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Printer-Friendly ModeNew DVDs offer surprising savings
December 4, 2006 —
Once upon a time, there was a magical store in the Fashion Square Mall named Suncoast. It wasn't magical in the sense that it was inhabited by pixies or wizards. Okay, it wasn't magical at all. But it was filled with movies - glorious movies.
There were shelves upon shelves of DVDs (and a small section of VHS tapes for those unfortunate few souls who still preferred their home cinema rewindable). And in this magical - I mean, non-magical - store, one could walk home with any one of these precious DVDs for merely $29.99, plus the requisite six percent Michigan sales tax.
Sadly, Suncoast is now just a big, empty room in our mall - or maybe it turned into a jewelry store or that place that sells Great Lakes Loons propaganda, I don't know for sure. Regardless, there has not been a Suncoast in Saginaw for some time now.
Having said all of that, I never really liked Suncoast, and I never shopped there. They were way overpriced, if that aforementioned $30 price tag didn't tip you off to that fact.
Since the introduction of DVDs, I have done all of my movie shopping at Best Buy. I developed a sort of system where I would buy movies the week of their release, and this allowed me to save $3 on I Heart Huckabees while it was on sale, as well as enjoy a number of other discounts on other delightful movies.
Well, I stopped buying DVDs for a while because I realized that I have only watched I Heart Huckabees once since I bought it and hadn't even seen it before I brought it home from the store. I figured I was getting a little crazy with my dolla dolla bills, y'all.
But recently I had the urge to buy a scary movie because I'm a sucker for movies that absolutely suck.
So I went to Best Buy to get Cabin Fever, a movie that isn't even scary and therefore does not match the description of the kind of movie I went to the store to purchase in the first place. But I found it on the shelf and was shocked to see, on a little yellow sticker, the price $6.99. I couldn't help but wonder out loud, "When did DVDs become so damn cheap?"
I browsed the other aisles at Best Buy and discovered that recent movies like Win a Date With Tad Hamilton and In Good Company (both of which coincidentally star That 70's Show alum Topher Grace) were also priced below $10.
For a moment I thought that maybe only movies featuring has-been sitcom stars were selling for less than a Quizno's Smokehouse Beef Brisket sandwich, but then I noticed that Little Monsters was an unreasonable $12.99.
Still, we've come a long way since the days of the Columbia House DVD club, where if you purchase five DVDs at $35 each, you can enjoy three more free. I won't even think about buying movies through the mail anymore - even used DVDs from half.com. Heck, the shipping alone is nearly half of what I paid for Cabin Fever (and I don't think that is why they named it half.com).
So while I rediscover the lost love of buying movies I don't need or want, I will now also wonder why the price of CDs doesn't seem to be decreasing. I mean, come on - $14.99 for a Sponge CD? You've got to be kidding.