I’ve got a bit of an obsessive compulsive issue when it comes to DVDs and Blu-rays. I’m one of those suckers who will get caught every so often in a double-dip if I’m not paying attention. If I am being observant, I’m the guy who waits four extra months to get a disc with some special features attached. I really dug Transformers 3 and wanted to watch it again, but I’ll be damned if I was going to buy a disc with no extras on it! The issue that has my panties all aflame this week is all about special features and the lack thereof. Oh, most discs today come with some special features on them, but the “featurette” has become the bane of my existence. It used to just be what they called small extras on the disc, but now they’ve really emphasized the -ette, meaning mini, small, or useless.

Hollywood is a business. A big business. A ten billion dollar box office per year kind of business. While that is an impressive number, you also have to remember that I said “box office,” which is ignoring the home video market. If you include direct sales only, that’s another $5 billion. I swore that I would never do math again after college, so I’m not going to bother with rentals and licenses and all that shit. Suffice it to say, Hollywood is a big business. And they want to be bigger, like all businesses. Enter the shady world of rehashing. The repeated raping of your wallet. There was a time when it was as simple as releasing a Special Edition or Collector’s Edition of a movie. Now, films have two theatrical releases, get remastered in 3D and sent to theaters, and are then released on three to four separate DVD releases. As a super-fan, I’m excited to get Collector’s Editions – I’ll even double dip now and then, but the process has gone too far and offers too little.

I used to love collecting TV seasons on DVD almost as much as collecting movies on DVD. But what the movie discs always added, things like commentary and behind the scenes docs, the TV discs completely lacked. After season 1, what’s left to say? We know how the show got made, why people got cast as they did, what a pain in the ass it was to get the pilot produced, the re-casting that occurred after the pilot. Extra content was hard to come by. For crying out loud, the most recent season of Dexter’s special features included episodes of other Showtime programs. Those are ads, not bonus features. A movie on DVD is easy. It’s a single thing, the story exists in that movie and that movie alone (usually). I don’t have to pop in the next five discs just to get to episode 22 where I find out that House is still a drug addict or that Jack is still really angry about something. In order to re-watch a TV series, especially a serialized one, I have to re-watch the entire thing. Very few shows exists that I enjoy watching single episodes of. I recently spent the last few weeks selling all my old TV on DVD sets, even the ones I had the complete series for, simply because I wasn’t watching them. As I packaged each one and put it into the mail box, I realized how much money I spent on the set, and how useless of a purchase it really was.

If you’re the type of old school movie fan that simply must browse a shelf before deciding what you’re going to curl up and watch for the evening, then life just got a whole lot more affordable; as long as there’s still a Blockbuster open in your area. In an effort to lure customers away from the cheaper options of Netflix and Redbox, Blockbuster is set to begin offering thousands of their titles for only 99 cents a day, and is lowering prices on new release films as well. And under a new promotion, if you rent one movie priced at $2.99 a day, you will also be able to take home a film of a lesser price for free until July 4. Putting older films at 99 cents a piece will put many of Blockbuster’s prices right in line with heated rival Redbox. Renting new releases for $2.99 still makes Blockbuster the more expensive option on the most sought after films, though. Blockbuster is still relying on exclusive deals that get them new video releases several weeks before the kiosk and mailing services to hold onto a chunk of that audience, but I just don’t know how many people aren’t willing to wait another couple weeks to get the movie cheaper. Especially in today’s entertainment climate where there are a million other things they can just go watch instead. Blockbuster president Michael Kelly said this about their new initiative, “Our customers are seeking a better value, we’ve answered with [Due to Content Scraping and Theft, we have been forced to try abbreviated feeds. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and woud very much appreciate you clicking through to view the full article on FilmSchoolRejects.com]

On an almost daily basis, I take time to wonder about Cuba Gooding Jr. Where he went after winning his Oscar, why we don’t see more of him, whether he’ll have another catch phrase. Those sorts of things. Fortunately, we got our hands on some exclusive images from his forthcoming, direct-to-DVD movie, Sacrifice. The story focuses on a beat down cop, a giant religious icon made of drugs, and the very bad people that want it back. Direct-to-DVD has a bad reputation, but we here at FSR have been its champion from time to time because there are some truly great movies that never see screens. From the looks of the trailer (which is included below the pics), this one might be one of the good ones. As a bonus, you can also see what Christian Slater’s been up to.

