The Ongoing Wal-Mart $4.88/$5.50/$5.88 Bargain Bin Thread - Page 15

Note... Sleepwalkers is a Columbia / Tristar Home Video (CTHV) title. When CTHV sends a title to the $5.50 bin, this usually means they are going to eliminate the widescreen version and leave the pan and scan version ONLY. When I first saw "The Mirror Has Two Faces" in the bin in May, the DVD had both WS & P & S. Now I only see P & S, so anyone interested in Sleepwalkers DVD better pick it up soon if they want WS. This is the first time i saw it in the "the bin".

Saw the title "29 Palms" starring Chris O'Donnell, Rachael Leigh Cook, Bill Pullman, Keith David, Jeremy Davies, Michael Rappaport & Michael Lerner for $5.50 at Wal Mart, but not in the $5.50 dump bin. This title can be found in-line in the section "DVDs Arranged A to Z" in alphabetical order. Not a bad movie for $5.50.

FYI for those who have not been following this in the Software thread. Columbia/Tri-Star is doing this Not only for Wal*Mart. This practice is being done by them period, on many of their previous dual format flipper discs. This will affect stock at all reatailers, not just Wal*Mart. If you are interested in any CTHE flippers, get them now while you still have a chance of finding some with the WS side still there

Hard to say, but this hasn't happened yet (to my knowledge).

Maximum Risk is a very good flick, it may sell through at $7.50 and never be seen again.

I've watched any number of special promo displays in the last year at Wal-Mart and none of the titles turned up later in the bin.

I'm reminded of last years Father's Day sale with all the Batman, LW movies, and other action standards.

I believe many of these movies were back at $7.50 this year as well.

They seem to have specific price points: $5.50, $7.50, $8.88, $9.99, and $14.99.

I've yet to see any titles move between price points, although some are pulled and disappear completely.

Long time bin watchers call attest that the 'flippers' for most CTHV clearanced titles hit the bin first, followed by the MAR-only version.

I consider myself fortunate to have been able to get WS copies of all the CTHV titles that hit the bin early on.

Unfortunately, now you typically can't find WS copies of 'About Last Night' or whatever your looking for...

so who has the entire list of these former flippers?
so we can try to track them down.

Let me take some time and go through my collection and see if i can make a list.

All I ask in return is if anyone finds this useful that someone sends me a couple dvd's from the list.

This is the best I can do. I erred on the side of caution so there may be a few that haven't made the bin. Hopefully I didn't omit too many.

Not sure which ones are now 4:3 only but these are the ones I can recall seeing mentioned reaching the bargain bin price point at various stores and that I believe are/were 4:3/16x9 releases.

About Last Night
America's Sweethearts
And Justice For All
Apt Pupil
Baby Geniuses
Bear
Beautiful
Blue Thunder
Body Double
Bugsy
Chances Are
Cruel Intentions
Dance With Me
Deep
Desert Heat
Desperate Measures
Donnie Brasco
Double Team
Drowning Mona
Excess Baggage
Eye Of The Beholder
Fan
Fools Rush In
Fortress 2: Re-entry
Geronimo: An American Legend
Glitter
Gloria
Glory Daze
Go
Guarding Tess
Hanging Up
Hero
High School High
Hush
Idle Hands
Iron Eagle
It Could Happen To You
Jackie Chan's Who Am I
Jakob The Liar
Jawbreaker
John Carpenter's Vampires
Johnny Mnemonic
Juror
Kermit's Swamp Years: Special Edition
Knock Off
Last Action Hero
Mary Reilly
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Maximum Risk
Mirror Has Two Faces
Mortal Thoughts
Moscow on the Hudson
Mrs. Winterbourne
Muppets From Space
My Life
My Stepmother is an Alien
Never Talk To Strangers
No Mercy
Order, The
Peggy Sue Got Married
Postcards From The Edge
Punchline
Red Rock West
School Daze
Second Jungle Book: The Story Of Mowgli And Baloo
Slackers
Soldier Of Fortune
Someone To Watch Over Me
Stephen King's Sleepwalkers
Suburbans
Suspect
Toy, The
Two Moon Junction
Whatever It Takes
Whipped

Here's CTHV's catalog if one wants to look through it.

