riderjeff

I have been buying a lot of the 3.18-3.98 titles with the 60% off codes on columbiahouse, plus getting funcash on them too. Anyways, does anyone have a list of what most of these titles are? Looking for good 80's type movies in that price range mostly. Some I have found were:

18 again
vice versa
dream a little dream
teen witch
garbage pail kids
thunderbolt and lightfoot
trading places
how i got into college

any help would be cool, thanks.

smashthesymbols

I've been keeping a list of these when I stumble across one that catches my eye. This is by no means comprehensive, but it's a start. I've actually considered trying to make a more complete list and starting an official thread for it so we'd all be prepared when a 60% + free shipping + triple funcash code comes along.

3.18
Coffee and Cigarettes
Fargo
The Killing
Rain Man
Saved!
Weekend at Bernie's
Youngblood

3.98
An American Werewolf in London
Apt Pupil
Black Dog
Bringing Out The Dead
CB4: The Movie
Clay Pigeons
Excalibur
First Men In The Moon
Life Stinks
Pushing Tin
The River Wild
The Score
SNL: Chris Kattan
SNL: Dana Carvey
SNL: Jimmy Fallon
SNL: Molly Shannon
SNL: Phil Hartman
SNL: Tracy Morgan
Suicide Kings
Superstar
Troop Beverly Hills
Uncle Buck
Wild Wild West

That'sAllFolks

I needed this two days ago!

BTW, Thanks!

BobO'Link

As smashthesymbols posted in the Looking for Funcash Suggestions thread:
If you look at the details of a $7.95 ($3.18 @ 60% off) title "...the suggested titles at the right will usually be other $7.95 titles and you can click around that way to try and find more...". This also works with the $9.95 ($3.98 @ 60% off) titles. It can be tedious and lead to loops, but it works. Here are some I found in that manner.

$7.95 titles ($3.18 @ 60% off)
Alice's Restaurant
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Crimes and Misdemeanors
Dead End
Elmer Gantry
Far and Away
The Hunting Party
King of Hearts
The Little Foxes
The Naked Truth
The Party
Pocketful of Miracles
The Princess and the Pirate
Princess Bride S.E.
Radio Days
Scalphunters
Sleeper
Stella Dallas
Viva Maria!
What's New Pussycat?
Wings of Desire SE
Wuthering Heights

$9.95 ($3.98 @ 60% off) titles:
The Adventures of Pinocchio - Animated
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas
The Black Scorpion
Body Snatchers: The Invasion Continues
The Buddy Holly Story
Clue
Fierce Creatures
Grease 2
Havana
Houseboat
The Island of Dr. Moreau
The Kentucky Fried Movie
Kindergarten Cop
The Last Castle
Lost in Space
Mars Attacks!
The Paleface
Sneakers SE
Snow Queen
Staying Alive
The Tingler

riderjeff

some more... I am posting the ones that are widescreen, I had seen more that are labeled widescreen & fullscreen, but are actually only fullscreen (as I found out with peggy sue got married and mr. nanny) Here's some more I found.

the golden child
junior
soul man
the pest
radio flyer
coneheads
thrashin
trapped in paradise
armed and dangerous
who's harry crumb?
and a bunch of chuck norris movies

Cheato

riderjeff, are you willing to maintain a thread like BYork does with the TV enrollment list, where people can submit additions to the list and notify you of things no longer available so we can have a list of known cheap titles?

If you're not willing, and nobody else volunteers, I guess I'd be willing. I don't know how to make those cool lists with scrollbars, though. I guess I could try to figure it out, or if someone points me to a tutorial...

This would be a pretty useful sticky post to have. I propose:
(1) listing them at their actual price, instead of $3.18, etc., because someone might use a 50%-off code, or a 60-% off + a 10-15%-off entire order code, etc.),
(2) mentioning if there are other versions available, maybe with an asterisk in front of the title, so someone doesn't jump at an incomplete or older release that's not as good as a newer one, and
(3) including $12.95 titles, because even though at 60%-off (making them $5.18), their price is higher than optimizing and cycling an account (at $4.80 each), when used with a triple FunCash or additional 10-15%-off, they become better deals, and
(4) including an actor name or some other identifier to make it easier for someone scanning the list to find something they might otherwise miss)

Here are the $5.95 and $7.95 titles I know of (some have already been mentioned, and I don't have a handy $9.95 or $12.95 title list, but I might work on it):

