Amazon.com

These 13 episodes from the long-running HBO series have plenty of the bells and whistles that make Arli$$ so much fun to watch: celebrity cameos, topical satire, swatches of deep poignancy, and pure silliness. Comic actor Robert Wuhl, who created and stars, plays Arliss Michaels, a sports super-agent driven by twin motivations of profit and idealism. Arliss is in the race to realize his clients' dreams of stupendous wealth, but he's just as likely to put his reputation (and big bucks) on the line to help a fading player claim his niche in history. As with HBO's The Larry Sanders Show, Arli$$ gets a lot of mileage out of verisimilitude. In these Best of shows, we meet the likes of Dave Winfield, Ernie Banks, Frank Deford, Lloyd Jones, Tommy Lasorda, and even O.J. attorney Bob Shapiro, playing themselves in some very funny stories about the perennial hopes and startling realities that drive professional sports. --Tom Keogh ... Read more

Reviews (8)

One of HBO's Two Big Mistakes
I was stunned they put out this critically bashed, unpopular show on DVD. Any disc containing something called "The Best of Arliss" should be blank. There was no "best." This stinker tied with "The Mind of the Married Man" as the worst two shows in HBO's history. How come this junk is available on DVD and either "Police Squad" or "Sledge Hammer" isn't?

Good but interesting choices
I was a huge fan of the show when it aired on HBO Sunday Nights; however I find the "Best of" choices to be quite interesting. There were many other episodes that were much better than the ones presented in this set. Where was the episode where Kirby must outdrink the Volleyball player? or the Battle in the Big ouse boxing match or the one with the Katarina Witt or
some of the other classics. Instead we are treated to episodes that make one yawn. Next time let's see more humorouse episodes.

Its about time!
First of all, I don't know what took them so long to start putting this show on DVD. I have been looking and waiting for months now. Well, it's about time because this is one of those shows that you need to get and keep. It's a good thing they put this show on HBO because it would have never worked on network or cable TV.
Arliss is one of the funniest shows I have seen. Not sitcom family funny, but adult only almost X-rated funny at times. Believe me, this show is not for the kids, it is adult humor all the way. Arliss Michaels is a sports super agent and the show basically deals with his everyday life and the headaches and problems he has to go throw. Everything from making deals between players and teams to finding the next big plan to make more money! Arliss is an original show that is very smart and funny. There are a ton of cameos from actors and sports stars that are fun to watch! If the sports world or sports agents interest you at all then you will like this show. It's a good time, pick it up!

Tones of Jerry MaGuire? Please!
I find it ridiculously dense of people who think Arli$$ is nothing more than a show trying to ride the cotails of the success of Tom Cruise's hit. Further, I think it's pretty idiotic to pigeon-hole anything involving sports agents into Jerry Maguire. The world of athlete representation is a vast one, more entertaining and intriguing than 95% of careers in this world. What Robert Wuhl has done has taken this profession, satirized it, and made it an enjoyable show for people who are sports fans and fans of comedy. Does he have some similarities to Cruise's character? Sure. But most good agents will anyway. MaGuire is a character in a profession, just as Arliss Michaels is. You'll find Arli$$ is a better representation of Drew Rosenhaus than anything, but that would require research and knowledge of the industry....something some editorials have proven otherwise. All in all, it's a great show if taken at face value. Highly reccommend to anyone.

Great Show, Great DVD Set
I'm waiting for more episodes from this smart and witty comedy series which is easily the best show from HBO in a while. Whilst The Sopranos and Sex In the City get all the critical attention and Today show fawning Arliss is the show that deserves all the accolades. It is all due to Robert Wuhl, the goofy reporter from Batman, who would have guessed? But the guy is a comic genius and this show is great. Every episode leaves you with a smile, even when they are serious, which some of them are. The sense of life in this series is very benevolent, which is what makes it so much better than the other two HBO series. The DVD is of great quality, only adding to the enjoyment. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Men of War stars tall, craggy Dolph Lundgren as a down-and-out commando who agrees to do another job because there's nothing else he knows how to do. He assembles a crack team and travels to an isolated Pacific island with orders to secure it for a mysterious business venture. But once there, he discovers an idyllic paradise with peaceful natives who welcome the mercenaries into their village. When Dolph learns what the venture is really about, he decides he's on the wrong side and, with part of his team, fights to defend the island from destruction. The first third of Men of War is drenched in sweaty machismo--the camera constantly lingers over rippling muscles and bruised skin during an endless bar fight. But once on the island, the mercenaries frolic sweetly with native children and the scenery is astoundingly beautiful (and beautifully filmed). A native who speaks English delivers some heavy-handed pacifist speeches. Then, as another team of more ruthless mercenaries arrive, the movie again turns into an ecstasy of gunshots and explosions--only, because of the genuinely charming middle third, there are actually some emotional stakes to the violence. Furthermore, the natives turn out to be not quite as peaceful as they presented themselves, adding some surprising layers to the movie's moral tone (likely due to the hand of co-screenwriter John Sayles, the man responsible for Brother from Another Planet and Lone Star). All in all, better looking and better written than any movie starring Dolph Lundgren has any right to be. --Bret Fetzer ... Read more

