Week of December 27

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Genre Pictures, Numerical

Taking place eleven years ago, Final Destination 5 is a prequel to the Final Destination series that sends a group on a company retreat. While aboard the chartered bus, Sam (Nicholas D'Agosto) saves his co-workers after he has a vision of a bridge collapsing beneath him, killing all of the bus passengers. Though Sam saved them, his best friend's (Miles Fisher) girlfriend dies in a freak accident, followed by one of his co-workers (P.J. Byrne), and they slowly realize that surviving the bridge didn't stop their deaths... it just delayed them a little. Worse, they're being investigated by Courtney B. Vance, who's suspicious of the mounting deaths among the office-mates, and the mysterious coroner (Tony Todd) has only vague clues about how they might beat Death at its own game. With Emma Bell, Arlen Escarpeta, and David Koechner. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Though the launch was officially cancelled, the 18th Apollo mission was launched in secret in 1974, and the conspiracy of the flight is revealed in the science fiction/horror Apollo 18. Released Blair Witch-style as found footage, the film is cut together from NASA footage of astronauts Anderson (Warren Christie) and Walker (Lloyd Owen) as they touch down on the moon to place monitoring devices that could warn the US of ICBM launches. Once there, things are not what they seem-- finding a Soviet lunar vehicle in their destination, communications with Houston start to fail, and paranoia sets in. Stranded in space, the astronauts have to learn what killed the russians if they're to survive and make it home. With Ryan Robbins. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Cult-status filmmaker Uwe Boll's In the Name of the King 2: Two Worlds trades the first movie's video game origins for time travel. Granger (Dolph Lundgren), an ex-special forces soldier who gets whisked away to a mystical land of dragons and sent on a quest. According to the king (Lochlyn Munro), Granger is "the chosen one," a prophesied hero from the future who has to fight the forces of darkness. With Natassia Malthe. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Explicitly Funny

Developmentally arrested partier Eric (Jason Sudeikis) is about to lose his father's house in the Hamptons and the site of his high concept theme events in A Good Old Fashioned Orgy. He has time for one last party, and he's hosting an orgy. He invites an varied group of friends: his best friend (Tyler Labine), the real-estate agent (Leslie Bibb) he's always had a crush on, a psychologist (Lake Bell) on the rebound, a workaholic (Nick Kroll) who desperately needs to relax, a law student and his girlfriend (Martin Starr and Angela Sarafyan), a pair of newlyweds (Will Forte and Lucy Punch), a teacher (Lindsay Sloane) with self-esteem issues, and Michelle Borth, who's infatuated with Eric. Set up as an ensemble comedy, it assembles a who's-who of comic talent, puts them in an awkward situation, and turns them loose.

When Alex's internship after high school graduation dries up, he heads to Los Angeles to work for his
cousin's (Matthew Lillard) successful engineering firm in The Pool Boys. There's only one catch-- Alex's cousin is actually just a pool boy, but being pool boys to the Hollywood rich & famous gets access to a mansions while the owners are out of town. With an escort (Rachelle Lefevre) in the mix, the three of them hatch a get rich quick scheme before you can say "Risky Business," which leads to misunderstandings, naked women, and celebrity cameos..

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Mysteries

A film noir set amidst the British clashes between the mods and rockers in the 1960's, Brighton Rock sets a small-time gangster called Pinky (Sam Riley) on the rise. Pinky romances and then intimidates Rose (Andrea Riseborough), a witness who works for Helen Mirren, but he doesn't kill her. Not killing a witness causes an upset within the gang, but Pinky starts making moves to take over, keeping Rose (who trusts him completely) under his wing... but Pinky's life is violent, and as the stakes increase, everyone around him is in danger. With John Hurt, Philip Davis, and Sean Harris.

Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas) is a powerful businesswoman in Love Crime, but she uses her power to emotionally undermine Isabelle (Ludivine Sagnier), her younger assistant. Isabelle's job depends on tolerating her boss' behavior, but both Christine and Philippe (Patrick Mille), Christine's boyfriend, are obsessed with Isabelle, and their cross-purposes drive them all towards an inevitable tragedy.

K.C. (Peter Dinklage) needs to pay off a loan shark when he finds out an old friend has died in Pete Smalls Is Dead. Jack (Mark Boone Junior), a mutual friend, offers to give him the money he needs if K.C. will fly to Los Angeles for the funeral, but once he gets there, both men find themselves drawn into a strange mystery. Though Jack doesn't actually have any money, K.C, Jack, and Pete's old friendship might still pay off some debts-- Pete Smalls (Tim Roth) was a director finishing a film, and if they can lay some claim to the in-demand movie, they could still get paid... but the trail leads through a strange, meta-noir of the Hollywood underworld, one strange character after another. With Steve Buscemi.

