Product Details

• Actors: Jemaine Clement, Bret McKenzie, Rhys Darby, Kristen Schaal, Arj Barker
• Directors: James Bobin, Michael Patrick Jann, Michel Gondry, Paul Simms, Taika Waititi
• Writers: Bret McKenzie, Damon Beesley
• Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Widescreen, Closed-captioned, Subtitled, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo), Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Subtitles: English, French, Spanish
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• DVD Release Date: August 24, 2010
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B003L7DK74
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,792 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Collection" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Flight of the Conchords: The Complete First Season- Unlike most HBO series, Flight of the Conchords does not want to set the world on fire. It is droll and deadpan to beat the band. If you like Tenacious D, They Might Be Giants, Jonathan Richman, Leningrad Cowboys Go America, and silly Pythonian wordplay, then its off-center charms will definitely strike a resonant chord. The Conchords are comprised of funky, funny folk duo Bret McKenzie and mutton-chopped Jemaine Clement, transplanted New Zealanders trying to make it in New York. Bret, their incompetent manager, Murray (Rhys Darby) notes, has "the right attitude," while Jemaine has "what I like to call, 'the wrong attitude.'" (Murray, who works out of the New Zealand consulate, makes the clueless agent in Extras look like Ari Gold.) Stardom eludes the band. They have one fan, Mel (Kristin Schaal), whose seething husband chaperones her while she stalks them (by season's end, even she will desert them). Financially strapped, they live in squalor and are forced to film a music video with a cell-phone camera. The dense Jemaine is a damper on Bret's love life (he derisively calls Coco, Bret's new girlfriend, "Yoko"). But from their mundane lives springs their inspired music, and it is during each episode's musical numbers that Conchords really takes flight. Sample lyrics: "You're so beautiful / You could be a hostess in the '60s"; and "I'm not crying / It's just been raining / On my face." Another mad highlight is "Bowie to Bowie" in the episode in which Bret is visited by visions of Bowie in his various career incarnations (portrayed by a dead-on Jemaine). But the dialogue, too, sings with an inspired, surreal lunacy. One exchange between Bret and Murray degenerates into a chicken-egg discussion over a job vs. a gig. HBO has renewed Flight of the Conchords for a second season. Bravo! As a greeting-card executive (The Daily Show's John Hodgman), who wants to license one of their tracks, tells the duo, "I believe in potential. I can see it in you guys." --Donald Liebenson
Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Second Season-
In its second season, HBO's Flight of the Conchords soars to new heights even as Bret (McKenzie) and Jemaine (Clement), the down, but never quite out New Zealand digi-folk duo living beyond the fringe in New York City, reach new lows. In one episode, Bret's purchase of "A New Cup," puts them in dire financial straits and leads Jemaine into prostitution, albeit part time. In "New Zealand Town," the boys play a gig in which the majority of the audience is shopping bags. Each episode follows a week in their "rags to rags story," and each episode brings them back to square one. The only thing less promising than their musical career is their love lives. In "Unnatural Love," Jermaine accidentally sleeps with--horrors--an Australian. In "Prime Minister," he becomes involved with a woman who's got a thing for Art Garfunkel impersonators, only to lose her to the real thing (here's to you, Mr. Garfunkel, who cameos). Of course, there's always Mel (the wonderful Kristen Schaal), the group's No. 1 (and only) fan. Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Second Season- This series dances to its own deadpan drummer. You've got to love the loopiness of a line like, "So we look like some Simon and Garfunkel look-alikes who don't look like Simon and Garfunkel." The boys used up their tried and true "A" musical material in the first season, but while the songs this season are not as inspired, there are some offbeat candidates for a greatest-hits collection, including "Carol Brown," something of an homage to Paul Simon's "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," and the should-be-forbidden dance "Sugalumps." Fans of Andy Samberg's Lonely Island digital shorts will especially enjoy the balmy duet "We're Both in Love with a Sexy Lady" in the episode "Love is the Weapon of Choice." That sexy lady, by the way, is Emmy-nominee and SNL MVP Kristen Wiig, as a woman with an epileptic dog and who unwittingly plays havoc with Bret and Jemaine's friendship. Other nifty bits of casting that add to Flight of the Conchords' cool cachet are Mary Lynn Rajskub as the "garfunkeling" groupie, Patton Oswalt as an Elton John impersonator, and Lucy Loveless as the aide and unrequited crush of the New Zealand prime minister. The season does not end on a promising note for Bret and Jemaine (it's really back to square one in the cliffhanger), but as their hapless manager, Murray (the Emmy-worthy Rhys Darby) remarks at one point, hopefully, this is just the beginning of their story. --Donald Liebenson

Product Description

Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie -- a.k.a. Flight of the Conchords -- moved to New York in the hopes of forging a successful music career. Unfortunately, despite their status as "New Zealand’s 4th Most Popular Folk Parody Duo," fame and notoriety continue to elude them. Watch as Bret and Jemaine contend with unrequited love, inept criminals, prostitution, and epileptic dogs, breaking into song as they clumsily try to break into the New York scene.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars All the Conchords on Video in one neat package., August 14, 2010

