Weekly RoundUp 3-22-2016

Thanks as usual for your had work, Mike, but one of those prices in particular is aggravating to me. (Not that this is your fault, and I appreciate your bringing it to our collective attention.)

Brooklyn for $13 at Target? REALLY? This streeted at $19.99 just last week. I bought two of them (one for me and one as a gift) from Amazon. While I understand that Blu-rays eventually go down in price, the fact that this title has been available for less than a week and is already being discounted well beyond its release date price is annoying. I hope Amazon matches Target's new price, because if they do I will initiate a discussion with customer service about getting a refund. That is not typically something that they do after a title has already been released, but especially since I bought two of them at $19.99 each, I feel like this is a special case and they should refund me. If I had dealt with Target in the first place, I would absolutely be asking them to adjust the price for me under these circumstances; as it is, I can only really ask that of Amazon if they follow Target's lead in dropping the price this quickly. We'll see what happens. I have bought 6 titles from Amazon already this month alone, and that doesn't count the 2 more I have on order for this coming week, so I am obviously a frequent customer to them and they can afford to do something to make sure I stay happy.

Anyway, on to this week's releases, and boy do I have stories about them, too....

You may remember that two years ago when Catching Fire was originally released, Best Buy had a combo deal on buying that film's steelbook alongside a new one for the original Hunger Games film for a discounted price point when bought together. I recall pointing this out in the Roundup as Mike had thought the steels were two separate covers for Catching Fire, since the ad was misleading...and, it turned out I was correct...but it wasn't as nice of a deal as it seemed to be when I pointed this out, and I almost instantly regretted the purchase.

Since I did not own the original Hunger Games at that time, I went ahead and scooped up what I thought was a considerable deal...only to realize after I opened it that the original film's steelbook did not include the bonus disc that was standard on every other version of the film...but Best Buy refused to take it back because I had opened it (even though there was no indication on the box that the bonus features were omitted, so you HAD to open it to find out you were being gyped.) Also, the Catching Fire standard Blu-ray was a combo pack, and its steelbook was not. While the DVD was not terribly important to me, the fact that I paid more for the steelbook of the original film than I would have for the standard edition, with more bonus, did bother me. I put off replacing the steelbook with the standard edition, so never have seen the extras on the original film, and when Mockingjay Part 1 underwhelmed me last year, I put off buying it at all.

Now, my patience seems to have paid off. I unloaded both steelbooks on a friend who already has the missing extras on the standard release, but wanted the steel anyway, and I am now buying the complete collection box set, which will replace the fist two for me, give me the extras from the first film for the first time, and be my first/only purchase of the two Mockingjay films. $49.99 isn't cheap, but when considering that the new film would be $19.99 on its own, that essentially makes the three previous ones $10 each, and that's okay. I'm plucking down the money now and do not anticipate ever having to make another purchase for these films for myself ever again (unless perhaps I eventually get into 4K, but even that seems unlikely for me in my present circumstances.) So, Amazon has my order in for the big set and that's going to be that.

I would, however, like to "congratulate" Lionsgate on managing to gyp fans on the complete collection, too. Target's exclusive bonus content for the previous three films is included in the collection, but the new stuff they have for Mockingjay 2 is not there, so the obvious solution to that would have been to also bundle that disc with Target's copies of the big set. But Target does not have an exclusive on the big box, so that means, technically, if you wanted to have every last shred of bonus material ever released you would need to buy both the complete collection (which has some new bonus features exclusive to it) AND Target's special edition of Mockingjay 2. I'm not going to do that, so will get the big set and live without the 45 minutes of extra content...but it is a classy way to treat what should be the series' definitive release. Or not.

Lastly, I am planning to gift the new Mockingjay 2 DVD to a friend for their upcoming birthday. As they do not live near me, I decided to buy that via Amazon also and have it shipped directly to them rather than shipping it to myself and having to pay postage. I ordered the gift a while back, when it should have qualified for release date delivery, but added a gift message last night. Even though the item had not entered the shipping process at all yet, the simple act of changing the message on the receipt has also changed the estimated delivery date, to Thursday, rather than release-date delivery of Tuesday. My friend is not likely to know or care, but I still think that this is extremely odd, considering that I did not make an adjustment to the item itself, and I have been able to order other things with release date delivery at a later point than I changed the gift receipt on this. At this point, if I wanted to ensure release date delivery, I could do so by kicking in another $2.99+tax, but that's nuts.

(Comparatively, last week, I was able to place an additional order for Brooklyn as a gift at 1:30am on Monday morning local time, and then I went to bed, and it had shopped by the time I woke up, and arrived to that friend on the release date of Tuesday, without me paying any kind of premium on it.)

So, basically, I can't figure Amazon's logistics out...how simply changing the receipt message a few days ahead of shipping time is enough to delay one package by two days, but another package may b ordered at the absolute last moment and still get there on the first day.

Just strange.

Thanks as always, Mike. Just the last Hunger Games movie for me. I'll be going to Target, since I have all of the earlier Blu-Rays in the DVD-size case Target exclusive packaging, and it'll look weird to have just this one in a Blu-Ray size case.

At $13, Brooklyn might get an impulse buy from me when I'm there Thursday. Of course, if it's fallen that much in a week, who's to say it won't fall even more in the weeks to come.

That $60 price tag for the "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 1 Blu-Ray is outrageous! It's only a six episode season. Is it an Amazon exclusive? If so, these astronomical prices are what we have to look forward to when Amazon finally kills off the remaining brick & mortar stores.