Reviews (1)

Las Vegas: Then And WOW!
This DVD has three separate sections, each lasting approximately 45 minutes. "Stories From The Strip" begins with a brief history of Las Vegas, from the legalization of gambling and prostitution, to the era of Benjamin 'Bugsy' Siegel and the Flamingo Hotel. This is followed by the arrival of Howard Hughes, which began the era of the corporate takeover of the casinos. Steve Wynn began buying properties and opened the Mirage in 1988, among the first of the hotels with a specific theme. Later he opened Treasure Island, a more family friendly casino. Steve Wynn's latest creation is the beautiful Bellagio, the most opulent casino in the current era of the megaresort. Speaking of megaresorts, the Venetian hotel is also profiled. A brief mention of adult entertainments and the proliferation of wedding chapels nicely completes this section.

"Destination: The Strip" also beings with a brief history of Las Vegas. This is followed by a brief history of Sin City's world class entertainers, including the always popular showgirls. The swinging era of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. (the Rat Pack) is followed by the greatest entertainer who ever lived, Elvis Presley. Wayne Newton, Siegfied and Roy, Lance Burton (an excellent magician) and Danny Gans (a great comedian and impressionist) are also mentioned. The Bellagio, Mandalay Bay, Circus Circus and the Rio Hotel are featured for their unique offerings to visiting tourists. A visit to the natural beauty of Red Rock Canyon makes a nice contrast to the glitz and glamor of Las Vegas. "Thrill Rides, Las Vegas Style" is the bonus feature. It shows the Big Shot ride on the top of the Stratosphere tower, as well as the roller coaster outside of the New York, New York casino. Bungee jumping, water slides and helicopter rides are among some of the other thrill rides featured in this section. It's an interesting extra to go along with the main sections of this well made DVD. ... Read more

Reviews (9)

A slightly new direction, but strong as ever
The fourth season of 'Alias' had the distinctive misfortune of coming off the tail end of the show's much maligned third year.Add to that ABC's decision to change its timeslot from Sundays to Wednesdays and to hold off on airing the season until January, almost 8 months after season 3's finale aired.To say the least, Season 4 had its work cut out for it.

That said, I must declare that I was never of the persusion that Season 3 was a weak year.I thought that, like the two previous seasons, there were obvious faults, but overall, I think the show managed to sustain itself beautifully through the loss of the beloved Lena Olin.And on that note, it seems clear to me that the first half of season 4 suffered bad fan reaction for the same reason season 3 did: Spymommy go bye-bye!

I was able to get over that rather quickly.And thank God!Because I found so many reasons to enjoy Alias's 4th season that it's almost unbelievable to me that so many fans dismissed the first half without much thought.Yes, the first half of the season focuses more on individual episodes than a larger story arc, but fear not, for many of the pieces presented in the earlier episodes show up during the second, more cohesive half of the season.

In retrospect, Season 4 really offered fans a lot (whether they were willing to take what was offered is another story, of course...).First and foremost, the return of Lena Olin in the last two episodes of the season.My, oh my, was it good to see her again.We also get a decent amount of sisterly action and tension, both between Syd and Nadia, and between the sisters Derevko.The return of two things I missed sorely from season 1: Anna Espinoza and the big red Rambaldi ball. "In Dreams" (which marks Garner's directorial debut) provided a haunting appearance of Sloane's wife, Emily.And speaking of Sloane, who could not love the concept of Sloane Cloane? And Lastly, the old mix of emotional complexity, throbbing action, heartbreaking drama, artful storytelling, fantastic fight scenes, fabulous wigs and outfits, Marshall's infamous rambling, romance (that's not without its problems), and yes, Rambaldi, is all there for you to enjoy.