That looks like a pretty good (and pretty accurate list). By the way, anyone looking to pick up the "flipper" disc of The Last Action Hero with the WS & P & S on it can still find it in a DVD two-pack along with "The Sixth Day". You'll pay a little more, but I would guess that you will not see "The Last Action Hero" in WS on DVD again in the near future.

What kind of asinine company switches to P&S-only titles when more and more people are getting widescreen TV sets?!?!?!

Last Action Hero deserves a special edition -- maybe if the True Lies SE sells well, we'll get one. Not holding my breath though. . .

That looks like a fairly good list of potential flipper tiles, but not all those titles appeared in the bin as flippers (to my knowledge).

Many arrived MAR-only, like 'Excess Baggage', 'Mortal Thoughts', and 'The Fan'.

The original release for 'Excess Baggage' was in 1998 (?) and most likely sold through.

The MAR-only release was in 2003 and subsequently got dumped in the bin.

I imagine this was true of many titles.

On the other hand, we did get a shot at flipper releases for LAH and many others before the MAR-only 2003 reissues were dumped in the bin.

I just wanted to mention this before someone goes on a multi-store run looking for flipper copies of every title...

I did find a "flipper" copy of "Suspect" (Cher, Dennis Quiad) at Barnes & Noble. I am now on the hunt for a flipper disc copy of Moscow on the Hudson. When Hero & The Deep first showed up in the bin they were flipper discs... but no more.

You've answered your own question

If the MAR release of Excess Baggage came out last year than I don't think I'll never find an OAR version.

I just found Unnamable II in the 5.50 bin. I was surprised as I thought the film was coming out in August. A very guilty pleasure horror flick.

It also explains why these MAR 'releases' are in the bin in the 1st place.

Nobody wanted them, then or now...

I have a soft spot for this movie and will keep looking for the flipper release (used shops and whatnot).

But I'm not going to Ebay it at a premium or anything.

Been meaning to ask: anybody want to trade bin titles? Maybe some unique to the Canadian bins for some unique to the American bins? Or are they too cheap for that, postage cost defeating the purpose?

We have some of the WS/FS flippers that have been replaced by MAR only. Some of the Fox/Fortune Star first wave titles. Wallace & Gromit. Virgin Suicides. Just a few I can remember that I can still get, doing a run tomorrow since I'll be in the neighborhood of some different WMs. They did not replenish the local bins this week, in fact they took a lot of the better stuff out and threw PD titles in.

I found some new stuff in the Canadian bins...

Unfortunately, "Body Double" is another title to add to the list of CTHV flippers that has now become full-screen only. I didn't realize it until I got home and had it opened already... too bad, especially since it's a Brian de Palma film, I can imagine his visuals are ruined in foolscreen...

Some good stuff I stumbled upon, though:
Mr. Saturday Night
Josie and the Pussycats (widescreen!)
Private Parts
Goodbye Lover
Magnum Force
Lethal Weapon 2


I also saw "Running on Empty", but it was full-screen only. It was a Warner's release, though, so that may be the way the original release was.

Just to confirm.. Running on Empty has always been a MAR title unfortunately as it is a pretty good film.

A company that's owned by Sony and is stockpiling catalog titles for the Blu-Ray launch in 59 weeks!!

Maybe not $5.50 but instead $7.50- Spend an extra two bucks and get "The Big Hit" reco-mended

So, what do you guys think of "Mr. Saturday Night"? There was one copy in the bin, which I took, and now that I check the reviews out, I dunno...

Also picked up a WS "About Last Night"...guess it's not anamorphic huh?

FWIW, I noticed that lots of the new replacement stock coming into the local bins is as you guys said, MAR, as the OAR and WS/FS versions run out.

There are some good deals on MGM 2-packs (~US$9), but I can't tell what the AR is, the way they're wrapped. I suspect the worst... The "Rob Roy" and "Man in the Iron Mask" 2-pack *is* ana-WS (one has both, other only comes in WS anyway) and seems a good deal, not at all bad flicks. Not bin titles, but even cheaper, which is good...

They now have 2 bins at my nearest WM, and an additional bin that's ~US$2 DVDs .