Last Sunday, Inside Job was crowned the best documentary of the year by the Academy. But that’s not the reason to want to own it. The reason to want this insightful bit of filmmaking is so that you can (no matter your political beliefs) get into huge arguments with your family over it. Saint Patrick’s Day is coming up, and what better conversation piece is there to lob over the traditional feast of boiled potatoes, cabbage and shame? There is none. Plus, we’re giving away one copy for free and selling one for $2.02 trillion. How do you get your hands on the free copy? Glad you asked:

Back in 2006, Samsung sold the first Blu-ray players for public consumption at the low, low price of $1,000. Other things that cost that much? One-thousand chicken nuggets or a great down payment on a crappy car. Fortunately, prices have dropped steadily. Now, High-Def Digest is reporting that prices for Blu-ray players might drop lower than $40 this year. That’s a 2500% decrease in price over a little less than 5 years. Plus, you can now buy more movies than 50 First Dates, The Fifth Element, Hitch, House of Flying Daggers, A Knight’s Tale, The Last Waltz, Resident Evil Apocalypse, and xXx on the format. So that’s great. Blu-ray firmly won the format war against HD-DVD, and now it looks like it’s poised to become the household replacement to DVD players (that even my parents might want to get). In fact, they might be bundled alongside televisions (which are also dropping in price), making their proliferation even more pronounced. Seems like so long ago that they hit the scene. Time to update my Betamax, because this news gives even more weight to Fure’s argument for everyone to buy Blu-ray players.

If everything had gone perfectly back in 1985, Doc Brown would have rolled into our future this week on October 25, 2010. But that wasn’t the case, and thus started one of the greatest motion picture trilogies of all time. Back to the Future is out on Blu-ray for the first time in a box set (and also on DVD), so not counting the hours of special features, you can spend six hours revisiting the entire saga. And if you’re going to spend that much time watching the movies, you’re gonna need to have something to drink with that.

If you’ve walked around your local Best Buy or other fine retailer of movies and entertainment, you may have noticed a change recently: there are a lot more rows of Blu-rays. You see, this new format is here to stay. HD-DVD formally gave up the fight in 2008 and since then, Blu-ray has been the lone High Definition dog in the fight. Which means the fight is over, so why haven’t you purchased a Blu-ray player yet? After all, virtually all major titles are now released on Blu-ray. You’re not missing anything. Tons and tons and tons of old movies, from Apocalypse Now to The Thing are also coming out on the high-def format if you haven’t already picked them up. The price of Blu-ray players has dropped. If you want video games with your movies, a PS3 costs $300, not a bad shake. If you just want the movies, you can get an entry level Blu-ray player for under $90. Yes, that does cost more than the $30 DVD player you have, but the Blu-ray player can handle both Blu-rays and DVDs. It’s not like you’re losing anything by upgrading. In fact, the Blu-ray player will make your DVDs look better! But there’s an even more important reason to upgrade….

I’m a fan of home video. The power to watch movies from the comfort of my own couch is brilliant. When DVD came out, I was all over it. Once Blu-ray players stopped requiring you to sacrifice your first born (who I had already promised to Satan in exchange for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II Soundtrack Cassette tape), I was all about that too. Still am. Perfect HD picture and perfect HD sound in my own home, sweet. All without the hassle of standing in line at the theater, stepping in sticky substances, and suffering through twenty minutes of commercials before the show starts. Wait. Scratch that last one. Some Blu-rays (and DVDs) insist on trying to force trailers, warnings, and advertisements in your face. In the comfort of your own home, remote in hand, you smash the Menu button, jam the Skip button down a thousand times, only to be greeted with a crappy trailer and the text “That operation is not valid here.” Suck it, studio, that’s some bull.

We weigh in on a few reasons why you might just want to skip out on buying the most epic, money making movie of all time. We also give you a few reason why it might be for you — alright well, two reason and at least one back-handed slight.

I can pretty much guarantee this is the only site that has given 1200 words to Stan Helsing.

Basically a new DVD/Blu-ray would be released for sale only both online and on the shelves at Target, Wal-Mart, etc. If you want to see it, you have to buy it… or wait the additional few weeks for the sale-only window to close so you can rent it from your DVD peddler of choice.

From the people that brought you Sneezing Panda, it’s a movie rental concept that will rival Netflix, Redbox, and that guy that comes over sometimes and acts out all the parts to Sleepless in Seattle for you despite the restraining order.

How do you organize your DVD collection?

Getting the latest blockbuster on Blu-ray can be a great experience once you get things up and running. But the Blu-ray format can be a real pain in the ass sometimes. It’s supposed to be superior technology, but the platform has more bugs, problems and annoyances than DVD ever had.

Rob Hunter loves movies. He also loves working as a delivery driver for Pizza Planet even though the Toyota pickup he drives is in pretty rough shape. These two joys come together in the form of cash money payments that he receives every week and immediately uses to buy more DVDs.

What’s not quite as Big as Big and not nearly as Tall as Tall? Gigantor on DVD. But size and height issues aside, this is a cool set.

While She Was Out The Coroner slipped into her house, ate her peanut butter, and gave her movie a thumbs down.

Every week we find you the Worst Movie Ever. If you’ve seen Terror Toons or think you’ve found something even worse, then my God have mercy on your soul.