I'd Buy That DVD for...Somewhere in the Neighborhood of $5

There’s a “Cheap DVDs” thread, but it died four years ago, also a “Rolling I’d Buy That for a Dollar” thread from 2008, but I guess that one ran up against the dollar-records thread. The last two or three years has been a great time for buying discounted DVDs, as companies seemingly make the slow transition over to Blu-ray. (I’ve never really been clear on what’s going on there.) So if you find anything worthwhile for $5 or thereabouts, post about it here.

All of these were $5 at a local flea market I scour once every few weeks:

The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid (Phil Kaufman’s sort-of first film)
4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days
Boyz n the Hood (two discs)
The Wicker Man (original, Anchor Bay)

Also bought the first season of Room 222 for $12. The less said about such abject nostalgia the better.

I thought the Great Northfield Minnesota Raid was inferior to the Long Riders myself.

Walmart has $3 bins that are so big that you almost have to climb into them to reach stuff. Considering much of Walmart's local demographic, it's like bringing dumpster-diving indoors. I've never seen anything in them I'd climb in for, though.

Northfield is the only one of the four I haven't yet seen. As the Room 222 purchase indicates, I'm much more inclined to buy second-tier stuff from the '70s than from any other decade.

Those Wal-Mart bins are ridiculous! I even spoke to someone there once, suggesting that it's not a great incentive to buy when you're afraid of causing a major catastrophe if you dislodge one DVD too many.

I'm upset that Warner Bros. has put a moratorium on a large chunk of their catalog titles, probably so they can start selling them through the WB Store at a higher price in that piddly DVD-R format. I was having fun buying them in 3-packs for $5 at Big Lots.

Recently acquired for $4 each from a local rental store going OOB:

Kicking and Screaming (Criterion)
3 Women (Criterion)
Paris is Burning
Eating Raoul
Showgirls (but it skips, boo)
All About Eve
something else I can't remember

3 Women for $4? Wow--that's like just over a dollar per woman. Seriously, that's a great deal. All I have is an old VHS I taped off Bravo...which I've still never watched, for some reason.

Got these for $5 each from a guy who always has a great table of still-sealed DVDs at Toronto record shows.

The Tomorrow Show: Punk & New Wave
The Tomorrow Show: John, Paul, Tom & Ringo
You Bet Your Life: The Lost Episodes
Woodstock (2-disc director's cut)
Big Brother & the Holding Co.: Nine Hundred Nights
Helter Skelter (have no idea how this will look today; I was right into it when it played on TV in the mid-'70s)
2001: A Space Odyssey (2 discs)

King of Comedy ($5)
Targets ($5)

Going Upriver: The Long War of John Kerry ($0.99)

I already have the Kerry film, but I bought two copies for future gifts. It's not like one of those campaign books that are embarrassments a year later--it's actually a really good film.

(Kenneth) Mars Attack today @ Big Lots w/Desperate Characters (I'm also still in possession of my Netflix copy) & What's Up Doc? for $3 apiece.

I've got a bag or two of similar Big Lots bargain discs acquired over the past several months. And if I had wanted to spend the money today, I could have also picked up Getting Straight (Elliot Gould/Candice Bergen college movie--anybody rep for it?), The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T and a bunch of Sony Pictures Classics titles for the same price.

These were from a Blockbuster buy-2-get-1-free sale, so they cost $14 together:

The Beaches of Agnes
The Great Happiness Space
Yves Saint Laurent: His Life and Times/5 Avenue Marceau 75116 Paris

$5 each at a discount store:

Disclosure (for shame, for shame--one of my favourite pieces of unmitigated junk ever)
2010: The Year We Make Contact (not crazy about the original, so this makes a lot of sense)
Erin Brockovich (never seen it)
Anne Frank Remembered (should be useful in class)
The MLB Cubs box set--eight games, eight discs, including the wild 12-11 game from '84 where Sandberg won it in extras with his second home run of the day. I remember watching that game on Saturday afternoon.

Just noticed C. Grissom's query about Getting Straight. I watched it a couple of years ago and thought it was the most hopelessly dated kind of early-'70s "New Hollywood" film. And I have a very high tolerance for almost anything in that vein.

