Weekly RoundUp 11-2-2010 (1 Viewer)

[Aaron Silverman]

Dave, I hope the movie brings back a lot of wonderful memories. I'm awfully sorry for your loss.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

According to dvd beaver, the rudolph blu is region A locked .

 

[terry deto]

Originally Posted by Aaron Silverman

Never seen Chitty Chitty Bang Bang either, although I doubt my wife would like it. My son might, though. What say y'all?


This is weird. . .my Gold Box included SOM and a couple of other discs a little while ago, and now it's changed to completely different products!

your wife and kids should love it. By the way it was written by Ian Fleming. Features a fantastical car and stars the bad guy from which bond film?



Goldfinger

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Terry, I can guarantee, sight unseen, that I would like that movie more than my wife would.

 

[Mike Frezon]

[COLOR= rgb(255, 0, 0)][SIZE= 48px]Attention Target Shoppers![/COLOR][/SIZE]


I have just returned from my Target stores and I bring a warning. My store did NOT automatically deduct $5 from the combined purchase of The Sound of Music ($19.99) and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang ($19.99). I had to go to the manager and pore over the receipt and Sunday flyer. It was particular vexing for the poor guy as the receipt noted how I had saved $5 on CCBB (as it was originally $24.99). While he was sure that note accounted for my $5 savings I assured him (and pointed out that) that if I could buy each title separately for $19.99, where does the $5 savings come in for buying them together? In frustration--because the Target system does not apparently allow for manual overrides--he gave me coupons for store credit (totalling $6!) to make up the difference.


It turned into a very good outing for me, however--besides the extra $1!


I purchased Toy Story 3 ($24.99), TSoM ($19.99), and CCBB ($19.99). Total expense $64.97.


Minus the $8 TS 3 MFR. Coupon, $5 CCBB Mfr. Coupon, $2 TSoM Mfr. Coupon. Bringing the expense to $49.97.


Minus the $6 in target Coupons I got...$43.97.


But when I was itemizing/double-checking the receipt, I found that somehow the $8 TS3 coupon was deducted twice. I carefully watched the coupons rung up and know it wsn't scanned twice...so I have no idea how that happened. But it brought my final total for the three BD Combo Packs to $35.97!


The breakdown of final price was $8.99 for the 4-disc Toy Story 3! $11.99 for CCBB! And, $14.99 for TSoM (which is playing on my system right now and looks/sounds beautiful!


This marks one of the single biggest new release day purchases for me in a while. And, i'm sure I'll be getting Bridge Over the River Kwai sometime down the road.

 

[JoeBond]

For those who are interested, Wal-mart is carrying The Sound of Music, The Bridge on the River Kwai, and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for $20 each. Since I have an employee discount card I bought The Sound of Music and The Bridge on the River Kwai for $38.70 with tax. I was quite surprised that Wal-mart had more than 20 copies of The Sound of Music and had it displayed with Toy Story 3 which reflects just how popular the movie is. Wal-Mart.com has already sold out of copies of the Blu-ray of The Sound of Music Blu-ray and the 45th Anniversary soundtrack.

 

[pitchman]

Originally Posted by Len Berkoski

Anyone know the price of TS3 at Toys R Us? I did the pre-order for Beauty and Beast.

$34.99


I took my receipt and pre-order form back to Toys-R-Us and they cheerfully refunded my $5 that I then used to buy TS3 at the Target across the street for $11.99 (using the $8 DMR coupon).

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Just picked up the BDs of TSoM, CCBB and TS3 w/ coupons and combo discount at Target as well. Yeah, I had to make sure all the discounts got taken off too, but it was relatively hassle-free since I went in prepared for it during their slow business, night hour.

Gonna see about getting a deposit refund from TRU on my TS3 preorder some time in the next few days...

_Man_

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

Originally Posted by David Norman

Adam, if you are interested in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the coupons.com site just posted a $5 coupon.

Hate for you to have to go back to the store however, but it it's close enough by ....
Combined with the CCBB + SOM extra $5 discount it makes an awfully nice first week deal.

That is a great deal, but this month is brutal enough that I have to triage and while CCBB is a fun film, I simply don't see the repeat viewings to justify it like I did with SOM. I really appreciate you bringing it to my attention, though.