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Reality

Based on the true story of an 84-year-old Kenyan man who decides to begin the education that had been denied to him, The First Grader takes place after the 2003 announcement of free, universal education by the Kenyan government. When the elderly Maruge goes to register for classes in his village's new school, the teacher (Naomie Harris) tells him it's impossible: the rest of her students are children. Maruge is determined-- after a hard life defying British rule, he's determined to get the education that was promised to all Kenyans, and he's not about to give up now.

Featured at the Seattle International Film Festival, the documentary Eames: The Architect & the Painter tells the story of husband and wife Charles and Ray Eames, creative partners who made an impact on several aspects of modern life. Making their initial splash with iconic designs for office furniture in the 1940s, their creative endeavors became more ambitious over time, including a 1970s application of "Apple" philosophy to computers years before the start of Apple Computers. Narrated by James Franco.

Jane Goodall, now in her 70s, has her life and achievements documented in Jane's Journey, covering her life in animal and environmental conservatism. From her arrival in Africa at the age of 26, the film recounts her fifty-plus years as an advocate of her personal and professional life and her relationship to the jungle, the environment, and animals.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	The Borgias Season 1	Jeremy Irons is Pope Alexander in the Showtime historical drama about the rise of the Borgia dynasty in the 1400s.		Archer Season 2	Superspy Sterling Archer and the barely competent staff of ISIS have a new series of comic misadventures.
	The Adventures of Tintin Season 1	The television series based on the original comic books about a young reporter whose job sends him on a series of heroic adventures.		The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret Season 1	An American gets a job promoting an energy drink at a London office... but he's not well suited to the job or the culture.
	Shameless Season 1	William H. Macy is the single father of six children in this Showtime drama, but he's an alcoholic with very little ambition for himself or his family.		Max & Ruby	Brother and sister rabbits Max and Ruby have a lot of activities and goals, but have different ways of going about things.
	Doc Martin The Movies	The features that launched the popular BBC series, including Doc Martin and Doc Martin and the Legend of the Cloutie.

Week of December 20

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Woody

Widely considered a return-to-form for Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris sends writer Gil (Owen Wilson) and his wife Inez (Rachel McAdams) to vacation in France. Gil dreams of giving up his lucrative screenwriting career and becoming a novelist, but his conservative in-laws (Kurt Fuller and Mimi Kennedy) dismiss his ambitions and his wife wants to stay in California. While Inez and her parents go dancing with pseudo-intellectual blowhard Paul (Michael Sheen) and his wife, Gil explores Paris on his own... inexplicably ending up in the 1920s. Each night he goes out alone, Gil travels to the past, confiding in Luis Bunel, Man Ray, and Salvador Dali (surrealists who easily accept his story of time travel), having Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates) take a look at his novel, and becoming enchanted by Picasso's mistress Adrianna (Marion Cotillard). On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Action and Suspense

Dramatizing the 2007/2008 financial crisis, the dramatic thriller Margin Call begins with Stanley Tucci being fired from the risk management division of a large investment bank... but before he goes, he hands off a USB drive to one of the bank's junior members (Zachary Quinto). Examining the files on the drive, he discovers financial instability that could quickly rise to crisis levels, and takes the information step-by-step, up through executives (including Kevin Spacey, Simon Baker, and Demi Moore) to the CEO (Jeremy Irons), where the bank is forced to make a dangerous decision: protect the company or preserve the balance of the global economy. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Writer/Producer Luc Besson's Colombiana blends the professional hitwoman of his La Femme Nikita with his little girl bent on revenge from The Professional as young Cataleya sees a drug lord's capo (Jordi Molla) kill her family. Escaping Colombia, she arrives in America where she begs her uncle (Cliff Curtis) to teach her how to get her revenge... As an adult, Cataleya (Zoe Saldana) works for her uncle as an assassin, but she's also been murdering the people connected to her family's death, though the drug lord she wants is protected by the CIA (Callum Blue). With an agent (Lennie James) tracking her killings and a casual boyfriend (Michael Vartan) yearning to know more about her, she has to kill the drug lord she's been hunting for years before time runs out. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Straw Dogs
Now & Then

