In NYC there is always a movie screening, free concert, gallery opening, that you just must go to. Although this is part of what makes New York such an excellent city to live in, there is a cost to such hyper-social activity; missing your favorite TV shows!

We New Yorkers understand the value of our limited couch time, which is why we are so particular about the shows we watch. And now with complete seasons of your favorite shows available on DVD we can optimize the scarcest resource of them all!

Grey’s Anatomy Season 2
Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Watch as the over-worked hyper-sexed staff of Seattle Grace hospital tries to reconcile themselves to the notion that science cannot answer all life and death problems. Jam-packed with horse labor, venereal disease, and terrorism, Grey’s Anatomy is an intense drama that doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Lost Season 2
Buena Vista Home Entertainment

The season starts off 44 days after the mysterious plane crash left the surviving passengers on a seemingly deserted tropical island. Watch the plot thicken as insights into the survivors’ pasts are divulged, the conflict with “the others” deepens, new survivors from the tail-section of the plane are introduced, and light is shed onto the secrets of the island.

Gilmore Girls Season 6
Warner Home Video

This WB show centers on the close-knit relationship between single mom Lorelai and daughter Rory. This season Rory spins out of control when the normally levelheaded teenager drops out of Yale and move in with her grandparents. A distraught Lorelai refuses to talk to her daughter and hides her bitterness and loneliness buy adopting a messy dog and proposing to Luke.

The Benchwarmers
A group of middle age losers put together a baseball team to compete against the nastiest bully team in little league. This movie has an all-star comedy cast with Rob Schneider (Deuce Bigalow, The Hot Chick), David Spade (Joe Dirt, The Emperor’s New Groove), Jon Heder (Napoleon Dynamite), and Jon Lovitz (Rat Race, Coneheads).

The Benchwarmers is a part of a new era of comedy flicks - a mixture of slapstick comedy, suggestive humor, moral undertones, and unattractive middle age heroes. Basically movies like Old School and Wedding Crashers fared so well among the 16 - 25 year-old male crowd that the production companies adopted the same formula to create comedy films for a PG preteen audience.

Your thirteen year old would really like this film, and to your chagrin your husband will find it amusing too.

Final Destination 3
Last night I had a nightmare - I got into a car accident. Although I’ve never had this particular dream before, crashing my car is a pretty constant theme of my slumber-theatre. It’s the same scenario most of the time - I choose to hit the gas instead of the breaks and I can’t put my car in reverse causing me to and speed right into another car - off a bridge - into a tree. I’m of course going to avoid driving for the next couple of days as dreams always bear the question: Was that a vision or just fiction?

Take for example the teenage action/thriller Final Destination 3- when Wendy Christensen, a clairvoyant high school senior, has a vision of fatal roller coaster accident at an amusement park. She could have just shrugged it off and taken the mighty plunge - but instead she prevents her and her friend’s deaths!

In the third installment of the cult hit Final Destination series - the unseen forces of darkness set out to kill the survivors that were supposed to die in the freak accident. Just like the Final Destination and Final Destination 2, the movie leaves us all asking if it’s possible to cheat death.

After the nightmare I had last night, you know I’m pulling for Wendy and her friends! Otherwise I am going to have to call in sick tomorrow.

Join us on Tuesday July 25th as the cast members of The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and Tarzan stop by for an exciting performance in City Hall Park. The show starts of 5:00 pm but come early to receive autographs from your favorite cast members! There will be a face painter and temporary tattoo parlors for the kids! We will also be giving away free Disney items.

And that’s not all folks! Letoya Luckett, original member of Destiny’s Child will be with us on Wednesday July 26th to sign autographs of her new self-titled debut album! This talented rising star is taking a break from the Mary J. Blige summer tour, of which she is the opening act along with hip hop artist Jaheim, to meet some of her fans!

Please stop by and take advantage of the events we offer to the lower Manhattan community. And feel free to email tali@jr.com with ideas for events you would like to see in the future!

