Trip #1
Machete on Blu-Ray (New)
WWE Royal Rumble 2007 on DVD w/Blockbuster Exclusive Bonus Disc (Used)
WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011 for XBox 360 (Used)
I had been waiting a long time to get Machete on Blu-Ray at a decent price, and I think I got this one for like 30% off of $25, so that might be the closest I'd ever get to "cheap". I've never seen Machete on Blu-Ray for sale and I don't know why because, oddly enough, there are little to no bonus features save for BD-Live features. There's a Digital Copy which I'll probably never use but, unlike most Digital Copies, I believe there's no expiration date on it. Also, there's a few Deleted Scenes and the Robert Rodriguez-standard Audience Reaction Track recorded at the Alamo Drafthouse. And that's it! There's not even a 10 Minute Cooking School from Rodriguez, which he normally does for every movie, save for Planet Terror but people complained enough that it ended up returning for the Grindhouse Blu-Ray. So I never understood why it's never been on sale if there's barely anything else to the package other than the movie itself.
A weird tidbit about Blockbuster, they reached a deal with the WWE so that they would include exclusive bonus discs with event DVDs during 2007, featuring bonus matches from Raw and Smackdown. And since they were rental only, they had limited production and were pretty rare. I was able to get one (No Way Out 2007) during one of the previous Blockbuster closings but missed my chance to get more. So I made sure to snag Royal Rumble (one of my favorite WWE events), even though it didn't come with a cover for the case. And after looking at the listings for the other bonus discs, RR '07 actually had the most matches for its bonus disc.
Also, I was able to get a hold of WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2011 but, beyond making a random hot goth-y chick in Create-A-Wrestler mode, I haven't done anything else with it. I imagine if I want some quick wrestling action, I'd pop in WWE All-Stars.
Trip #1 Total = Under $40
Trip #2
Chocolate on Blu-Ray (Used)
The Good The Bad The Weird on Blu-Ray (Used)
Piranha on Blu-Ray (Used)
WWE One Night Stand 2007 w/Blockbuster Exclusive Bonus Disc (Used)
I waited for a few weeks for the discounts to go down and by this time, I think everything was about $5, both DVDs and Blu-Rays. All of the Blu-Rays I've purchased were of DVDs I already owned an have since traded away. Oddly enough, the only one of them I've watched so far is Chocolate. Blockbuster sticks all their Blu-Rays into standard DVD cases so for some strange reason, OCD or something, I want to put them in regular Blu-Ray cases so they'll fit in with the rest of my collection. But I only need them for those 3 and I see them in like packs of 10. I don't need that many.
As for ONS '07, it was the only remaining WWE/Blockbuster exclusive DVD left at that point. I did want to get Wrestlemania 23 as the bonus disc for that show had the ECW Originals/New Blood eight-man tag match from ECW a few days after that was way better than the actual match that took place at Wrestlemania.
Trip #2 Total = $25
Trip #3
The 3 Musketeers on DVD (Used)
Hellbinders on DVD (Used)
A few weeks later, I made another trip and by this time, any decent Blu-Ray I wanted was gone. I think the only Blu-Ray I would've wanted was Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, but I already had that. So I ended up getting two cheap-o straight-to-DVD movies.
The 3 Musketeers isn't what you might think it is. You may think of swashbuckling and horses and candy bars, but no. This version of the literary classic comes from The Asylum studios, makers of such movies as Mega Shark vs Giant Octopus and Mega Piranha or "knock-busters" like Transmorphers, Almighty Thor, Paranormal Entity or American
Since it's Asylum, it's cheapness kinda shows (reusing the same helicopter for multiple helicopter shots, shoddy CGI, etc) but I think it's real shortcomings comes in the casting. Save for the Asian Guy That Does Flips, I think everyone else was just friends of the director. The Butt-Kickin' Chick doesn't really kick a whole lot of butt and doesn't seem to be in fighting shape. In fact, she's kinda bony. And the hacker character is supposed to be a nerd, yet is played by arguably the most handsome actor in the entire cast (yes, including Baywatch's David Chokachi, who is also in this movie). And when Asian Guy That Does Flips gets in a fistfight near the end with one of the main villains, the actor playing the villain looks old enough to pass for Abe Vigoda, so seeing this kung fu guy get his ass handed to him in a fistfight by someone pushing 70 really threw me off. The only real casting plus here is that of D'Artagnan played by Heather Hemmens. She's young, plucky, fierce, fit, sexy, anything you could want in a young strong female lead and I'd like to see her in more stuff, Asylum or not.