Relocating the story to the backwoods of Mississippi, the remake of Straw Dogs returns beautiful actress Amy (Kate Bosworth) to her small, country home, along with her husband, David (James Marsden). David isn't used to the country, and is intimidated by the louder, brasher countryfolk like Charlie (Alexander Skarsgard), the man they hired to fix the roof of their house. With tensions between city and country increasing, and a history between Charlie and Amy, one incident seperates a clash between those who ask and those who take, men who stand up and men who back down, and the civil and the brutal. With James Woods, Dominic Purcell, and Walton Goggins. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Unbeknownst to one another, two brothers sign up to compete in the same mixed martial arts tournament in Warrior. Tommy (Tom Hardy), the younger brother, beats a professional fighter in a gym and becomes an instant internet celebrity; he enlists his father (Nick Nolte) as a trainer and prepares to compete in a tournament called Sparta. Older brother Brendan (Joel Edgerton) is a teacher struggling to support his wife (Jennifer Morrison) and daughters, and he and his friend (Frank Grillo) join the Sparta tournament for the cash prize. The brothers both have their reasons to fight, and their stories make them popular figures in the tournament, but their family history makes any and all exchanges between Tommy and Brendan explosive. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Having survived the Bolivian Army's barrage (as depicted in the final scene of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid), Butch changes his name and lives a quiet life in Blackthorn. As an older man calling himself James Blackthorn (Sam Shepard), he's saved up some money and is ready to return home to the United States. On his journey, he loses everything, and finds himself on the road with a young thief (Eduardo Noriega) and returning to the life of crime he tried to leave behind. With Stephen Rea.

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Real

Based on a true story of a dolphin who lost her tail, Dolphin Tale stars young Nathan Gamble as Sawyer Nelson, a boy who discovers the injured dolphin on the beach. Dr. Hasket (Harry Connick Jr) takes the dolphin to his marine hospital, naming her "Winter," and Sawyer becomes part of her care when Dr. Hasket sees the effect the boy has on the dolphin's recovery. Along with an expert in animal prosthetics (Morgan Freeman), they work to restore Winter's life, but they have to work hard against pressures from the outside world to save the dolphin against impossible odds. With Ashley Judd and Kris Kristofferson. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

From the live stage performance of the popular show, Glee: The Concert assembles Rachel, Finn, Kurt, Artie, Quinn, Lauren, Brittany, Mercedes, Puck, and the rest for a live singing and dancing revue including favorites from the television show. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Bloody Funny

Burke (Simon Pegg) and Hare (Andy Serkis) are a pair of low level hustlers in 1820's Scotland in John Landis' horror/comedy Burke & Hare. With no money for rent and Hare's wife (Jessica Hynes) fighting to keep their inn afloat, the boys stumble into an interesting opportunity: one of the inn's lodgers has died. With Edinburgh being a center of modern medical thought, Burke and Hare are accidentally in possession of something of value: a fresh cadaver. With two competing doctors (Tom Wilkinson and Tim Curry) scrambling to outperform one another, Burke and Hare could be rich men... if they can keep up a fresh supply of corpses.

Like October's Rare Exports, the Dutch Saint Nick explores the darker origins of the Santa Claus myth. According to legend, every 32 years a full moon will rise on the December 5th celebration of Sinterklaas, and the violent Bishop Niklas and his horde will rise from the grave and take revenge during the full moon. Only Officer Goert, who was six years old during the last Sinterklaas full moon and saw the killer bishop, knows what's coming... but no one will believe him.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

Futurama Season 6.2

The second half of the newest season of the recently-ressurected Futurama, back by popular demand.

Week of December 13

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Human or Beast?

Will (James Franco) is a scientist developing a gene therapy drug to heal the human brain in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but after an incident with one of his chimpanzee test subjects, his project is shut down. Though most of the chimpanzees are destroyed, Will takes baby chimp Caesar (Andy Serkis) home and raises him in secret, thinking Caesar's remarkable intelligence is the key to a drug that could cure his Alzheimer's-suffering father (John Lithgow)... but Will can't keep Caesar a secret forever. When Caesar is sent to a primate sanctuary run by Brian Cox, he sees how the rest of ape-kind is treated, and begins to plan not just an escape, but a way for the rest of the ape inmates to live unharassed lives. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Fright Night
Now & Then

Charley (Anton Yelchin) has left his nerdy past behind and started dating popular Amy (Imogen Poots). Even though Charley's been avoiding embarrassing people from his past, his childhood friend Evil Ed (Christopher Mintz-Plasse) forces him to investigate a preposterous theory in Fright Night: Charley's next-door-neighbor (Colin Farrell) is a vampire. Looking into the disappearances makes him a target, and Charley has to protect his mom (Toni Collette) and his home from a bloodthirsty killer... so he tracks down a "vampire expert" stage magician (David Tennant) and prepares to do battle with the undead. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Growing up in 1950s Idaho, young Seth attributes tragedies in his sparse farming community to vampires in The Reflecting Skin. Learning vampire lore from his troubled father (Duncan Fraser), Seth suspects the reclusive woman called Dolphin Blue (Lindsay Duncan) is a vampire, though his strict, religious mother (Sheila Moore) frowns on supernatural tales. When Seth's older brother (Viggo Mortensen) returns home from the Pacific he begins an affair with Dolphin, and Seth is terrified his brother will be the next casualty.