Finally, to those who brush off the first half of the season, I only have to say that you probably missed the point.'Alias' rebuilt itself because it had to.Whiny fans and the need for higher ratings forced these changes.The way I see it, everything that happened had to happen in order to get to where we're going.Anyone doubting the incredible power of this show, however, need only watch the last minute of the season finale to realize that, as most good Alias fans *should* already know, everything can change in a single instant.With perhaps the greatest cliffhanger the show has ever offered, "Before The Flood" will bring even the nitpicky whiners back to their knees in worship and praise of the most thrilling television show airing today.

Ending Begins: Season 4 of One of the Greatest Shows on TV
At the end of Season 3 of Alias, most fans considered it to be the show's weakest year.Even though I also thought that it wasn't as strong as the brilliant Seasons 1 and 2, I didn't think that it was as terrible as many people were complaining (although a lot of people just didn't like the fact that Sydney [Jennifer Garner] and Vaughn [Michael Vartan] weren't together).However, whether or not people liked S3, I think that most people can agree that the cliffhanger ending made us wnat to see what happened next.Sloane (Ron Rifkin) and his newly-found daughter Nadia (Mia Maestro) ran away from CIA custody to find one of Rambaldi's most powerful artifacts, while Sydney discovered something that her father Jack Bristow (Victor Garber) did not want her to find.Meanwhile, Vaughn had just discovered a Rambaldi prophecy stating that the Chosen One (Sydney) and the Passenger (Nadia) would fight to the death.So it is understandable that most fans couldn't wait to see where Season 4 took our characters.
Unfortunately, for the first half of the season, they didn't go far.In the season premiere, "Authorized Personnel Only", events pick up a few months after the end of S3, instead of right where things left, which has been done in all previous years.In the first episode, we do find out what was written on those papers that Sydney had found, but there is something not quite right about the answer we get.Furthermore, we don't know what it was that Sloane and Nadia found (at least not until the end of the year), but whatever it was, it was powerful, because the CIA gave Sloane command over a new black ops division in exchange for the artifact.The division was named APO (short for Authorized Personnel Only, which is the DUMBEST name for a black ops division that anyone can think of; personally, I'd have called it SD-0 or SD-X, but that's beside the point), and its members include Syd, Vaughn, Jack, Nadia, Weiss (Greg Grunberg), Dixon (Carl Lumbley, who was very underused this year), and Marshall (Kevin Wiesman).Another problem with this is that Sloane has somehow betrayed pretty much all of those people in the past, and many of them actually worked for him before at SD-6, when they were really working for terrorists against their knowledge, so it is very hard to believe that they are now all voluntarily working for this man again.After all, Sloane killed Syd's fiance and best friend, he had Dixon's wife killed, he injected Nadia with a serum to force her to find the Rambaldi artifact, and he betrayed Jack's trust.
And then, for the first half of the season, the episodes are completely self-contained (this was the first season in which every episode didn't begin with a "Previously" montage- in fact, very few episodes did this year).This wouldn't have been as much of a problem as it was if the episodes weren't sub-par for Alias standards.I mean, one of them even had pseudo-vampires!There are no vampires on Alias!!The dialogue, plots, and jokes were all below the quality they've been in past years, and I almost gave up hope for this show.
Then things started picking up again in the second half of the season.Major story arcs began developing, old characters were brought back (sadly, Sark [David Anders] was only in two episodes this year, and Will [Bradley Cooper] didn't appear at all, but it was good to see Anna Espinoza [Gina Torres] again), and the Rambaldi storyline was reintroduced.Also, we finally got some answers for questions that have been around since the first season.
If you are willing to look past the terrible first half of this year, the second half is a very good block of episodes.While they still aren't as good as the first two seasons, I doubt that any new episodes will be able to live up to those years.Until Season 5...

alisa season 4
HELL EVERY SHOW HAS ITS BAD SPOTS, WHAT THEY COULD NOT THINK OF ANY GOOD PLOT TWIST AFTER SEASON 3 OR ARE THEY JUST TRYING TO SLOW IT DOWN. NOT AS HOT OR ACTION FILLED AS SEASON 1 & 2 BUT MAYBE THE WRITERS HAVE A PLAN MOST DO OR SHOWS FLOP. FRIENDS TELL ME IT IMPROVES AFTER WEEK 11 I FEEL A TAD LET DOWN BUT IM A FAN AND ENJOY THE SERIAL PLOTS AND TWIST THAT ALWAYS CROP UP GOOD JOB. (I'M STILL WAITING FOR THE SPICE.) I WOULD ADVISE ANYONE TO WATCH THIS PROGRAM IF YOU ENJOY WILD RIDES AND FAST RACEY PROGRAMS ALIAS HAS IT ALL WATCH AND SEE I CHALLENGE ANY HARD CORE FAN TO DISAGREE EVEN IF SEASON 4 IS A BIT SLOW. BUY ALL THE OTHER 3 AND ENJOY ME AND MINE HAVE.