Canadian Blockbusters started liquidating on Friday. Didn't realize this had started till today, so I got a two-day late start. I hit the two close to home this afternoon; if I can remember where they all are, there are at least another six reasonably close. Everything's 30% off to start, so all of these were just under $5:

I'm Still Here (most acclaimed film since Otto Preminger's Skidoo!)
All the Real Girls (I saw this when it came out, sort of stayed in my mind ever since)
Please Give (I thought Lovely & Amazing was pretty good)
Hugh Hefner: Playboy, Activist, and Strangely Creepy Old Man
Punch-Drunk Love (two discs)
When the Levees Broke (two discs, easily the best thing I found today)

I also bought The Social Network for $7--controversial, inspired a long ILX thread.

I passed on the 160-minute Carlos; having seen the full six hours, the abridged version doesn't hold much appeal for me. Sadly, someone beat me to the second Spike Lee Katrina film.

Felt sorry for the girl at the first store. She was the only person working (maybe someone was on a break). She had to handle cash, field questions, deal with people like me who brought a bunch of unpriced stuff up that had to be scanned before we made up our minds, manipulate all those unwieldy plastic cases, etc. When the guy in front of me commiserated, she mumbled a very terse "They don't pay me enought for this." I'm sure they never did--it's just much worse now.

Blockbuster kind of mastered the art of understaffed stores--->shitty employee treatment. I've avoided their liquidations partially because of the scenario you've mentioned, and also because I'd be tempted into buying too much stuff. Well, and also the fact that I'm pretty sure the stuff I'd have no problem buying (IFC exclusives), probably have already headed out the back door and on to Amazon for $20 & rising.

Anyway, back to the thread topic. Half-Price Books is doing a extra 20% off sale this weekend. I picked up very gently used copies (still had all the inserts) of Our Man Flint, In Like Flint & Modesty Blaise for $4 each. While talking to a friend on the phone later, I checked the titles on Amazon and found out they were all now OOP (although the Flints are now exclusive to a in-print combo pack), with used copies of Modesty going for $20+ and new ones starting @ $30. My friend--a big Joseph Losey fan--commented that Modesty wasn't a film you spent that much for.

Bought

The Song Remains The Same (2 DVD remastered) - concert footage better than I remembered. The playacting still sucks.
BBC Sherlock Holmes w/ Peter Cushing ( 4 "long lost" episodes - Cushing was a cool Holmes though played a little too sweet and understanding compared to J. Brett)

both $6 each.

It sure didn't take long for those Blockbusters to get picked clean; the shelves are almost bare 10 days into the sale. They're down to 50% off, so these were $4 or $5:

Client #9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer[/i]
Casino Jack and the United States of Money (the Gibney documentary)
Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work
The Sweet Hereafter
Mean Creek

Mean Creek's the only one I haven't seen yet. I expect they'll go to 75% next week, as they try to clear out whatever's left--Police Academy 6, Christmas with the Kranks, The Godfather III, etc.

These ones were 4/$10:

Bulworth -- I cringed a lot when I saw it on release, but I realize that (sometimes, anyway) I was supposed to cringe. I'll give it another try one night.
Till the Clouds Roll By
Beat Street
Slaughter -- The Jim Brown film...Got home, discovered I already had it (with a bunch of other blaxploitation titles in the "Soul Cinema" series). This is the third time this has happened in the past couple of weeks; I also recently bought redundant sale copies of Mulholland Dr. and The Sweet Hereafter.

These were $5 each:

Act of God -- Jennifer Baichwal's documentary on people who've been struck by lightning. I didn't think it was as good as it could have been, but it's G-rated, so I might get some use out it in class.
Nerakhoon -- Looks good: http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-11-19/film/the-betrayal-nerakhoon-offers-a-phantasmagoria-of-wartime-indochina/.
High Art -- Doesn't look like my kind of thing, but a friend recently listed it as one of his 50 favourite films on a countdown we're doing.
The Rainmaker -- Aaargh...see Slaughter.
Tibet: A Buddhist Trilogy
The Wild Child

Spielberg's "War Of The Worlds" (Special edition/Widescreen) $3.75

"Renegade" (aka "Blueberry" - sort of fun and eyepopping yet sorta terrible Acid Western. Based on Moebius comics series. Starring Vincent Cassell, Eddie Izzard, Michael Madsen... Yep.) $3.00

Thank you, Half.com

Weekend before last, Big Lots-

$3:

Storefront Hitchcock
Prizzi's Honor
Macon County Line
Kentucky Fried Movie

$5:

John Wayne: The Franchise Collection (budget bundle from Universal; contains Seven Sinners (w/Dietrich), The Shepherd of The Hills (Wayne as a moonshiner), Pittsburgh (w/Dietrich & Randolph Scott), The Conqueror (oh yeah), & Jet Pilot (a semi-legendary nutso anti-commie feature helmed by Hughes/Von Sternberg, co-staring Janet Leigh as a comely Russian pilot/spy--Truffaut paraised it in The Films In My Life)).