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Kung Fu

Po (Jack Black) has become the Dragon Warrior, but Master Sifu (Dustin Hoffman) tells him he won't reach his full potential until he achieves inner peace in Kung Fu Panda 2. While Po and the Furious Five track marauders to Shen (Gary Oldman), a peacock developing modern weapons to conquer all of China, Po starts having memories of his mother and has to wonder why he was raised by an adopted father. If Po's parents and the villainous Shen are intertwined, then Shen could hold the secret to Po's inner peace. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Taking place before the popular Ip Man films, Ip Man: The Legend is Born shows the beginnings of the legendary master as Ip Man (Dennis To) and his sworn brother Ip Tin-Chi (Fan Sui-Wong) as they begin their studies in Wing Chun kung fu under their sifu (Sammo Hung). As they develop, the brothers Ip travel to Hong Kong, learning different takes on life and different schools of thought within Wing Chun, but their school's ultimate test will be surviving a Japanese plot and a spy in their midst. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A famous detective (Andy Lau) is released from prison to solve an elaborate murder plot in Tsui Hark's Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame. Set free by the soon-to-be Empress (Carina Lau), Detective Dee teams up with Li Bing Bing to discover who is killing senior officials before the murderer eventually assassinates the Empress, but their investigation takes them into magical subterranean cities and pits them against inconceivable mystical forces. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Forbidden Loves

Traveling from 1950s Holland to New Zealand, three women seek their new lives in Bride Flight. Slipping forward and backward in time, the film constructs an epic, romantic drama as farm girl Ada, aspiring familywoman Majorie, and Holocaust survivor Esther are entangled in each other's lives, driving them towards not just friendship and love, but also betrayal and adultery. With Rutger Hauer.

Orphan Shireen and affluent Atafeh are coming of age in Iran in Circumstance, but as the sixteen-year-old girls begin to discover themselves, they clash with their restrictive culture. While the girls stray further from their culture's accepted norms, Atafeh's brother, turning to religion after overcoming a drug addiction, grows more fundamentalist and intolerant of the lives the girls are living.

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Filmed by Swedish documentarians in the 60's and 70's, The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 investigated the Black Power movement as it developed. Providing a different perspective than American journalism at the time, the Swedish footage has been made available after 30 years in storage, providing rare interviews and footage of cultural leaders.

The Disney Animation Collection Vol 7 is out in time for Christmas, and it features Mickey's Christmas Carol, where Scrooge McDuck is guided through his life by three spirits.

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

Family Guy Volume 9

The Griffin family continues to skewer social mores with pop-culture asides.

Pie in the Sky Series 5

The final series of Pie in the Sky could let gentle Inspector Crabbe finally get out of police work and cook full-time

Week of December 6

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More Comedies

The gang from the first movie reunite for The Hangover Part II, this time traveling to Thailand to celebrate Stu's (Ed Helms) approaching wedding. After a night of celebrating, Stu, Phil (Bradley Cooper), Alan (Zach Galifianakis), and Doug (Justin Bartha) wake up with no memory of how they wound up in a dirty Bangkok hotel room, why Stu has a copy of Mike Tyson's face tattoo, or how they acquired a chain-smoking monkey. Worse, Stu's brother-in-law-to-be has vanished, and the guys have to undertake another comic misadventure to find the missing member of their bachelor party. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

The last thing Mr. Popper (Jim Carrey) receives from his father is a crate with a penguin inside in Mr. Popper's Penguins. Through some wacky misunderstandings, one penguin becomes six, and Popper's apartment is suddenly full of mischievous but lovable penguins... and he can't get rid of them because his son and daughter (Madeline Carroll) love the birds. The penguins help Popper reconnect with his kids and reunite with their mother (Carla Gugino), but a penguin expert (Clark Gregg) from the New York Zoo wants to take them away from him. With Angela Lansbury. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