I also got a movie called Hellbinders which isn't from the Asylum but may as well be. In fact, I think this movie was probably made for cheaper than the average Asylum film. I mostly got it for the cover alone and the stars, Ray Park (aka freakin' Darth Maul, Toad from X-Men, Snake Eyes from GI Joe) and Johnny Yong Bosch, who was once a Power Ranger. In fact, this movie kinda plays like a Power Rangers-esque action show for an older audience. Park plays a Guy Ritchie-esque mercenary who inadvertently triggers the beginning of the Devil's takeover of Earth during a routine deal (though it's supposed to be his "last deal" so you know something's gonna go wrong) and ends up teaming up with an overly-brooding samurai that hunts "oni" wearing black leather and guy-liner (Bosch) and a super-strong Templar Knight who has lived thousands of years to help keep the Devil at bay.
On one hand, the movie can be sort of a mess due to its low-budget. There's CGI blood and muzzle flares, for starters. But the premise and story does have promise. I do like how these different belief systems between the Templar Knight fighting the devil and the oni-hunting samurai really do mean that they're fighting the same evil. And the main evil is that these evil souls/oni can possess any other body after their host body has been killed, however Ray Park's character literally does not have a soul (he lost it during a prior near-death experience) and can't be possessed, until he's turned into a "Soul Cage" that can trap all these souls and eliminate them before the Devil can accumulate more. Ok, I know the plot kinda sounds like a mess but that's the best way I can describe it. I mostly just wanted to see it for the fights, and they're not bad. Bosch does most of the fight-work here as Park's character is restricted mostly towards being a gun-toting gangster, which is kinda disappointing. But still, for a low-budget movie, it was ambitious, had decent action and had a decent, if confusing, story that I'd like to see continued. They did leave it open for a sequel if it ever gets made but I'd almost like to see it as some form of webseries. I think it would work.
Trip #3 Total = $5
Trip #4
The Grand on DVD (Used)
Tony Hawk's American Wasteland for PS2 (Used)
This was my final trip, about a day or two before the store finally closed for good. Needless to say, there wasn't much left worth getting and everything was knocked down super-cheap, save for other non-movie stuff like posters or video game stuff, which never seemed to go down. I had my eye on the strategy guide to Dragon Age II but it never went lower than 10% off, which still made it like $20. No dice. I also wanted a Kim Kardashian poster and I was willing to pay $10 for it, but I wasn't exactly willing to be seen carrying it to my car.
Anyway, the only movie I could find to grab was The Grand, a predominantly improvised movie in the vein of the Christopher Guest films, but instead directed by Zak Penn, who mostly writes blockbuster comic book movies. The Grand is about a poker tournament with a cast including Woody Harrelson, David Cross, Chris Parnell, Dennis Farina, Cheryl Hines, Ray Romano and...Werner Herzog? Yep. And from what I read on IMDB, there were only about 20 pages of actual dialogue in the script, meaning that just about everything else was improv'd on set.
Plus, I decided to pick up Tony Hawk's American Wasteland since I traded in my Collector's Edition copy a while ago back when I used Goozex. I don't know if I'll dust off my PS2 anytime soon to play it but I consider Wasteland to be the last "good" Tony Hawk game. Most other gamers will probably stop at Pro Skater 3 or 4 or maybe Underground at the latest. But I stayed with the franchise up until Wasteland and enjoyed myself the whole time. But that was mostly because I was still playing on a last-gen system and by the time they were putting out Project 8 or Proving Ground on the current generation, the PS2 ports were an afterthought and sucked horribly. Then Ride and Shred came along and kinda closed the lid on the Tony Hawk franchise...at least until the downloadable version combining the first two games comes out soon.
Trip #4 Total = $1.50
There you go. Not really that big of a haul but I did get four Blu-Rays, five DVDs and two video games for like $70 overall, so that's not too bad. Honestly, I had a bigger haul elsewhere after Trip #3, where I went to the Best Buy across the street where they were having a sale on select WWE Blu-Rays and managed to snag the Best of Smackdown 2009-2010, Best PPV Matches of 2009-2010 and Royal Rumble 2012 for $25 total.
Before I wrap this up, I want to let you in on some potentially big news. I've been out of podcasting for a while now but recently made my return on an edition of the Smart Ass Podcast, formerly the Steve Wherry Comedy Podcast, which you can listen to here.
However, that's not even the big news. While still it's still early and the site is still under construction (though you can visit it), we have plans to expand the Smart Ass Podcast into something bigger, possibly its own network of podcasts. If that's the case, there may be a good possibility that I may have a podcast (or two) of my own to talk about. Stay tuned for news as it comes. Until then, make sure to like the Smart Ass Podcast on Facebook.
Finally, I want to plug the Humble Indie Bundle as I've never seen a bundle of games as packed as this. I'm not a huge PC gamer and I'm not even sure my PC can run some of the games in the bundle but I bought it almost immediately. You not only get Amnesia: The Dark Descent, Limbo, Bastion and Psychonauts but also Bastion if you pay more than the average (which is currently sitting at under $8, which is what I personally paid), not to mention soundtracks for all five games! And considering these are some of the best indie games ever, they're worth plunking down money even if the money didn't already go to charity.
So that's probably what I'll be doing until I have something worth writing about again. Nash out.
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