I feel as if I were grading this week's RoundUp, I'd give it a grade of "incomplete."

Due to the ongoing Disney/Amazon "feud" and Best Buy's unwillingness to post prices for many of this week's releases, there are a lot of question marks.

But thanks for showing up anyway...and thanks, in advance, for any "likes" this week...and a great big THANK YOU for all the likes in past weeks. Each and every one is appreciated.

I'll blind buy GoG: V2 somehow/somewhere this week. I already picked up Barton Fink from the UK.

Enjoy the eclipse Monday!

I already have Barton Fink, too. I will probably pick up Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on UHD at some point after it drops in price. I may rent it first, though.

Thank you for your work, Mike...especially considering how difficult Amazon and Best Buy insist on making it for you.

It should be noted that Amazon kindly dropped the price of Whale Rider to $12.58, vs. the $18.73 you listed when you put the grid together. I love that movie, but as it was low-budget and 15 years old, I'm not really sure that it demands a Blu upgrade over my old DVD right away. The price is good, but I might wait on reviews of it.

The main attraction for me this week is Guardians Vol. 2, which is still one of my favorite movies of the year-to-date, and I can't wait to get it. Like a lot of other people, I would order that from Amazon if they'd get over their little pissing contest with Disney. As is, I'm not sure where I'll get it from, but no store is making a compelling case as far as exclusives. I don't need the steelbook on this one, especially at that price, and Target's "digital bonus content" lost me at the word "digital."

Wal-Mart also has an exclusive edition, but the only thing that's different from the website listing is the cover art, which I'm guessing is probably a slipcover, and I have no need for that.

So I'll just go for the basic edition from wherever.

Scott Merryfield said:

I already have Barton Fink, too. I will probably pick up Guardians of the Galaxy 2 on UHD at some point after it drops in price. I may rent it first, though.

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Renting it would probably make sense for me, too. To be honest, I remember very little about Vol. 1.

I'm starting to find many of the recent spate of "Action/Comic" flicks are pretty forgettable. Kick-Ass and Deadpool two notable exceptions. And I think I remember thinking that GoG was pretty cool, too...but can't remember.

However, I REALLY can't remember the last time I rented a home video. Not kidding. I've never used a RedBox and there are no other rental opportunities near me. The last Blockbuster closed a couple years ago. Even then, I was only stopping there to look into the potential purchase of any USED discs.

Thanks, Mike! My $0.02 and my opinion only: consider dropping Best Buy from the WRU if it's a hassle. I venture to guess that a significant portion of HTFers no longer regularly buy there anymore. The very, very few times I've actually been in store the past two years it is obvious that their home video section is little more than an afterthought.

Nothing for me this week. I need to save up after all these sales we have had!

I'm definitely picking up Ash Vs. Evil Dead: Season Two (it's TV sickest and funniest show!). At some point, I'll get Barton Fink, Sid And Nancy and The Walking Dead: S7.

Thanks for the prices, Mike!

I agree with Steve and said as much last week. If Best Buy is going to make it hard for you, or us, to determine what their prices are, they don't deserve to be included. Dump them!

I haven't rented a disc in probably five years, but I will do a streaming rental every once in a while, particularly if it's an older title (like Anastasia with Ingrid Bergman, for example.)

If you haven't seen the first Guardians since the theater, I would recommend a rewatch before Vol. 2. You could understand Vol. 2 on its own, but one of the things that I really appreciated about it is that it very much continues the story from the first one and builds on that in terms of character development, which is not always the case with Marvel sequels. Despite the fact that "it's all connected" and the MCU is the biggest overarching series cinema has probably ever had, a lot of their films feel like just another adventure with whichever character it is, and don't always take much from previous installments into the new one.

That's not the case with Guardians at all, as James Gunn really made an obvious effort to make the story progress naturally forward from the first one. So, you'd probably like it on its own, but you'll like them better together than apart.

Thanks for the RoundUp, Mike, and for including the links to reviews.

I have nothing else on tap to review from this week's list, but some of last week's releases haven't arrived yet for review, and I already have three things here for the following week, the first of which will be reviewed tomorrow.

Mike Frezon said:

I feel as if I were grading this week's RoundUp, I'd give it a grade of "incomplete."

Due to the ongoing Disney/Amazon "feud" and Best Buy's unwillingness to post prices for many of this week's releases, there are a lot of question marks.

But thanks for showing up anyway...and thanks, in advance, for any "likes" this week...and a great big THANK YOU for all the likes in past weeks. Each and every one is appreciated.

I'll blind buy GoG: V2 somehow/somewhere this week. I already picked up Barton Fink from the UK.

Enjoy the eclipse Monday!

Click to expand...

Thanks, as usual, Mike! It's worth noting the link, and price in the table above for Ash Vs Evil Dead s2 on Amazon above is actually from the s1 set. The actual Amazon price for s2 is $25.99.

https://www.amazon.com/Ash-Evil-Dead-Season-Blu-ray/dp/B072MPKRLF/ref=pd_bxgy_74_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=NKP5E0V0AFPJQ5EYEG74

Mike Frezon said:

Renting it would probably make sense for me, too. To be honest, I remember very little about Vol. 1.

I'm starting to find many of the recent spate of "Action/Comic" flicks are pretty forgettable. Kick-Ass and Deadpool two notable exceptions. And I think I remember thinking that GoG was pretty cool, too...but can't remember.