$5.95
Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber (2005) (Jennifer Love Hewitt)
Fighting Tommy Riley (Ed Jones) (2005)
Frankie & Johnny Are Married (2004) (Michael Pressman)
Kids in America (2005) (Gregory Smith)
Strange Bedfellows (2004) (Paul Hogan)

$7.95
Alice's Restaurant (1969) (Arlo Guthrie)
Ambush Bay (1966) (Hugh O'Brian)
Amityville 3-D (1983) (Tony Roberts)
Attack on the Iron Coast (1968) (Lloyd Bridges)
Attack! (1956) (Jack Palance)
Barbershop 2: Back in Business (Special Edition) (2004) (Ice Cube)
Beach Red (1967) (Cornel Wilde)
Beachhead (1954) (Tony Curtis)
Birdman of Alcatraz (1962) (Burt Lancaster)
Blame it on Rio (1984) (Michael Caine)
Bolero (1984) (Bo Derek)
Boxing Helena (1993) (Julian Sands)
Boyfriend School, The (1990) (Steve Guttenberg)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1968) (Burt Lancaster)
Brood, The (1979) (Oliver Reed)
Carnal Knowledge (1971) (Jack Nicholson)
Carrie (2002) (Angela Bettis)
Carrie 2: The Rage (1999) (Emily Bergl)
Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) (Kirk Douglas)
Charge of the Light Brigade, The (1968) (Trevor Howard)
Coffee and Cigarettes (2004) (Roberto Benigni)
Coming Home (1978) (Jane Fonda)
Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) (Woody Allen)
Dead End (1937) (Sylvia Sidney)
Defiant Ones, The (1958) (Tony Curtis)
Desperately Seeking Susan (1985) (Rosanna Arquette)
Dogs of War, The (1981) (Christopher Walken)
Duel at Diablo (1966) (James Garner)
Electra Glide in Blue (1973) (Robert Blake)
Elmer Gantry (1960) (Burt Lancaster)
Europa Europa (1990) (Marco Hofschneider)
F/X (1986) (Bryan Brown)
Fargo (Special Edition) (1996) (Frances McDormand)
FireWalker (1986) (Chuck Norris)
French Lieutenant's Woman, The (1981) (Meryl Streep)
Garbage Pail Kids Movie, The (1987) (MacKenzie Astin)
Gorky Park (1983) (William Hurt)
Great Balls of Fire! (1989) (Dennis Quaid)
Hallelujah Trail, The (1965) (Burt Lancaster)
High Spirits (1988) (Daryl Hannah)
Hope and Glory (1987) (Sarah Miles)
Hot Spot, The (1990) (Don Johnson)
Hour of the Gun (1967) (James Garner)
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying (1967) (Robert Morse)
Hunting Party, The (1971) (Oliver Reed)
I Want to Live (1958) (Susan Hayward)
Indian Fighter, The (1956) (Kirk Douglas)
Indian Runner, The (1991) (David Morse)
Invitation to a Gunfighter (1964) (Yul Brynner)
Kentuckian, The (1955) (Burt Lancaster)
Killing, The (1956) (Sterling Hayden)
King of Hearts (1967) (Alan Bates)
Lady Chatterly's Lover (1981) (Sylvia Kristel)
Last Tango in Paris, The (1972) (Marlon Brando)
Lawman (1970) (Burt Lancaster)
Leviathan (1989) (Peter Weller)
Lifeforce (1985) (Steve Railsback)
Little Foxes, The (1941) (Bette Davis)
Lone Wolf McQuade (1983) (Chuck Norris)
Lord of Illusions (Unrated Director's Cut) (1995) (Scott Bakula)
Love and Death (1975) (Woody Allen)
Love at First Bite (1979) (George Hamilton)
Lover, The (1992) (Jane March)
MAC and Me (1988) (Christine Ebersole)
Malice (1993) (Alec Baldwin)
Marty (1955) (Ernest Borgnine)
Missing in Action (1984) (Chuck Norris)
Naked Truth, The (1958) (Peter Sellers)
National Lampoon Presents Dorm Daze (Unrated) (2003) (Tatyana Ali)
National Lampoon's Class Reunion (1982) (Gerritt Graham)
National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (PG-13) (2004) (Will Friedle)
National Lampoon's Gold Diggers (Unrated) (2004) (Will Friedle)
National Lampoon's Movie Madness (1982) (Robby Benson)
No Man's Land (2001) (Branko Djuric)
Package, The (1989) (Gene Hackman)
Party Animal, The (1984) (Matthew Causey)
Party, The (1968) (Peter Sellers)
Platoon (Special Edition) (1986) (Tom Berenger)
Pocketful of Miracles (1961) (Glenn Ford)
Princess and the Pirate, The (1944) (Bob Hope)
Princess Bride (Special Edition) (1987) (Cary Elwes)
Purple Plain, The (1954) (Gregory Peck)
Quiet American, The (1958) (Audie Murphy)
Radio Days (1987) (Mia Farrow)
Rain Man (Special Edition) (1988) (Dustin Hoffman)
Romeo is Bleeding (1994) (Gary Oldman)
Saved! (2004) (Jena Malone)
Scalphunters (1968) (Burt Lancaster)
Shallow Grave (1994) (Kerry Fox)
Sleeper (1973) (Woody Allen)
Southern Comfort (1981) (Keith Carradine)
Species III (Unrated) (2004) (Sunny Mabrey)
Starchaser: The Legend of Orin (1985) (animated)
Stella Dallas (1937) (Barbara Stanwyck)
Submarine X-1 (1968) (James Caan)
Taking of Pelham One Two Three, The (1974) (Walter Matthau)
Teen Witch (1989) (Robyn Lively)
Thief (1981) (James Caan)
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974) (Clint Eastwood)
Trip to Bountiful, The (1985) (Geraldine Page)
Valdez is Coming (1970) (Burt Lancaster)
Valmont (1989) (Colin Firth)
Vera Cruz (1954) (Gary Cooper)
Viva Maria! (1965) (Brigitte Bardot)
Weekend at Bernie's (1989) (Andrew McCarthy)
What's New, Pussycat? (1965) (Peter Sellers)
Wild Orchid 2: Blue Movie Blue (1992) (Wendy Hughes)
Wings of Desire, The (1987) (Bruno Ganz)
Wuthering Heights (1970) (Anna Calder-Marshall)
Youngblood (1986) (Rob Lowe)