"Renegade" (aka "Blueberry" - sort of fun and eyepopping yet sorta terrible Acid Western. Based on Moebius comics series. Starring Vincent Cassell, Eddie Izzard, Michael Madsen... Yep.) $3.00

O_o

C. Grissom -- I've got the Gary Cooper and Bela Lugosi equivalents of your John Wayne collection:

http://www.amazon.ca/Cooper-Collection-Design-Ibbetson-General/dp/B0007RTB9M/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1309792389&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.ca/Lugosi-Collection-Murders-Morgue-Invisible/dp/B0009X770E/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1309792481&sr=1-1

This Film Noir one is great if you can still find it. My local Target had them in its giant budget dvd bin a year ago:

http://www.amazon.com/Classic-Film-Noir-Movie-Pack/dp/B0006Z2NS6

Not technically the same series, but definitely a good collection. I like The Strange Love of Martha Ivers a lot. Is the quality okay, though? With a collection like this--unlike the "Franchise" series, which is put out by Universal (or whoever owns the Universal catalogue)--you never know what the quality will be like.

Quality varies from film to film but "Detour" looks fantastic as do "The Stranger" and "The Hitchhiker". Well worth getting cheap.

The Sears outlet store by me put out a bunch of interesting stuff at 4/$10, and I kind of went crazy.

Didn't realize I had these already: My Kid Could Paint That, Hannah and Her Sisters, Novocaine, Cooley High

Bought these a second time intentionally: Coming Home, Cisco Pike (bought that one full price on Amazon a couple of years ago)

Woodypalooza: Broadway Danny Rose, Alice, The Purple Rose of Cairo, A Midsummer's Night Sex Comedy (like the first, will likely never watch the others; passed up Scoop)

Old Stuff: Casanova's Big Night, The Gay Divorcee, Cimarron, The Ugly American, He Walked by Night, Killer's Kiss, The Curse of Frankenstein/Taste the Blood of Dracula (Hammer), The Jackie Robinson Story, Suddenly, Pride of the Yankees, Storm Warning, Made for Each Other (the Jimmy Stewart one--wish it were Joseph Bologna/Renee Taylor instead)

Newer: Eight Men Out, Fired!, Married to the Mob, The Saddest Music in the World, She's Gotta Have It, Singles, Shakespeare Behind Bars, Vernon, Florida

Because I like the '70s: Two-Minute Warning

Because Madchen Amick's in it: Dream Lover

When I went back today to get The Love God with Don Knotts, it was gone. This broke my heart.

Same 4/$10 sale as above:

Reagan: Knute Rockne All American, The Winning Team, The Hasty Heart. The Winning Team, a bio of Grover Cleveland Alexander, is one of the first half-dozen films I can remember watching as a kid.

Other old stuff: Flying Down to Rio, The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle, Something to Sing About, Allegheny Uprising.

Plus: The Big Bounce (1970, Ryan O'Neal, Get Shorty before Get Shorty), Mr. Mike's Mondo Video, The Tomorrow Show: Tom Snyder's Electric Kool-Aid Talk Show (Kesey/Leary/Wolfe/Grateful Dead), Copycat.

At home, I far prefer watching junk I've already seen to anything that requires thought and attention, so the only thing I've (re)watched so far is Copycat. Was surprised to see Laszlo Kovacs did the cinematography.

I just learned Kovacs did Say Anything... Cinematographers have the most strangely diverse careers in the movie. Kovacs had a bunch of romcoms later on as did Sven Nyquivst.