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Dramatic

Set in the early 60's, Emma Stone stars as recent university graduate Skeeter Phelan in The Help. Returning to her Georgia home to find her childhood nanny quit while she was away, Skeeter, who wants to be a writer, begins writing a book about black housekeepers in white households. Though reluctant to be interviewed at first, she begins to learn the stories of Aibileen (Viola Davis), who has spent her life raising other people's children, and Minny (Octavia Spencer), who has a reputation for being a difficult employee and is often fired. Though Skeeter's book could be a rare opportunity for Aibileen's and Minny's voices to be heard, her friends (including Bryce Dallas Howard) have very different views of their hired help, seeing nothing wrong with the status quo. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

12-year-old Chanda takes responsibility for keeping her family together in the South African Life, Above All. With her family in shambles because of the loss of her baby sister, Chanda cares for her siblings and handleS funeral arrangements... with her mother unable to cope with her grief and her stepfather consistently drunk, Chanda fights for the survival of her family during a difficult time. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

For his final video project, high school senior Archie (Gabriel Sunday) announces that he will film his own suicide in Archie's Final Project. The formerly-invisible Archie is suddenly the most talked about boy in school as he films what will be his last days, documenting the frustrations of his age group with school, society, and suburban America's "everything all the time" culture. Between criticisms of his parents, classmates, police, and doctors, he captures the imagination of the prettiest girl in school (Brooke Nevin) who has dark musings of her own. With David Carradine.

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Mysteries and Gunfire

Daniel Craig wakes up in an old west desert with no memory and a strange, alien device strapped to his wrist in Jon Favreau's Cowboys & Aliens. He wanders into a town run by the severe Colonel Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) and immediately gets into trouble with the Colonel's spoiled son (Paul Dano)... but before he can be carted off to jail, aliens attack and capture half the town. Now the amnesiac cowboy, the Colonel, the saloon owner (Sam Rockwell), the priest (Clancy Brown), and a woman with a mysterious past (Olivia Wilde) have to form a posse, find the invaders from space, and rescue their friends and family. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Made famous by writing about her exploits as a Mossad agent, Rachel (Helen Mirren) looks back on the event that changed her life in The Debt. As a young woman, Rachel (Jessica Chastain), David (Sam Worthington), and Stefan (Marton Csokas) planned a mission in 1960's East Berlin to capture a Nazi war criminal (Jesper Christensen) and bring him to justice. As they execute their plan, the consequences of their success or failure weigh on them, and the divisions between their story in the 90s and the events in the 60s threaten to tear their lives apart. With Ciaran Hinds and Tom Wilkinson. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

A married couple investigate an inn that is supposedly haunted in the short film A Penny Earned, but they soon learn that some ghosts don't like having their story told. T.J. Mino, one of our Maple Leaf neighbors, made this short film, and it has been accepted at the Sundance Film Festival. See it here first!

Training to be a nurse, Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) intervenes in an attempt on a patient's life in the French Point Blank. Samuel's good deed has repercussions, though-- a group of criminals abduct his pregnant wife (Elena Anaya), and now he has to deliver the man he saved (Roschdy Zem) -- now under police guard-- to the kidnappers as an exchange for his wife. In over his head, Samuel has to navigate a criminal underworld and corrupt police to reclaim his life. On DVD and Blu-Ray.

Investigating the death of his boss and best friend (Michael Gambon), career MI-5 Agent Johnny Worricker (Bill Nighy) finds himself deep inside a conspiracy in Page Eight. Teaming up with Rachel Weisz, Worricker uncovers secrets that could shake the foundations of the MI-5 organization and may reach all the way to the Prime Minister (Ralph Fiennes).

Based on the popular book series, Three Investigators: The Secret of Skeleton Island has three boy adventurers, Jupiter, Pete, and Bob, help a girl escape Cape Town, South Africa, pursue an evil treasure hunter, and face off against a mysterious monster called "The Tokolosh."

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New this week in our TV New Releases:

	Big Love Season 5	The final season of HBO's Mormon plural marriage drama follows Bill to his seat in the Utah state senate.		The Simpsons Season 14	Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie continue to have madcap comic escapades with a variety of guest stars.
	Portlandia Season 1	The Pacific Northwest-based sketch show satirizes the personalities and attitudes of Portland from outdoor movies to organic farming.		Mystery Science Theater 3000 Volume XXII	Volume 22 of MST3K includes Time of the Apes, Mighty Jack, The Violent Years, and The Brute Man
	The Hour Series 1	A new BBC show set in the 1950s dramatizes the events behind the scenes of a fledgling news program during the Suez crisis.		Curious George Gets a New Toy	Eight episodes of Curious George hijinks where George discovers new playthings.