By 

Steven I. Ramm "Steve Ramm "Anything Phon... (Phila, PA USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Collection (DVD)

Where to begin here? HBO released the first season of this histercally funny show a while back. Then they released the Complete SECOND season. Finally (well, almost) they released a package with both Seasons 1 AND 2 and added a CD of some of the soundtrack. Well this time they have repackaged it AGAIN, replacing the Cd with "new to DVD" disc of their American TV debutin 2005 for HBO's One Night Stand special. The special is just 25 minutes and has Bret and Jermaine on stage with their guitars singing song which never would have fit in the TV episodes because of length. The first one takes nearly nine minutes. Some are funnier than others - as you can tell from the live audience reaction - but its still fun to watch.

There are many other reviews out there about each of the two seasons and I agree (with most of them) in that Season One is more consistently funny than Season Two (but there are great moments in Season Two). I think this is the case with most TV series. The best ideas come in the first season. I've given this set four stars based on this.

Whether you need this set depends on whether you already have either (or both) of the previous packagings. The One Night Stand is for completists. And, if you've not seen ANY of the shows, this package might be an option.

Steve Ramm
"Anything Phonographic"

25 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You cannot overthink on this job, May 15, 2010

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Collection (DVD)

Jermaine and Bret are a pair of New Zealand musicians, living in New York City and hoping to hit it big. Yeah, "Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Collection" sounds like a terrible generic sitcom, but instead this series is one of the most hilarious comedies of the last decade -- a quirky, weird, tongue-in-cheek little show with hilarious dialogue. Think a musical version of "The Office."

Folk-pop group Flight of the Conchords is Jermaine Clement and Bret McKenzie (played by themselves), who came all the way from New Zealand to New York. They are being managed by the ineffectual New Zealand Consulate official Murray (Rhys Darby), and they have exactly one fan/stalker, Mel (Kristen Schaal). They don't have many gigs, and even fewer successful ones.

As they chase elusive fame'n'fortune, the guys have to deal with girlfriend woes (dating the same girl, a "Yoko", a girl who just wants to use Bret for sex), financial difficulties (Bret bought a cup!), jobs, muggings, anti-Kiwi racism, a problematic rock'n'roll tour, two new fans with impure intentions, a semi-professional actor/compulsive liar who makes Murray think they've got a multimillion-dollar deal, the Crazy Doggz, Australians, epileptic terriers, the Prime Minister of New Zealand, hair gel, and a stage musical based on their misadventures.

If I had to come up with a description for "Flight of the Conchords," it would be that they're the folky New Zealand love child of Spinal Tap and "The Office." No laugh track, rambling dialogue, and the main characters tend to spontaneously break into song-and-dance at pivotal parts of the plot. And it's brilliant.

The writing is brimming over with effortless weirdness, as the guys encounter everyday problems (threesomes, girlfriend woes, weird dreams) which soon turn into hilariously surreal situations (the disturbing children's show, "Albi the Racist Dragon"). The dialogue is amazing ("When I first met you you tried to have me deported from New Zealand because you thought I was an Australian"), and full of rambling conversations that just get stranger with every line ("Have you ever had a threesome?" "Nearly." "What do you mean, nearly?" "I've had a twosome").

The songs are gutsplitting as well, since they're all about homicidal robots, mermaids, toothpaste, hip-hop spoofs, hermaphrodites ("Oh you sexy hermaphrodite lady-man-ladies"), rappers, cannibalism, and the hiphop-potamus. Not to mention "Frodo, Don't Wear the Ring" and its accompanying music video, which are a nod to McKenzie's role as the elf Figwit.

But none of this would be even half as funny if it weren't for the actors -- Clement's self-named chatacter is stoic and kind of weird (he writes a song about putting a wig on Bret), while McKenzie's is more childlike, naive and likes to sit in a cardboard box. Darby rounds out the cast as their harried, rather pathetic manager (who isn't even supposed to be managing a band), and Schaal is also quite funny as a woman who has a creepy sexual fixation on the guys.

"Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Series" is one of the rarest kind of comedy out there -- steady, hysterical, and only gets better with repeated viewings. And boy, are you sorry when it's over.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great for fans and newcomers both!, February 22, 2011

By 

a burns (Reston, Virginia United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Flight of the Conchords: The Complete Collection (DVD)

The Good:
Includes all of the episodes from the two seasons of Flight of the Conchords
The songs are funny and sometimes really touching ("Carol Brown" is a standout)
Fairly mainstream, accessible humor. This collection has been a hit with a lot of my friends and family.

The Disappointing
Collection only includes the TV series and the HBO special. The addition of the two FOTC music CDs would be worth paying a little more

Verdict
I've been thoroughly pleased with my purchase (Amazon likes to put it for sale in the 20 dollar range, making it a real smart buy). Most people will enjoy the wacky, awkward, and oftentimes touching series, but if you're really on the fence the first episode of season two is available to stream online legally