However, I REALLY can't remember the last time I rented a home video. Not kidding. I've never used a RedBox and there are no other rental opportunities near me. The last Blockbuster closed a couple years ago. Even then, I was only stopping there to look into the potential purchase of any USED discs.

Click to expand...

I have been using streaming services such as Vudu and Amazon for renting. I have not rented a physical Disc in several years, either.

Mike Frezon said:

Renting it would probably make sense for me, too. To be honest, I remember very little about Vol. 1.

I'm starting to find many of the recent spate of "Action/Comic" flicks are pretty forgettable. Kick-Ass and Deadpool two notable exceptions. And I think I remember thinking that GoG was pretty cool, too...but can't remember.

However, I REALLY can't remember the last time I rented a home video. Not kidding. I've never used a RedBox and there are no other rental opportunities near me. The last Blockbuster closed a couple years ago. Even then, I was only stopping there to look into the potential purchase of any USED discs.

Click to expand...

It might be time to shift to streaming movies you just want to see without owning them.

Must. Get. With. The. Times.

As I've said on a number of occasions across the forum, the only streaming I ever do is through my Plasma "Smart TV" which has the app for MLB and I watch some baseball games that way.

I totally don't appreciate all that which the streaming services have to offer.

Mike Frezon said:

Must. Get. With. The. Times.

As I've said on a number of occasions across the forum, the only streaming I ever do is through my Plasma "Smart TV" which has the app for MLB and I watch some baseball games that way.

I totally don't appreciate all that which the streaming services have to offer.

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Mike,

Even with my extensive disc collection I own three Roku units and three AppleTV units. One of each for all three of my HT setups in my household.

Robert Crawford said:

Mike,

Even with my extensive disc collection I own three Roku units and three AppleTV units. One of each for all three of my HT setups in my household.

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We have Roku devices on each of our four TV's in the house, plus I can also stream via my Sony UHD player and Vizio 4K display. I only stream three channels in the main home theater -- Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, and NHL.tv. Two of the Rokus also have the Comcast Xfinity app installed, saving us monthly cable box rental fees.

Mike, renting films via streaming is quite convenient, and the video and audio quality can be very good -- although not quite as good as a BD or UHD disc. It's an easy way to watch films where you don't want to make a blind purchase.

Scott Merryfield said:

We have Roku devices on each of our four TV's in the house, plus I can also stream via my Sony UHD player and Vizio 4K display. I only stream three channels in the main home theater -- Amazon Prime Video, Vudu, and NHL.tv. Two of the Rokus also have the Comcast Xfinity app installed, saving us monthly cable box rental fees.

Mike, renting films via streaming is quite convenient, and the video and audio quality can be very good -- although not quite as good as a BD or UHD disc. It's an easy way to watch films where you don't want to make a blind purchase.

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True, but they've come a long way improving the video stream since the first time I started streaming and downloading stuff several years ago. It's still not up to par with actual discs, but it's a lot closer now than back then.

Robert Crawford said:

True, but they've come a long way improving the video stream since the first time I started streaming and downloading stuff several years ago. It's still not up to par with actual discs, but it's a lot closer now than back then.

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I definitely agree -- the quality of streaming has really improved, enough so that I have no qualms in watching newer films this way. I have 2-3 UHD titles on Vudu from redeemed UV codes, and I was pleasantly surprised at how good they looked with 4K and Dolby Vision (I was calibrating my display's Dolby Vision picture settings). Even "lowly" HDX encodes look very good, as long as they come from a quality transfer -- Seven Brides For Seven Brothers still doesn't look very good in HDX on Vudu, for example.

Interesting and thanks Mike for the Round-up. I was confused this week after seeing Robert Harris review the Guardians of the Galaxy 4k release. So I looked to Amazon to see if could pre-order it. Yes, I've been somewhat under a rock. As I recall, when Rogue One was released, there was no ability to buy from Amazon at the time. So I guess the same is true for GoG V2? That's too bad these big companies are having their little fights. I guess I'll stop by one of the retailers and buy it the old fashioned way.

Nelson Au said:

As I recall, when Rogue One was released, there was no ability to buy from Amazon at the time. So I guess the same is true for GoG V2?

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Yes, and the common denominator there is Disney. The last two Disney titles I was able to pre-order for release date delivery without incident were The BFG and Pete's Dragon, which both came out together last November 29.

This has impacted all new Disney releases since at least January of this year and shows no signs of slowing down, unfortunately. If you click over to the Blu-ray & UHD software forum, there is a lengthy thread on the subject.

Nelson Au said:

I guess I'll stop by one of the retailers and buy it the old fashioned way.

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I know what you mean. It seems like such a "last century" thing to do...

Robert Crawford said:

Even with my extensive disc collection I own three Roku units and three AppleTV units. One of each for all three of my HT setups in my household.

Click to expand...

Scott Merryfield said:

Mike, renting films via streaming is quite convenient, and the video and audio quality can be very good -- although not quite as good as a BD or UHD disc. It's an easy way to watch films where you don't want to make a blind purchase.

Click to expand...

The only reason I hesitate (because Roku devices don't seem all that expensive) is that I barely find enough time as-it-is to watch the content I'm interested-in on disc and on cable TV. And baseball season doesn't ever make things any easier!

But since I had never considered the idea of watching "rentals" via streaming, maybe it's something I should do.

Thanks, fellas.