I'll be picking The Hunger Games and maybe Freak And Geeks.

Thanks for the prices, Mike!

Adam Lenhardt said:

That $60 price tag for the "Fear the Walking Dead" Season 1 Blu-Ray is outrageous!

Click to expand...

You're being too kind. It's a nice but fairly standard set in terms of extras and given the small amount of episodes, I'd be hard pressed to even pay half the price being charged. The good thing is that it's an Anchor Bay title so it'll eventually have a significant drop in price when it's on sale. It might be at the end of the upcoming run of new episodes, it might be during Comic Con or it might be when the second half of the season starts but I'll wait forever before spending $60 on it.

Thanks for the prices, Mike.

I have already reviewed the Perry Mason Movie Collection: Volume 5 and it can be found here. Nothing else on the list is in my review column for the week, but I'm still anticipating last week's Twilight Time releases.

An update to the various sagas in my original post:

As I expected they would, Amazon matched Target's new price on Brooklyn, so I contacted their customer support people. I was told they would honor the price drop up to 7 days after the delivery date, so I was issued the refund as gift card balance. (It doesn't matter to me that they couldn't put it back on my card, because I buy often enough from them anyway that I can just apply the balance to another pending order.) It sounds to me like this is a policy, which I wasn't aware of before, so if that's the case this should also work for anybody else that bought Brooklyn from Amazon last week....but you'll probably have to ask for it.

Also: they upgraded the shipping of the gift Mockingjay 2 DVD from two-day to one-day at no charge so that it will still be delivered on Tuesday (which is what it should have been all along, since I placed the order a long time ago.)

Mike, do you throw movies like Cyborg Hookers in just to see if we're paying attention? We are!

Guess I'll pick up Brooklyn and Creed this week.

Also who is seeing Fear the Walking Dead for more than $35 at Target.

Thanks for the weekly Herculean effort Mike Like others, I will be picking up Brooklyn and Creed from Target and Mockingjay Pt 2 steelbook from BB unless it does not have the 5 hours bonus disc.

Amazon price match Brooklyn so far. I'll probably pick up Creed from Target if Amazon doesn't price match it.

Jake Lipson said:

An update to the various sagas in my original post:

As I expected they would, Amazon matched Target's new price on Brooklyn, so I contacted their customer support people. I was told they would honor the price drop up to 7 days after the delivery date, so I was issued the refund as gift card balance. (It doesn't matter to me that they couldn't put it back on my card, because I buy often enough from them anyway that I can just apply the balance to another pending order.) It sounds to me like this is a policy, which I wasn't aware of before, so if that's the case this should also work for anybody else that bought Brooklyn from Amazon last week....but you'll probably have to ask for it.

Click to expand...

Me too!

Al.Anderson said:

Mike, do you throw movies like Cyborg Hookers in just to see if we're paying attention? We are!

Click to expand...

D'uh! Yeah! And don't try to tell me you aren't going to be ordering it this week!

Robert Crawford said:

Amazon price match Brooklyn so far. I'll probably pick up Creed from Target if Amazon doesn't price match it.

Click to expand...

Since they haven't yet, I'll probably be at Target, too!

Mike Frezon said:

Since they haven't yet, I'll probably be at Target, too!

Click to expand...

Strange, they price matched Black Mass and even have War Room lower than Target.

Robert Crawford said:

and even have War Room lower than Target.

Click to expand...

Thanks for THAT, Robert! Ordered.

War Room is $11.99 @ Amazon right now.

Brooklyn for $13 even at Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Brooklyn-us-B...=UTF8&qid=1458568698&sr=8-2&keywords=brooklyn

At some point I will be getting Mockingjay II...but I don't need it right now. Just like the other movies in the series, this one will be under $10 around Black Friday.

I did grab Arrow S3 on Friday for $14.99. Almost snagged Flash and Gotham, but I doubt there's much replay value for me.

Thanks Mike!

Mike Frezon said:

Al.Anderson said:

Mike, do you throw movies like Cyborg Hookers in just to see if we're paying attention? We are!

Click to expand...

D'uh! Yeah! And don't try to tell me you aren't going to be ordering it this week!

Click to expand...

Depends on if the Cyborgs are self aware or not...

FWIW, I remember Target put their 3-disc exclusive of the first Hunger Games movie on sale for $14.99 on Black Friday the year it came out.

Also FWIW, Mockingjay Part 2 is really great.

Jason_V said:

I did grab Arrow S3 on Friday for $14.99. Almost snagged Flash and Gotham, but I doubt there's much replay value for me.

Click to expand...

I'm the same way. I collect "Arrow" on Blu-Ray, and will collect "Supergirl" on Blu-Ray. But while I enjoy "The Flash" when it airs, I feel no need to revisit it. I'm sure "Gotham" looks beautiful on Blu-Ray, but there's too much bad weighing down the good on that show.

This morning while out getting some gas, I stopped by Target around the corner and picked up Creed for $13.00 minus 5% and plus 6% sales tax.

Has anyone purchased the 3D Mockingjay (http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Hunger-Games-Mockingjay-Blu-ray/dp/B0193IQJKO?ie=UTF8&keywords=mockingjay%202%203d&qid=1458792970&ref_=sr_1_1&s=dvd&sr=1-1)?

If so is it region B only or will it play on standard US players (specifically PS3)?