Big Lots, this afternoon, $3 apiece:

Go
Brick
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (original)
A Man For All Seasons (Hello again, Mr. Shaw...)
Too Late The Hero
Roadie

I limited myself to spending $20, so I had to put back Snow Angels (which was actually a resealed rental copy as opposed to a remaindered sealed edition normal for the chain), Sex and Death 101 (sorry Winona) and the 3rd season of Strangers With Candy, all which were also $3 a throw.

My friend hit up another location last week and found Petulia for $3, and the deluxe Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? for $5.

Gazuntite!

http://assets.nydailynews.com/img/2009/06/06/alg_pelham4a.jpg

More from the 4/$10 place last week:

Old -- Rancho Deluxe (wrote a bit about this on the Jeff Bridges thread), Let's Do It Again, Starman, Marooned, and Starting Over (watched this last night...sort of okay for a while, then awful; for Pakula to go from All the President's Men to this in the space of four years is as sad in its way as all the other '80s horrors stories)

Older -- Father of the Bride, The Fountainhead, Platinum Blonde (don't think I knew this was Capra), and a double Three Stooges: Gold Raiders and Meet the Baron

Junk -- Jennifer 8, Taking Lives, Blood and Wine (Bob Rafelson and Nicholson, undoubtedly bad)

Recent (more or less) -- Lust, Caution (Ang Lee, don't remember it), 2:37, The Sea Inside, Vera Drake, The Fountain (Darren Arnofsky, don't remember it), Anything Else, Wag the Dog

Documentary -- The Cutting Edge (about editing--not Visions of Light, but not bad)

I just got back from an unfamilier supermarket, where I found a sealed copy of the Kino edition of Jamaica Inn mixed in w/a bunch mexican movies & direct-to-dvd indie stuff for $2.99.

4/$10 yet again:

They Died with Their Boots On, The Helen Morgan Story, The Princess and the Pirate, Cheaper by the Dozen, 3 Godfathers (presumably much better than Godfather III), White Heat (best film in the haul)

The Love God?, The McKenzie Break, A Little Romance, True Confessions (remember it as deadly dull the one time I saw it years ago), Streamers (probably the best find)

Family Business, Backbeat, Boiler Room, Gangster No. 1, Unprecedented (documentary on the 2000 election--never heard of it), Dick (a friend loves this; I liked Election much better), The Company (Altman), The Company (TV mini-series about the CIA)

Also a couple of MLB productions on the 2009 series and famous Red Sox moments.

4/$10: King Kong (1933 original, two discs), King Kong ('70s remake--Kael liked it), The Out of Towners (original; must have seen this half-a-dozen times before I was 15), The Producers (original, two discs--have never seen it).

2/$10: The Shining and Twister, two discs each.

Haven't done much cheapo dvd shopping lately, but last week I got the two disc of Elvis: That's The Way It Is plus Waking Life (both sealed new copies) from Half-Price for about $5 each. Also scored $5 copies of Young Frankenstein, Halloween, Rocky Horror Picture Show and An American Werewolf In London (the last a two disc-er) from Wal Mart as part of a Halloween sale.

Wow, was just checking on Amazon, and found another (albeit used) $5 item from my Half-Price trip, Lina Wertmuller's Love & Anarchy, is going from $19.97 used.

dudes i have a billion dvds i want to get rid of, would anyone want me to list them here? lots in their original packaging too. was trying to figure out how to unload them

List away. Be forewarned: my artistic standards go up a bit in a private sale, but I remain just as cheap.

List!

k will do later today!

I also have interest in ur day vay days

s1ocki?

Anyhoo, was out today and stopped by Big Lots, where amongst seemingly endless assortment of x-mas movies I emerged with:

$3 Each-

The Squid and the Whale
Up In Smoke (Collector's Edition)
An Almost Perfect Affair (MONICA VITTI)
Pink Cadillac

$5-

There Will Be Blood (2-disc)

Forgot about this thread.

These ones were from the 4/$10 place: Electra Glide in Blue, Divided We Fall, Bitter Victory, Towelhead, Angel Unchained/Cycle Savages, A Day at the Races, Basket Case, Tarnation, The Limits of Control, The Tempest (Cassavetes), American Pimp (outtakes from the documentary, plus a CD of period music), The Cotton Club, Avalon, The Spirit of St. Louis.

$5 each: Cabaret, Brick, Black Gunn, A Clockwork Orange (two discs), City for Conquest/"G" Men/Each Dawn I Die/White Heat (TCM), An Unreasonable Man (Nader documentary--very good).

