Weekly Roundup 4/14 (Hayao Miyazaki Week!) (1 Viewer)

[Andrea W]

Does Best Buy have a 3 for $20 deal going on?

 

[Malcolm R]

Re: Best Buy 3 of $20

Yep, click here for details. Some of the titles:

Legends of the Fall
Sleepless in Seattle
A League of Their Own
A River Runs Through It
Bear in the Big Blue House
As Good As It Gets
Silverado
Rudy
Care Bears 2
Dragontales

 

[Richard Kim]

Just bought all 3 Ghibli titles (already have Mononoke) and
there is a label on the boxes offering a $4 rebate if you buy 2 of the 3 Ghibli titles (Kiki, Castle in the Sky, or Spirited Away),

 

[David Lambert]

Went to 2 Best Buys... first had Spririted Away, but no Kiki or Laputa. Went to another... they had Spirited Away and Laputa, but no Kiki. So, I got a raincheck for Kiki (made the guy add a note about my free Princess Mononoke) and went down to Circuit City. Grabbed the last copy of Kiki for $19.99

Now I just have to wait for BB to get Kiki and Mononoke back in But it looks like demand for Kiki (which IIRC is one of the best-selling, if not THE bestselling, anime on home video in the US) was GREATLY underestimated by the B&Ms.

Based on reports here and elsewhere that Best Buy didn't have Kiki in stock - which is the one I want the most of the bunch! - I called ahead to my BB and asked. I was told that neither store in my city got copies. When I mentioned the info that no other BB's seemed to have them, but that competitors definately did, he checked a particular screen and told me it was unlikely any BB store got it today. I haven't a clue what he checked...maybe Matt or someone can fill us in.

So I decided to say "screw it" and headed for Wal-Mart, since they and The Mouse are on great terms. I figured if anyone had it, they did.


Good call on my part...Here are the prices I got on these:



$17.08 - Spirited Away
$17.08 - Castle In The Sky (per the receipt; handwritten shelf sign said $18.08!)
$18.08 - Kiki's Delivery Service
------
$52.24 SUBTOTAL
-$9.00 ...3 Coupons for $3 off (Woman's Day magazine)
------
$43.24 Taxable total
-$4.00 In-the-box mail-in rebate for buying any 2 of these (NOT on the outside of the box)
------
$44.97 My total price for 3 Miyazaki films on DVD
and ÷3
------
$13.08 My per-item price on each of these great DVDs

And I'm just assuming that the $4 mail-in rebate is inside one of those boxes...there is nothing on the outside even suggesting that there is (I had to leave them in the car, though, and they are still sealed). But even if the Wal-Mart copies don't have the mail-in rebate for some reason, then I still get these 2-disc sets for $14.41 each, a great value.

And I already own Mononoke, so the extra copy was just gonna be a future gift for someone.


All-in-all...I feel good right now! Whoops...no I don't, I feel ill. Gotta tell my boss I'm sick and am going home for the day! :wink:

 

[Ron-P]

Anyone have any luck finding the Chubb Chubbs? None of the BB's or CC's are stocking this DVD in my area. I don't want to go Amazon (11-15 day shipping delay ). I was hoping I'd be able to pick it up locally, but seems no one is stocking it.


Peace Out~

 

[Rob Lutter]

I opened Kiki and found a $2 off rebate... but NOT MAIL IN! It has barcodes for scanning...

So I am going to say that you will need to buy one of the titles, rip 'er open, get the coupon, double back and buy another DVD, rip 'er open, and return a third time to the register to get a total of $4 off.

I could have read it wrong... but this is not good for us that bought all of them in one transaction

 

[Malcolm R]

Anyone have any luck finding the Chubb Chubbs?

Just buy "Men in Black 2." It's a better value since you get "The Chubb Chubbs" plus a whole extra movie as a bonus feature.

(Aside: I finally saw "The Chubb Chubbs" about a week ago and seriously can't see what all the hubbub is about. This is Oscar-worthy?)

 

[Ron-P]

Just buy "Men in Black 2." It's a better value since you get "The Chubb Chubbs" plus a whole extra movie as a bonus feature.

Is that what is referred to as "The special animated short" under Disk #1 on the back cover?


Peace Out~

 

[John Berggren]

My Best Buy didn't have any Kiki on display. Oddly, they had very little Spirited Away either, but a solid number of both Castle and Mononoke.

I brought Castle, Mononoke, and Spirited over to a media guy, who immediately said "Kiki?" and brought me to a small stash behind a lookup terminal. I led another frustrated customer to the stash.

 

[Andrea W]

told me it was unlikely any BB store got it today.

My Best Buy had them (in San Antonio, Texas). In fact, I saw two copies of the Goofy tin and two copies of the Mickey B&W tin on the shelves too!