Alias Season 4 DVD set:An anachronism (like Rambaldi)?

Click on the "customer reviews" link to the left, and you'll see the following statement by Amazon near the top of the page:

"Availability: This title will be released on December 31, 1969. You may order it now and we will ship it to you when it arrives"

Is this strange message Rambaldi's attempt to communicate with future generations?Or is the Rambaldi artifact actually an imperfect time machine?Hopefully this will all be explained in season 5!

Warning to people of 1969:Don't waste your money buying this item!DVD players won't be around for at least 20 more years (though, under the right light, the discs are very shiny and pretty to look at!).

[Of course the World Wide Web doesn't exist in 1969 either, so why am I bothering to warn them?]

================================================================

ORIGINAL REVIEW (March 7th, 2005): Sydney goes so deep undercover that you can't see her AT ALL (or anyone else for that matter) on the Season 4 DVDs!

Any semi-verifiable ideas as to the release date?

first half was ok, 2nd half was just like old times.
The first 7 or 8 episodes of this season aren't what we've come to expect from Alias. Its very procedural with no real "goal" like there was in the other seasons. The major reason for this is because the network wanted the show to be more accessible so more viewers could jump on the Alias bandwagon. It worked and the show's ratings have gone up. But the cost was loyalty from the majority of Alias fans. I'm in the minority in that some of those stand alone episodes were GOOD to me. I love continuity as much as everyone else, but it was nice to get some breathing room for 2 months.

Also to add even more horror to fan loyalists was that ABC aired the first 9 episodes out of order so that even character development seemed non-existant but ITS THERE1 Just watch the episodes in production order. Hear me ABC? Put the first 9 episodes BACK IN THEIR CORRECT ORDER PLEASE!

After Rambaldi makes its return in the awesome episode "Echoes", the season picks up with "The Index" when Vaughn begins his quest to find his dead father and the arc for the season kicks off and leads straigh through the final 12 episodes of the season. This season has had some of the best episodes of the entire series run: In Dreams, Mirage, Another Mr. Sloane, Nightingale, The Orphan, The Index, Echoes, A Man Of His Word, Nocturne, Ice, and Welcome to Liberty Village. All great episodes! Sure this season has some obvious clunkers like "The Road Home". But the great gems like Mirage and Nocturne just make you forget all about it.

This season is a welcome after the awful romance storyline in Season 3 which focused the show on Lauren and Vaughn's marriage instead of the spy plots and family drama which is what made EVERYONE fall in love with this show in episode 1.

And we haven't even gotten to the final 3 episodes this season which promise to be UNBELIEVABLE with the return of a beloved cast member.

Alias Season 4 is definitely recommended by me. You won't regret it! ... Read more

Reviews (5)

WOW Season 4 is awesome
Season 4 is amazing, one of the best yet. I know best i live in the UK and it just came out last monday. YOU MUST BUY IT. I Feel sorry for all you americans since it was made in the US. You do however get a cooler box case for Season 3 so you should wait. Carter and Del Amico is the couple that should of been but never was. Season 4 is the best yet.

ER Season 3
Waiting anxiously for season 4. Why is it available in Europe and Australia but not in the US?

Can t wait any longer
Season 3 is just been released and I ve already seen them all.. can t wait for season 4 to come out.. It think like many many other people that the Warner should release at least 2 or 3 seasons a year... all the other show are more up to date than ER how come ?

Yes, Please release it...
I agree with the other writer.For those of us who love and wait and wait for the Season Releases, it would be nice to have them come out a bit sooner than later!!

PLEASE RELEASE IT WITHIN THE NEXT FOUR MONTHS!
Hi there. I hope Warner starts releasing these more often. ER really is the best show on television. I am anxious to buy every season. This season includes Paul McCrane and Alex Kingston joining the cast, as well as Maria Bello (although she is in the last episodes of season three, which will be released in a couple days). I know that many others are anxiously awaiting a faster release schedule. (At least two or three seasons a year would be good, but more than that is fine too).
I recommend all ER seasons to everyone who enjoys fast paced, well written drama. ... Read more