Towelhead sucks. Some interesting ideas all run into the ground via Alan Ball Overdrive.

I've got another bag from Big Lots around here somewhere. Ah, here it is! They had a bunch of MGM catalog stuff on for $1.88 Black Friday weekend. Got The Grissom Gang & The Indian Runner while combing the stacks the following Monday. I also picked up Career Opportunities, Safe Men A Fine Madness and Modern Romance for $3 apiece.

Picked up new copies of The Passing Show-The Life & Music of Ronnie Lane ($4) & "The Complete M-Squad w/Lee Marvin" (15 discs-$16) @ Half-Price during the year-end sale.

Got the 2-disc 70th anniversary Wizard of Oz for $4 @ Wal-Mart.

Finally, Discs found in Strange Places:

The President's Analyst-$4 @ Staples, the office supply store.
The Late Show-$3 @ Ross, the clothing & housewares store. I also got a pair of New Balance cleats in my size for 49 cents.

Yeah, Towelhead was pretty crude (and I love American Beauty). I think we're finding things that fell off the back of the same truck: The Grissom Gang, Modern Romance, The President's Analyst, and the MGM stuff all turn up here, too.

What else? 4/$10: Ghost Dog, Why Do Fools Fall in Love, The Haunting (Robert Wise original), A New Kind of Love (Paul Newman--never heard of it), Adventures of Don Juan, For Your Consideration, The Fog ('70s). Also Ultimate Gretzky, even though I don't think I've watched a hockey game since 1994.

A different Big Lots:

$1.88- Vernon, Florida
$3.00- Lookin' To Get Out! "Extended Version"

There were some other things I passed on because they had multiples upon multiples. I think they got in a new shipment of MGM & Warner cast-offs.

Definitely the same truck--the place I go to always has a couple of copies of Vernon, Florida. Keep an eye open for The King of Kong and My Kid Could Paint That.

$3 each: After Hours, The Statement, An Education, Half Nelson, Synecdoche New York, The Animation Show.

4/$10: Never So Few (Sinatra), Frost Nixon, Fail Safe (recent TV version), The Story of Seabiscuit, John Q., In America.

$1: The Bronx Is Burning. (Three episodes into this. Hard to get past John Turturro's pinned-back ears, but it's almost okay...or least the bits of real footage are great.)

$3 for The Brown Bunny from Goodwill some weeks back. Haven't watched it yet.

(no)

I'm in a buy-nothing facebook group

Ditto. Drove over an hour a few weeks ago to look at 130 albums a guy was selling. You had to buy the whole lot (a stipulation I do understand--piecemeal takes time). Flipped through maybe 30 of them and that was enough--it was clear I'd be stuck with at least 100 I didn't want.

I've got a room downtairs where I keep all my knick-knacks, bobbleheads, Funkos, puzzles, etc. I've always referred to it as the memorabilia room, but I'm changing that now to "ocean of crap."

May be enough to sink this thread:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/13/investing/big-lots-wants-to-close-hundreds-of-locations/index.html

Oof, RIP Physical Media

It's wild that in such troubled economic times that the cheap stuff places are seemingly suffering the most.

You, me, and nickn: mammoth cross-country field trip to empty every last bin before they go under.

They can turn it into a movie one day: Cheap and Cheaper.

Cheap and Cheaper and When Will We Watch All This Crap?

I just looked on Google Maps: there's 16 Big Lots in what they consider the Houston metro area, and that's not counting outliers like Conroe (which has one or two) and Galveston (at least one).

Dare I?

(I won't)

On a much smaller scale, I did when Blockbuster went under, getting to as many stores as I could within a ~10-mile radius. And when Indigo bought out Chapters here and closed a bunch of stores in the early 2000s, did the same and went after drastically reduced CDs.

I wonder if they've already been downsizing here, because on the current list there's only 2 stores on FM 1960, and there used to be like five (literally one every 3 or 4 miles).

XP Yeah, I did a similar thing with Warehouse Music and Borders when they went under.

I'm not sure I've ever bought any DVD from a BL, and the one near me closed years ago. Still 3 within a 15 minute drive (each, not all 3 on one loop), so not worth the effort.