Mr. Saturday Night.. I saw this once a little over a decade ago somewhat looking forward to it. If my memory serves me correctly, I found it to be a tad trite and deliberate with the caveat that I was still a teenager at the time. Even though I don't think that would alter my perception of the film given my tastes back then it is possible I would appreciate it more now.If it is something subject matter wise that you think you might be drawn to then you might enjoy it enough to own.

There have been two different releases, a barebones MAR and a 16x9 release with a decent amount of extras. I believe the MAR release has been discontinued awhile ago but beware just in case.

About Last Night is a flipper so if you have one that still contains the 16x9 side it will list it on the back. If it says widescreen then you have the anamorphic release.

To check AR of those 2 packs you can check review engines like DVD Basen (when they come back online), MRQE, Movie Review Index, or various online retailers.

Thanks Anthony. The ALN is indeed a flipper, there are tons of "fresh" MAR only copies in the bin I noticed. The one I have doesn't specifically mention anamorphic on the package, so I was wondering. The MSN is the WS one with quite a lot of extras.

That threw me also but everything I have seen says it is 16x9 (mine is still sealed so I haven't checked first hand).

IMDb, Amazon, Michael's Movie Mayhem, DVD Profiler, DVD Soon, DVD Planet, and I believe I saw confirmation on DVD Talk that said it was anamorphic.

Much as I keep reading about the impending launch of Blu-Ray, I fail to see where holding back the vast majority of the titles that have turned up in that bin would be of much use. Odds are, even when Blu-Ray does debut, it'll be a long while before second-string "bin" titles like those mentioned throughout this thread would turn up. Plus they'll probably be more expensive and, being lesser films, probably won't sell that well and will ultimately end up right back in the Wal-Mart dump bin in 2006 or 2007.

I'm not saying that the films in the bin are bad in any way; just that a substantial number of them were underperforming catalogue titles when they first hit DVD (as opposed to once-new releases that debuted on DVD in the era of DVD). As such, for collectors, they represented a cheap way to fill in a few holes in a collection without blowing $20-25 on a disc, and for non-collectors they represent a cheap impulse buy for around the cost of a rental.

But if you look at the list of Columbia releases in AnthonyP's post #397, you'll see A LOT of movies that were financial toilets during their original theatrical runs (bad pun, I know), regardless of their quality or sentimental value to many of us. In fact, the more I look at the list, there's virtually nothing there that I can remember being a runaway theatrical financial smash. I suppose AMERICA'S SWEETHEARTS comes close, but has still fallen off the radar in recent years.

Few of these titles were worth buying at full price on regular DVD, which is precisely why Colombia Tri-Star has allowed them to trickle down to the bargain bins of so many stores: they just weren't selling anymore, if they ever did at all at their original high price points (I remember seeing Best Buy selling THE DEEP for $19.99 US. Puh-leeeze). The added quality of Blu-Ray on the cinematic ouevre of Jean-Claude Van-Damme circa 1996-2000 won't make much difference to a lot of people.

Some ramblings to follow on from what Brian said:

Look at how many titles we're just getting NOW on DVD, and for that matter, how many we don't yet have.

Look at the state of many of the current and old titles on DVD, even those that were restored: how much better would they look in any HD format? It's sure not usually any compression artifacts that's ruining them, it's the source, and manipulation to try to make it look *good enough* for DVD. What I'm inferring is that HD must be in mind when the film is created and preserved, so that largely means recent and new stuff.

The people who make fun of buying from the bins: they should keep in mind that many of the titles they are buying this week from the "new" racks are surely destined for the bins. Lately I've been playing a game of guessing which ones, and holding off buying. So far, several that have only been out for around 6 months or less are already at 40% of new price, a few are already in the bin, and some of the 2-discers are essentially bin-priced if you account for them having 2 discs.

I would have never bought "The Hitcher 2" for $24.99, but for a "completist" like myself, its well worth $5.50. Go ahead, let those who want to make fun, make fun. They are the same people that paid $20 bucks for Vanilla Sky.

I bought HITCHER 2 at a US Wal-Mart bin. Definitely wouldn't have been worth $25. OK as a B-flick, but rather light on action, considering the first film. It's now in my "to sell" pile and, as I haven't seen it in any Canadian bins yet, I just might be able to make my money back at a used place.