Do you remember Letoya Luckett? Probably not, but who can blame you? She was forced out of Destiny’s Child six years ago, right before the multi-platinum R&B group made it big.

After the Destiny fiasco, Letoya pursued modeling and acting, leaving her passion for music on the sidelines. She opened up a fashion boutique, Lady Elle, in Houston, Texas, and on her spare time cut demos hoping that fate would lead her back to the stage.

And it did. She is currently opening for Mary J. Blige’s summer tour, along with rapper Jaheim. But soon she will have her own album to promote. Capital Records is releasing Letoya’s self-titled debut album on July 25th.

What does Letoya have to say about her solo success? “It’s funny. In the beginning I never saw myself as a solo artist. But the turning point came when people started showing me love on my promo tour. Now I want people to get to know me and my voice.”

The first single off the CD “Torn” is No. 3 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, No. 36 on the Billboard Hot 100 and No. 12 on Hot 100 Airplay. That kind of immediate success is not surprising from an artist who co-wrote the career-building singles “Bills Bills Bills” and “Say My Name” for Destiny’s Child seven years ago.

Her music stretches from soulful, sensuous ballads and club jams spotlighting the trademark “screwed-up” style of her hometown- Houston, Texas. Letoya, who co-wrote nine of the albums 16 songs, brings to the table a fusion of soft and soulful grace with hard hip-hop beats. With production by hit makers Jazzy Phe (Ciara, Usher), B. Cox (Mariah Carey. Mary J. Blige) and Grammy Award winner Jermain Dupri this album should be the years most exciting Urban Release.

Want to meet the artist eliciting all the Buzz? Letoya will be signing autographs at J&R Music World on Wednesday, July 26. Stop by and show this Texan girl some New York love.

My cousin Sharon has a beautiful three-and-a-half year old son who I have lovingly nicknamed Jonah. Now, precious as he is, the lil’ whippersnapper runs around in circles all day long leaving Sharon chasing behind him. On the one hand, it certainly helped Sharon lose the pregnancy weight fast (think Charleze Theron and the Oscars) but it left her without a moment to herself.

This particular situation bothered me tremendously because each summer, at my family’s weekly Sunday barbeques, I struggled to find the time to gossip with my dear cousin and ask for some long over-due guy advice. While the rest of the family lounged poolside, mojito’s in hand, Sharon would spend each Sunday chasing Jonah around the house, desperately hoping he wouldn’t knock over my parents’ precious antiques.

Thank God her husband had the brains to buy her a portable DVD player! Just slip in a DVD of Thomas the Tank Engine and Jonah sits quietly for hours*! No kicking, screaming, crying, running, and breaking anything! Just looking into the screen and perhaps, dreaming of one day becoming a mechanical engineer?

So are you a young mother desperate to find a way to quite your infant at the Fourth of July barbeque this year? PORTABLE DVD PLAYER! I guarantee that your darling will be sitting quietly on your lap so you can hear all the new gossip!

Now on Sale at J&R: The Coby portable DVD player- 7” widescreen color display, AC/Car adapter, Anti-skip circuitry, Li-Ion battery, Plays DVDs, DVD-R/RW, CD, CD-R/RW, MP3, and Jpeg. All the great value for $109.99!

*For younger ones, Baby Mozart will do the trick!

Failure To Launch
Starring Matthew McConaughey, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Zooey Deschanel
Paramount Home Entertainment

Whenever my non-New-Yorker friends come for a visit they without fail ask, “Can you take us somewhere they go eating/drinking/dancing in Sex and the City?” Well real New Yorkers know that Sex in the City is soooo two years ago…literally, the show is over, it’s easy to get a table at Balthazars, and no one goes to the “church of disco,” a.k.a Avalon if they’re not from Staten Island, New Jersey, or Eastern Europe.