Half-Price Books, 20%-off sale.

$3.99: Masked and Anonymous (thanks to the ILM thread revive)
$2.40: Viva Las Vegas "Deluxe Edition" (replacing a prior--possibly disc-rotted--copy); The Martin & Lewis Colgate Comedy Hour (a public domain thing with 8 episodes on 2 discs)

Big Lot's:

$2.99: Assassination Nation; Possessed (1947, J.Crawford)
$4.99: Yummy (Blu-ray)
$6.99: Song To Song (4K + Blu-ray)

big yard sale weekend in town, $1 each
Where the Wild Things Are, Kiki's Delivery Service, Django Unchained and both Kill Bills, True Grit (Coens), Letters from Iwo Jima, Little Women (Gerwig), Dinotopia the Series (nostalgia trip gift for my daughter)

I got to go to my first Ollie's today, which seems to be the chain cornering the cheap shit market abandoned by Big Lot's--except they didn't have any movies!

#RIPPhysicalMedia

Friends of Library Rack, $1.00:

Star Wars (New Hope, IV etc.)

I went to three different thrift stores today, and looked through each's DVD shelves. Nothing!

Didn't realize "Friends of the Library" was a common name for that kind of group...We had our twice-yearly FOTL book sale here last week--raised over $7,000 for a town with 7,500 people. Donation only. Didn't buy any DVDs--I wanted the two Charlie Chan box sets they had, but looked at a couple of discs and they were in iffy shape.

Is this the longest non-pandemic gap in posts?

The 400 Blows (Criterion), $6 at the local swap meet.

Powaqqatsi
The 400 Blows
Bringing Up Baby (2 disk set)

― nickn, Saturday, February 14, 2015

I did it again, though I don't know if the 400 Blows I bought earlier is a Criterion.

I'm still on the active list, nickn...Three from the early '60s at at the twice-yearly library sale last week (by donation, so they were lumped in with books and a record):

One, Two, Three
Sundays and Cybèle
The Angry Silence

Half-Price Books

$5.99 (used): No Direction Home Bob Dylan; The Saturday Night Live 25th Anniversary Special

Related: I visited the library by my sister's workplace for the first time the other morning and on their sale rack was a bootleg DVD-R of "Bob Dylan TV", a collection of TV appearances and music videos starting in 1979 with his SNL appearance and including the Letterman stuff w/the Plugz, award show appearances etc. It was the only DVD there for sale, it was only a buck, and I'm kinda kicking myself now for not picking it up.

The original post from 2011 is interesting, because I popped into CeX on Saturday, and despite the passage of time the DVD section is still much larger than the Blu-Ray section. I'm not sure if it's because DVD is still more popular or simply because CeX has masses of DVDs it can't get rid of. We're talking five shelf-widths of DVDs, three shelf-widths of Blu-Rays, one partial shelf-width of 4K Blu-Rays.

CeX is a melancholic experience. Whenever I go there I'm reminded of the quote from One Hour Photo. "I was here. I existed. I was young. I was happy, and someone cared enough about me in this world to take my picture". The same is true of the majority of films from the 2000s and 2010s. People cared about them a long time ago, but the passage of time has robbed them of meaning. CeX is an object lesson in the power of meaning. What does the sight of five used copies of Sex and the City 2 sitting on the shelf at CeX mean in 2025? It was shorn of its context a long time ago, and unlike the works of Ed Wood it doesn't have a new context.

The television section has a lovingly arranged selection of Midsomer Murders DVDs that form a diorama with John Nettles' face on the spines. I don't know if it encourages people to buy the DVDs or drives them away. If you just buy one, you ruin the diorama, but you'd need to a superfan to buy all of them. Albeit that it might be a single very large boxed set, e.g. in fact I'm specifically thinking of this one:
https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/gDMAAOSwCbFiF4Q5/s-l400.jpg

Every time I go to CeX I leave frustrated. I could just buy a bunch of DVDs. But if I'm going to see a film, why not see it in high-def? But what if the Blu-Ray edition I pick is a bad one with a poor transfer and no special features? I'd need to go online beforehand and carefully work out which Blu-Ray edition I want, in which case if I'm online why not just buy the Blu-Ray on eBay instead? I'd have to go back to CeX with a shopping list, and that would be sad. And I don't even like films! Or music, or anything. It happens when you get older.

i bought 300 (2 disk edition) for £1 from the amnesty bookshop recently. they also had a sealed copy with a better cover which i nearly picked up instead, until i noticed it was region 1.