Love the look and sturdiness of the Target SOM, but the cardboard tabs that hold the discs in place are just about useless. Be very careful to keep the packaging upright if you bought the Target version.

 

[pitchman]

Originally Posted by Adam Lenhardt /forum/thread/305417/weekly-roundup-11-2-2010/30#post_3746566

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

Aye, the TSoM extra features disc that's stored in the fan-out page fell out of mine as soon as I opened the thing. They probably needed to design it w/ large, fold-up tabs (maybe positioned in offset angle) to hold the discs in place, particularly for times when you open and close the book -- this is especially true of the fan-out page.


Considering how much wear my family will likely put on TSoM packaging, I will probably just store either the main feature BD or the DVD separately in another case for them to use most times and keep that disc in the "kiddie" section of my collection -- they actually have their own cabinet for those.


Still, this is probably nowhere near as bad as the absolutely awful BTTF packaging(!).


The digi-book is quite nice otherwise although some of the images (mainly the daylight outdoor shots from the film up in the hills) are very soft. Not sure why since it seems that not all the shots taken from the film are soft -- I wouldn't have expected daylight shots to be softer than nighttime shots anyway. Maybe those soft images are cropped blow-ups (possibly from the down-rezzed 1080p BD master) that needed much greater enlargement than the rest -- and I'm sure at least some of the others were actual still photographs (and probably did not need as much cropping and enlargement).


Hmmm... does the regular TSoM BD come w/ a separate insert booklet instead (maybe w/ the same images)?


_Man_

 

[Aaron Silverman]

What do you guys think of the Target bonus book? Is it worth dealing with the crappy packaging, or is it more of a thumb-through-once-and-forget-it kinda thing?

 

[ManW_TheUncool]

I thought the digi-book is quite nice (as I mentioned above) apart from the actual disc storage issue (mainly w/ the fan-out part where I find the disc always falls out when I open that part to get at either the DVD or the extra features BD). That and a few images taken from the daylight hill top scenes are very soft looking -- seems like they also applied loads of DNR on those still images, much like the front cover image (but w/out the accompanying sharp edges).


I say just store the DVD separately and use a little care in opening/closing the digi-book, and you'd probably be fine enough. BDs are generally much more scratch/scuff resistant than DVDs anyway, so even if you drop one on occasion, it's not as bad -- and the full disc contact w/ the disc holding page might not be so great for a DVD either. If you plan to just store all the discs separately from the digi-book instead, then I'm not sure how often you'd actually bother to go back to look at it.


Also, aside from the poorly designed tabs that don't keep the discs in place all that well, this digi-book takes a bit more after the Alien Anthology one (near as I can tell) than w/ the ones you typically see from Warner because it doesn't use the glued-on, out-of-place looking hard plastic disc tray/holder that Warner's digi-books use. And instead, it also seems to use heavier paper stock to yield similar final thickness of the digi-book. FWIW, the book cover also has a glossier top coating than Warner's typical digi-book.


_Man_

 

[Malcolm R]

The local Walmart had TS3 combo pack for $29.99. So even with the $8 coupon, it was still more expensive than the regular priced 2-disc blu ($19.99). I passed, as I don't really need the extra discs and assume I'll probably find even better deals on the title as the holidays approach.

 

[dpippel]

Both Target and Best Buy are selling the combo pack for $24.99.

 

[Malcolm R]

Originally Posted by dpippel

Both Target and Best Buy are selling the combo pack for $24.99.

The closest Target is 100 miles; the closest Best Buy is 50 miles. It's not worth the gas.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Malcolm R

The closest Target is 100 miles; the closest Best Buy is 50 miles. It's not worth the gas.

That also explains why the Wal Mart near you is charging $30 and the one near me which has the competition of a Target and Best Buy within 5 miles is charging $25.

 

[dpippel]

Originally Posted by Malcolm R

The closest Target is 100 miles; the closest Best Buy is 50 miles. It's not worth the gas.

I of course didn't know that. I was just passing along some info in case you weren't aware of the lower prices.

 

[Mike Frezon]

Where Malcolm lives there are more cows than there are people.


And...he lives in the more urban part of his state!

 

[dpippel]

Sounds like Wyoming.