But what we New Yorkers do know is that SJP is amazing, Matthew McConaughey is gorgeous, Zooey Deschanel is hilarious, and that women love light-hearted romantic comedies with all-star casts such as this one! Not to mention that Sarah Jessica Parker’s fun and comfortable style in Failure to Launch offers some great tips for staying chic this summer!

Annapolis
Starring James Franco and Donnie Wahlberg
Buena Vista Home Entertainment

Is anyone else super excited for the new season of “Entourage”? I sure know I am. And what better way to celebrate the season of hilarious antics from the over-indulgent posse than with the release of “Annapolis” this month!

Okay, that might not make sense yet, but it will….

Donnie Wahlberg, former member of New Kids on the Block, is the brother of one of the world’s biggest movie stars, Mark Wahlberg (”The Italian Job”, “The Perfect Storm”, “Boogie Nights”) who is the producer and motivating force behind the HBO hit series “Entourage”. Are you starting to get it?

Mark Wahlberg describes the show, which began its third season on June 11th, as a recording of his personal experience with fame and fortune, a diary of his personal life. So Donnie Wahlberg, does that that make you the one-of-a-kind self-promoting party boy aka JOHNNY DRAMA?!? I guess you finally found your big break, huh?

Madea’s Family Reunion
Why Did I Get Married?
Madea Goes To Jail
Starring Tyler Perry
Lions Gate Home Entertainment

Tyler Perry might not sound familiar today but I guarantee you that within the next two years he will become as household as Oprah herself. And he’s got the same rags to riches story to tell. Tyler Perry was born to a poor urban family in New Orleans and spent is childhood suffering from abuse. A student at the New School University, he graduated eager to write and act but found himself unsuccessful, stumbling in and out of homelessness, struggling to accept the pain in his past.

After watching an episode of Oprah, where she suggested that writing a journal could be a healthy way of dealing with excessive emotions, Tyler Perry’s life changed. He began to keep a journal, detailing the difficult life he lead up until the age of 28. The journal, which started as a cathartic therapy, turned into screenplays about loss and family.

Tyler Perry became an award winning director, producer, writer, actor, and drag queen, playing the star character of his work, Madea. And, as the saying goes, “comedy stems from tragedy,” because these films are F.U.N.N.Y!

All three DVDs will be available on June 27th, so pre-order now!

Zero 7
The Garden
Atlantic/WEA

Summer essentials- sunscreen, margarita mix, and Zero 7’s new album The Garden. It’s the ultimate chill-out CD of the season. Think Thievery Corporation with a fresher more upbeat tempo. This album will make you feel like you’re driving down the coast, top down, wind flying through your hair, when your air condition is broken, and you are nuzzling your dog on the fire escape desperately awaiting the breeze. Let the summer begin!

AFI
Decemberunderground
Interscope/Uni

AFI’s long awaited Decemberunderground hits stores June 6th. You can expect the same sing along choruses and frantic rhythms that this rock band has built its reputation upon. But fans be aware, AFI has replaced the desperation of the previous Sing the Sorrows album with a new The Killers influenced up-tempo musical sensibility. Jerry Finns production blends AFIs cacophony with a dose of harmonic musicianship, so think Nine Inch Nails…but on Prozac.

The New Cars
It’s Alive
Eleven Seven/ADA

Is THE NEW CARS, the original CARS reincarnated? A cover band? Or something all its own? Fans and dissidents are blogging around the clock with their take on it. Here at J&R we leave the mudslinging to the professionals. But with 12 of the CARS greatest hits and 3 brand new songs, this CD is jam packed with power pop new wave hits the whole family is sure to love!

Katie Melua
Piece by Piece
Dramatico/Uni

Are you waiting for Norah Jones to come out with her next album? No need, not with star talent Katie Melua waiting in plastic wrap on our shelves. This artist is gaining popularity fast with her imaginative lyrics, ranging from sultry to kittenish, and her catchy take on bluesy jazz. Put the “new” back in New York, and give this Brit a try.