Zatoichi 2003 was £3 something from ebay. disk has two small radial cracks around the hole but still played. terrible cgi.

'm not sure if it's because DVD is still more popular or simply because CeX has masses of DVDs it can't get rid of. We're talking five shelf-widths of DVDs, three shelf-widths of Blu-Rays, one partial shelf-width of 4K Blu-Rays.

Media Play's (https://www.mediaplaynews.com) chart for last week's "Top 50 Disc Sellers" (probably USA sales only?) has this breakdown:
DVD: 56.4%
Blu-Ray: 22.2%
UHD: 21.4%

I'm kinda surprised the UHD slice is almost as big as Blu-Ray. My personal mental threshold for "oh just go ahead and buy it" is $10 for a Blu-Ray, especially considering that it costs like $15 just to see a matinee at my local theater that has a projector with dead pixels and mediocre sound.

I've never really taken to Blu-Rays. I probably have 30 or 40. I think the thing that got me started was finding a complete box of Breaking Bad on sale.

$2 each at a thrift store

Stalker
Django Unchained (with a "making of" bonus disk)
Six-String Samurai

Stalker? Is that a Criterion? Great find...

It's a Kino.

I saw The Conformist at another thrift store, but was pretty sure I already had it.

$5 for the recent 4k steelbook of "The Raid." Good deal/find i think because the seller on eBay misspelled it "blueray."

Went to a nearby flea market for the first time in probably 30 years...
Safety Last! Criterion blu-ray for $1
Hard Boiled - Dragon Dynasty 2DVD for $1

FWIW, if you're in NYC, the Housing Works Bookstore has Blu-rays all for a flat $5 and the selection ain't bad.

https://www.housingworks.org/locations/bookstore-cafe

$2 for Elton John Live At Madison Square Garden (2007)

2 disks, first is that show and second is a bunch of other performances from 1970 onward.

A few days ago at a thrift store, $3 for Tracy Takes On seasons 3 and 4 (3 disks).

was looking at the complete walking dead, all 11 series, listed at £140, and then figured the earlier, incompete boxes might be cheaper... got 1-7 for £17, which is 33 disks, so ~50p each. even if 8, 9, 10 and 11 are £25 each then i'm still quids in.

Today at a thrift store, $3, Don't Let Our Youth Go To Waste (Galaxie 500 2-disks).

This time I did know I already had it, but for $3 how could I not?

Even tho I had half of them, I was delighted to find the BBC Life box set for $15 ($US10) - 24 discs of prime Attenborough. When he was out amongst it and the narratives were thought-provoking and detailed, rather than “look at these penguins playing”.

At a thrift store, for $2.50, Square Pegs full series (3 disks).

haha, I just got that at Half-Price for $6! watched the first half-dozen eps, holds up pretty well to be honest

"Totally different head ..."

Arrived at a thrift store as a volunteer was unboxing disc donations. For $10 US I got
The Ascent (Criterion blu)
Ophuls’ “La Ronde” (blu but French only, argh)
The Others 4K
Serpico and a triple Polanski set on DVD
Bergman’s “Face to Face” on blu

At a thrift store, for $4,The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.
An MGM "special release" with a few extra "making of" type features. Still sealed.

At a thrift store, for $4, Almodovar's What Have I Done To Deserve This.

Yesterday at a thrift store:
That Girl (season 1, sealed box) $5
Woody Allen's Love and Death $4
Blank Generation $4 (the Ulli Lommel film with Richard Hell)
Studio Classics box set $4 (4 discs, 20th Century Fox)
All About Eve
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
The Inn of the Seventh Happiness
The Valley of the Dolls

That Girl, nice!

Got a sealed copy of something I already had as a bootleg for $5 yesterday: the first season of Big Little Lies.

got Hugo and Shutter Island blu rays for £1 each the other day from the local charity shop. Hugo is a cute film! kids are a bit too posh for my liking and could have done without Sasha Baron Cohen doing his 'Allo 'Allo impression, but otherwise I quite enjoyed it. the scenes which recreate Melies making films were incredible, suspect they were the main reason Marty made the film.