smashthesymbols

I'd be willing to do it. As I mentioned above I've almost started a thread for it before, I was just never sure if it would be useful to enough people.

riderjeff

I do NOT want to maintain a thread, so whoever is willing to go ahead. I just like to buy cheap movies, enjoy them, and getting the funcash, but not maintaining a thread, ha.

Cheato

That would be great, smashthesymbols. I am looking forward to the next B1 60%-off 3xFC w/FS code. I know they're not common, but as soon as it hits, I plan to run up some FC. I have 8 boxed sets I want to use it on.

Sometime in the near future, I plan to start doing searches and following the trails of the $9.95 and $12.95 titles. Even though that list of $7.95 titles I posted is over 100 long, of the ones I don't have, there are only a very few on there I plan to get (Sleepers and Starchaser, and maybe a couple blind buys based on the stars in them). So I have been wanting to investigate the $9.95 titles, at least.


If you're going to organize them into a new sticky post, I was also thinking it might be useful to have a couple of subsets under the price categories, maybe based on genre. MANY of the $7.95 titles are westerns or war titles, so if people aren't interested in those genres, it could be fairly useful to have them separated out.

Cheato

Found 3 more $7.95 titles:

At Close Range (1986) (Sean Penn)
Pope of Greenwich Village, The (1984) (Eric Roberts)
Hawaii (1966) (Julie Andrews)


smashthesymbols, are you still thinking about putting together a database and maintaining a list of these?

I also have a list of about 250 $9.95 titles and over 100 $12.95 titles, and it grows every day.

smashthesymbols

Thanks for the new titles. I am still working on putting together a list and a thread. I've been playing with how to put together a big spreadsheet to keep track of the titles and include information like the stars and director in an easily sortable format. Once I figure out exactly what format I want I'll probably ask for volunteers to help me with it. I've got a good list going, but it's very tedious and time consuming to copy all the information.

I've also had some stuff come up in my personal life that's not leaving me a ton of time to work on this. Rest assured, it's not forgotten though. It's just progressing slower than I'd like.

Here's the $7.95 titles I have so far.
And here's the $5.95 titles.
4345104 Confessions of a Sociopathic Social Climber
4060604 Fighting Tommy Riley
4334207 Frankie & Johnny are Married
4375309 Kids In America
4009601 Strange Bedfellows (2004)

And here's one odd $8.95 title I found. I actually wasn't aware they even had any at this price point.
4381604 Rated X (Unrated)

The lists $9.95 and up are so huge and incomplete I won't even bother posting them until I have the "official" thread going. For the time being, if you find any more at these lower price points please post them here.

