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What's your criteria for buying a movie?

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What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Old 06-12-15, 06:19 PM
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What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Movie I love
Replayability
Decent a/v
Nice extras even if I never watch them
Old 06-12-15, 06:27 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Is it available.
Old 06-12-15, 06:31 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

I want it.
Old 06-12-15, 06:35 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Also, sometimes go for the sight unseen blind buy.
Old 06-12-15, 08:33 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Movie I love
Old 06-12-15, 08:40 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

If it is a movie/director/story that I like or might like.

Audio/video/extras are not as important. I'd rather buy a movie I like on DVD with no extras in 2.0 dolby (if that is the only way it is available) than a mediocre movie that's a 4K scan on Blu Ray with 7.1 DTS sound and 10 hours of extras. I don't care if the sound doesn't rattle the house, or if I could see the pores on the actors face, or if there's 7 hours worth of featurettes on the making of the film if the movie is not good.

Last edited by inri222; 06-12-15 at 08:46 PM.
Old 06-12-15, 08:54 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Either it's a film that I dearly love, or it's cheap enough to warrant a blind buy.

And by "cheap enough," I mean sub-$5.
Old 06-12-15, 09:12 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Maria Thayer is in it
Old 06-12-15, 09:45 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

If it's another "24" season

or a SF Giants World Series Film release
Old 06-12-15, 10:37 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Originally Posted by rbrown498
Either it's a film that I dearly love, or it's cheap enough to warrant a blind buy.

And by "cheap enough," I mean sub-$5.
except the last part. I don't mind blind buying a new release. I mean for a date night with the wife we're looking at $30 just for tickets, nevermind dinner and a babysitter. So a $20 new release is "cheap enough," to me.
Old 06-13-15, 12:22 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

all the usual reasons.

Except sometimes I buy a movie I don't like because I'm a completist.

I.E Jason X on dvd.
Old 06-13-15, 12:49 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Many reasons however, I let IMDb rating influence my decision at times if it is a blind buy:

5.7/10 - 6.6/10 = good
6.7/10 - 7.2/10 = very good
7.3/10 and more = excellent
Old 06-13-15, 08:10 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Most of today's new movies suck-so I go with catalog titles with high replay value(mostly horror/sci fi).
Old 06-13-15, 08:50 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Originally Posted by Chadm
all the usual reasons.

Except sometimes I buy a movie I don't like because I'm a completist.

I.E Jason X on dvd.
Jason X is amazing and has infinite replay value.
Old 06-13-15, 10:23 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Impulse.
Old 06-13-15, 02:04 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

It used to be, when Amazon had no restrictions on selling movies, my only criteria was "is this something I want to see for whatever reason?"

Now, without Amazon as a source for subsidizing new purchases, I have to be much more selective and balance price with how badly I want to see it.
Unless it's a pre-order of something I'm eager to see, I also have to know the A/V quality is solid and without issues.
Old 06-14-15, 02:15 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Price Drop
Cool Packaging
An actress I find attractive
I like the movie


Transfer plays a part if BD, DVD I'm more lenient.

Last edited by hasslein; 06-17-15 at 01:06 PM.
Old 06-14-15, 06:25 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

For bluray, primarily genre and price. I'm willing to blind buy a lot of sci-fi and action type of movies that I come across in dump bins.

I still buy a lot of dvds, but not always for the movie. One of my hobbies is buying a lot of $3 dump bin dvds which are known to posses a lot of nasty DRM schemes beyond dvd's generic CSS encryption. I like figuring out how these additional baseketcase DRM schemes function, which involves deciphering the content of the ifo files. (The actual movies on such baseketcase dvd discs, I occasionally watch). In contrast, bluray's drm is a lot more straightforward and isn't as exciting to decipher.
Old 06-14-15, 08:22 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Used to buy everything intending on selling those I didn't want. Ended up with full shelves and discs with a lot of dust on them. Now just those with a high degree of replay-ability. I rent first then if I like I'll look for a deal.
Old 06-14-15, 09:24 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

With the prevalence and ease of streaming, my current two main criteria are:
* A movie I really like
* One that I will enjoy watching multiple times or can pass on to someone
* The kid reason - a movie my son will or did enjoy a lot
* Really cool bundle or "complete" collection.
* Really cheap.

Even if everything doesn't come out on streaming, between my existing collection and Netflix and Amazon Prime, I've got access to enough content to do me.
Resale value, for the most part, is in the toilet so I can't rely on that. I used to be able to break even or even make a little money, based on high resale/trade in values and great deals on purchases.
Old 06-14-15, 09:36 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Re-watchability and price.

I'll pay premium for a flick I'm going to watch over and over, but I'll also pick up something average (or even a blind buy) if the price is low.
Old 06-14-15, 10:09 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Replay value is very important to me now. There are plenty of good films that have zero replay value. There are many good one time only watches or maybe catching them on HBO or Showtime at some point.

With streaming becoming a lot more prevalent, it's reduced my need for owning a physical copy of many titles, especially television.

I'm getting out of the mindset of getting titles that I saw in the theater and liked and will pick up when it's "Cheap". I'd rather save that money for something more productive like a vacation.
Old 06-14-15, 10:28 AM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

- Must LOVE the film
- High replay value
- Good video quality
- very cheap price

Very different from my old DVD buying days.

No blind buys now. It's not good enough if I just liked the film... it has to be one of my favourites now.
Even if I find the film is excellent - if it's something I'm not going to watch much then it's not worth owning.
Don't care about the extras at all - it has no bearing on whether I buy a BD or not.

I'm willing to pay up to $20 for a Criterion BD... everything else generally has to be $10 or less - with a few exceptions of under $15 if I really want the movie and the price just won't drop any further.
Old 06-14-15, 12:37 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

Most BDs today aren't worth the full value they're set at. That's an issue more and more as time passes. Looking at you, WB and Disney.

To me? There are many factors that can either go solo or are combined together for me to make that decision.

Does the film's quality (and features) equal the price value?
Was it a good transfer?
Was it a catalog film that was a miracle to come out on BD? Ala Sorcerer...
Replay value
How much do I want it NOW? Again.... Sorcerer.

Very minor add-on to all that... when it comes to blind buys does the director get my interest or does the subject matter make me interested in it to blindly throw money at it?
Old 06-14-15, 12:43 PM
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Re: What's your criteria for buying a movie?

I've significantly reduced the amount of movies I own and purchase, so these days it's basically a movie that i love and has replayability. No more blind buys here either. For the most part, I'm down to movies I loved growing up, blockbusters and action movies that I really enjoyed, comic book movies, and animated movies.

I used to care about extras and limited edition type stuff, but not anymore.

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