open-ended conclusion that leaves the characters stretching themselves to the future in moments of discovery and defiance. Watch for Ben Stiller in an uncredited cameo as a frustrated Secret Service agent in The Little Things<\/i>.<\/p>\n