Cheato

Glad to hear you're still working on it. And obviously there's no hurry.

If you want me to reformat the data I have, and get it to you as an Excel file or something, let me know. In my table, I have columns for Title, Edition, Year, and Star. I only use one star in the list: the one that's listed as the primary one by Columbia House. These were the most useful to me (I guess I would also like the director and the genre, but I didn't get around to including that), in terms of scanning the list to see if there's anything I'd like.

I don't record the CH code numbers, because I figure anybody searching for it on the website can find it. And trying to record that data without some kind of data miner automated script would be extra time-consuming for no real payoff, as far as I can see.

And I usually don't record the aspect ratio (FS/WS) because I always double-check the AR right before I submit an order. Also, riderjeff mentioned some of the ARs reported by CH might not be correct.


Thanks for putting the "The" and "A" titles properly in the list alphabetically. I also thought about that for "El," as in "El Dorado" (and "La," etc.), but wasn't sure where people would actually look for it/them.


That $8.95 title surprised me, too. I have never seen that price on the site. I've recently begun looking at Columbia House's lists of movies using searches for actors' names to find more cheap titles, and have looked at 99 of them (all of the primary actors listed under the $5.95 and $7.95 titles). That's how I found those recent 3 additions. I currently have another 137 actors on my list to check out during my "free time."

smashthesymbols

Thanks for your help so far. I'll definitely let you know once I figure out a set format.

I always try to get the selection number if I can, just so there's no confusion. Sometimes the same movie can have more than one DVD version, or you can have more than one movie with the same name, so it helps make it crystal clear which one we're dealing with. It doesn't come up much, but it's worth keeping in mind.

As for foreign titles starting with "el" or "la", those should technically be put at the end like "the" or "a". However, I've always ignored that and put them under "el" because that's how I think of them. If I spoke Spanish or had a large number of movies with those type of titles I might feel differently. I say we just ignore it for the list too unless anyone wants to try to convince me otherwise.

Peep

This list is great! Thanks!!!

Cheato

3 more $7.95 titles:

Courage Mountain: Heidi's New Adventure (1990) (Juliette Caton)
Noose Hangs High, The (1948) (Bud Abbott)
Until September (1984) (Karen Allen)

bhauge

Picked up this one to use up my $7 FC

Cheato

Some more (I think)--I don't have time right now to confirm for sure if these are already on the above lists.

All $7.95 titles:

10 to Midnight
Across 110th Street
Adventures of the American Rabbit, The
Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London Special Edition
American Ninja
Black Caesar
Charlie Chan in the Secret Service
Charlie Chan: The Shanghai Cobra
Crack House
Faith Rewarded: The Historic Season of the 2004 Boston Red Sox
Fled
Hollow, The
Hound of the Baskervilles, The
Lost in the Wild
Magic Sword, The
Mr. Majestyk
Our Song
Outer Limits: The New Series - Aliens Among Us, The
Outer Limits: The New Series - Fantastic Androids & Robots Collection, The
Outer Limits: The New Series - Mutation & Transformation Collection, The
Presumed Guilty
Rage of Honor
Return of a Man Called Horse, The
Robocop 3
Thunder Road
Truck Turner
White Lightning



I changed how I've been gathering my data, and now I have been able to capture both of the primary actors' names (instead of just the first one, like I did before), as well as the genre(s) that Columbia House uses to list the entries.


As for including the $9.95 titles in a list on this site, I am not sure it is feasible. My list currently has over 600 titles on it now, and it will quite possibly double before I am done.

smashthesymbols

Thanks for your update. I'll add it to my list. Hopefully the full list will be up soon.

I'm starting to agree with you on the $9.95 titles. I'd like to try and put together a list, but it's becoming overwhelming. I haven't dug very deep yet and I've got probably 500-600 titles myself. I wouldn't be surprised to see the $9.95 list end up being 1500+ titles. I'll still try it though, probably as an Excel file instead of being listed right on this site.

Sex Fiend

smashthesymbols and cheato - this is a very good and useful thread, and thanks for your work on it. This would definitely have come in handy a few weeks ago for me, as I was trying to use up some Funcash before the end of the year. As it was, I ended up spending hours flipping through the CH website to find a few cheaper titles, and even at that I was only able to get through a few genre categories before losing patience. I don't know why CH had to eliminate the 'budget DVD' page they used to have on the website - it would make things much easier.

Anyway, I vote for this thread to be stickied.

smashthesymbols

Thanks Sex Fiend. I hope it will get stickied once I get around to doing the "official" thread with all the lists in the first posts.