I always go to bestbuy.com and put the DVDs I want into my cart, go through the process like I'm going to check out, and then check which stores in my area have things in stock (as if you were going to do a local pickup).

Thanks for the 3 for $20 info Malcolm.

 

[Joe Fisher]

Circuit City in Yonkers, NY had squat. No Ran Masterworks Edition. No Kiki's Delivery Service. No Castle in the Sky. Only 2 copies of Spirited Away. Had to ask for Family Guy and was told I was getting the last copy. Boy talk about being prepaired. Thankfully I pre-ordered online and will have them all within a few days. I wasn't even gonna try Best Buy.

I always go to bestbuy.com and put the DVDs I want into my cart, go through the process like I'm going to check out, and then check which stores in my area have things in stock (as if you were going to do a local pickup).

Thats not always 100% reliable. I've done that on a few occasions to see what is in stock only to go there and not find it or be told they are sold out.

 

[Matthew Chmiel]

My local Best Buy had all the Miyazaki DVDs in stock, but I was looking for Cube: Signature Series and Cube 2: Hypercube instead. Best Buy had no copies of each. So I walked next door to Borders. No copies of the Cube DVDs either. So then I went to Circuit City, and like always, they have shit.

Then I went to Tower Records and they had both on sale (Cube for $14.99 and Cube 2 for $19.99). Tower was selling out of the DVDs pretty quick (all the people in front of me in line had copies in their hand), so if you want them, get them now as everybody wants them (that or maybe all the people who just went to Best Buy, Borders, and Circuit City and found no copies all just decided to go to Tower).

 

[Malcolm R]

Is that what is referred to as "The special animated short" under Disk #1 on the back cover?

That's the one.

 

[DeborahK]

That is the question, isn't it? And I have asked it myself here, not so long ago. When S3 BUFFY came out, Los Angeles Best Buy stores basically didn't have any. One BB I visited said they had ordered plenty, but only got 30 copies which were all sold in the first hour they were open. The other stores I checked said they never got any copies. After trying to get it from them for about two weeks -- with no luck -- I just gave up and ordered on-line.

So, if anyone can explain this, I would love to hear how this happens. It's not like the people who manufacture these things haven't know for months how many orders they had to fill. This pretty much soured me on B&M stores for any big releases. I am not driving around madly after work on another Tuesday trying to find something. If the stores do not have what I want on the Saturday of release week, I will just order on-line.

Deborah

 

[John Berggren]

I will say this on behalf of Best Buy regarding Buffy:

TV on DVD is a fairly new concept. New enough that their growing "TV on DVD" section has only been around several months. Since boxed sets, even reasonably priced ones like Buffy, carry a large risk, they order conservatively.

I think when they see that 30 sell out in an hour that season 4 will see a much larger initial order. However, you'd think that they'd learn that lesson from season 2 to season 3 instead.

I'd be more floored that they only had 5 copies left of Spirited Away if Disney had actually done any serious promotion on the title theatrically or on DVD.

 

[Andrea W]

If you're buying the three Miyazaki titles, don't buy them all at the same time. I did only to find a coupon inside each for $2 off either of the other two. Damn it. Buy one, go through the line, open it up, get the coupon, buy the others.

 

[Andrea W]

Thats not always 100% reliable. I've done that on a few occasions to see what is in stock only to go there and not find it or be told they are sold out.

I believe the online (web) system only reflects what the inventory is at the start of the day (same as the computers in the store). It's happened to me before too. I'll ask them to check the inventory at the other stores, and they'll tell me how many they had when the store opened.

 

[DeborahK]

John,

What you say would make sense if these Best Buy stores hadn't ordered adequate numbers of the BUFFY release, but the stores all said they had done so! They just did not receive what they ordered. It was the same week that Road to Perdition came out (or perhaps it was another big picture release -- can't remember) and the sales clerk at one store told me that they had not received a single copy, despite having ordered hundreds of them. They were just as frustrated as I was and I cannot think of an explanation for there being a shortage of any of these things. That is what is so mysterious.

Deborah

 

[Roger_C]

FYI-Target has The Transporter for $14.99

 

[Malcolm R]

Well, I took a chance and made the trek to Best Buy...and they had all four Ghibli titles! Though they did have noticably fewer copies of "Kiki" than the others. I assume everyone's checking for these in the Anime section (not the kids section)?

My Best Buy has also started setting up folding tables near the cash registers with copies of all the new release/sale items stacked on them. Presumably, this allows people to skip in-and-out quickly just to buy the new releases without combing the shelves for a half-hour. There were copies of all except "Kiki" on this table (and only about 5 copies of Kiki on the Anime shelf).