Tuesday, January 17, 2006

How to build up your DVD collection on a budget...

If you live in the UK, the answer is simple - buy the weekend newspapers.
For the last few years, the National press in the UK has been offering (and competing with other papers in the scale of what they are offering) various 'free gifts' ranging from CD's of unsigned music acts and PC Game demos through to double CD sets of 'classic' music by big name stars to full length DVD's of older films.
Some in the media thought that this trend would die down, especially as Rupert Murdoch, the head of News International (which owns The Times, The Sun and The News of The World - all of which have issued more than their fair share of CD's and DVD's in the last few years!)announced that he didn't like the giveaways - an item in The Independent last weekend (which itself gave away two 'Arthouse' film DVD's) noted that the average cost to the newspaper per DVD was 30p - a lot, given the cover price of the papers range from 40p to £1.60, and especially considering that the freebies don't encourage a lot of brand loyalty - many people (including me) just buy the paper that has the freebie they want, and don't bother whn there is no freebie.
However, in just the first three wees of 2006, there have been 7 Movie DVD's, 4 'Classic TV Show' DVD's and a couple of audio CD's (and that is not including the discs where one has to redeem a coupon from a weekday newspaper - there are two offers of this sort running at the moment that I am aware of!) with more to come next weekend (The new, Berliner sized Observer is offering "Dune" on Sunday, and the aforementioned News of The World is apparently going to have "Highlander" on the same day - two cult favourite SF themed movies competing against each other!)
I set up, just for something to do, a webpage 'gallery' of the DVD's I had received - so far, I've only put up the Film DVD's I've found in newspapers, though I plan to add sections for TV Show discs and music CD's. I didn't think I'd be updating it very often - but it looks like it's going to be a weekly revision from now on!
(there is a link to the page in the subject of this entry!)
Au Res.,
Paul

Sunday, January 01, 2006

New Year and Springtime...

A Very Happy New Year to anyone who is actually reading this blog (I exclude those twits who spam the comments area!)
Hope everyone had a great Christmas/Hanukah/whatever. I had a quiet time - stayed with family, opened presents etc. Saw "The Producers" at the local cinema, and so more or less finished the year as I started it (I went to the West End stage show version on New Years Day last year!) I can recommend it, though fans of the original classic (mostly) non-musical film will have to put their memories of that to one side - this, although sharing much of the same plot and sets, is a different film and should be watched as such.
I enjoyed it, though it IS a little stagy (can't really be helped in a flim based on a stage show about stage shows!) and there are some first rate performances from the cast. A little tip - if you go to see it, wait until the very end of the credits (which feature two musical numbers not in the film and a very silly 'version' of one of the songs that IS in there!) for a fun little bit.
Au Res.,
Paul