Cheato

@Sex Fiend: I totally agree with you about how irritating it is that the category was removed.

I hope you were only doing that because you had nothing better to spend your FC on, because spending FC on $7.95 titles is among the least efficient uses of it. If you can find a cheap 2-disc box set you'd like, that's a much better deal.

For these, if you wind up using a 60%-off w/ free shipping code, they are only $3.18 each. But if you buy them with FC, you use $8 in FC, but still have to pay $2 each for shipping. So, you spend $8 in FC to save $1.18--an efficiency of only about 15%.

On the other hand, using them to GENERATE FC is much better. If you can get a 60%-off, free shipping, triple FC code (be patient--they've been around before...), then you can spend $3.18 on each one, and in a fulfilled account, generate $6 in FC. If you have stuff you want to spend FC on, that's pretty good: a 189% exchange rate. If you can then use that FC efficiently (better than 53%), then you come out ahead on the deal.

To take the 15% calculation even further...
If you use that generation of $6 FC in the previous calculation of the 15%, and consider the fact that you have 2 choices when making the purchase: use the FC, or generate the FC, then by using the FC, you have an opportunity cost of the additional $6 FC, so really you have lost $14 in FC to save $1.18: an efficiency of only 8 cents on the dollar.

Bottom line: if you don't have anything else to spend it on, 8 cents on the dollar is better than nothing--especially if you didn't intentionally generate the cash by buying DVDs you didn't want in the first place--but there are FAR better ways to spend it than on $7.95 titles. As mentioned before, the most efficient usage is on 2-disc box sets that are less than $19.95 (so they don't count as fulfillments, and you can't normally use them to get one free in a B1G1).

Cheato

This DVD no longer appears in Columbia House's online database:
Naked Truth, The (1958) (Peter Sellers)


But I found some more $7.95 titles:

Amazing Grace
Angels and Demons Revealed
Between Strangers
Breathless
Cheech & Chong's The Corsican Brothers
Diggstown
Family Thing, A
Fatal Instinct
Fritz the Cat
Gentleman's Game, A
Guncrazy
Intermission
Lambada
Last Waltz, The (Special Edition)
Lemon Sky
Leo
Miss Firecracker
My Date With Drew
Osama
Russia House, The
Tea With Mussolini
Unauthorized Life of Johnny Cash, The


And I now have a list of 1,195 $9.95 titles and 478 $12.95 titles.
(Still working on it, but I think it probably won't increase much at this point.)

bigjim25

How do you get these lists. I could use the $12.95 titles.

Cheato

I don't know jack about how to mine data from a website. You're gonna think I'm stupid (or have a lot of time on my hands, or something), but I literally went through each genre list, under its A-Z listing, and one at a time copied each entire page into Excel. I then wrote some quick formulas to recognize the different lines of text I wanted to find, ran some filters, and wound up with a "complete" list of Columbia House's current database.

Once I had the database, I wrote a bunch more formulas to re-interpret the lines of text from CH's website to pull out the data into different columns and categorize it (like identifying prices, and from the relationships of the prices, whether the item was a set, or a movie, or on clearance, or Hi-Def, or a Pre-Order, or whatever).

In total, 9820 titles, but some of them are duplicated because of separate Full Screen and Widescreen entries.

But, as you can imagine, with the number of titles Columbia House carries, there are daily fluctuations. Over the week I did this (while watching TV, talking on the phone, whatever--just letting my hands do it automatically: click, ctrl-a, ctrl-c, alt-tab, alt, e, s, u, enter, ctrl-end, alt-tab, click, ...), I saw many price reductions (lots of box sets, like Happy Days, and a few movies, like Ghost), and I noticed a few titles disappear. Just today, I went to check on a Combat! listing, and one of the season sets is no longer listed.

I wanted to have a current database because I wanted to run titles (specifically the box sets) through the calculations to determine if they were good deals through CH (when looking at actual costs). And, it was a good opportunity to find "all" the $7.95 titles. And all the best deals for spending FunCash. I was running out of FC options at the end of last year.

Final count on the $9.95 titles is 1295 (and one $9.96 pre-order title).
Final count on the $12.95 titles is 602.

Once smashthesymbols has the layout he wants, I can send him my data, and he can compile whatever he thinks is good for placement here on the site.

I also need more time to clean up the titles. I have one field, which is the raw data, but then another with modified titles, so, for example, they are things like this:

raw: The Last Waltz Special Edition
mod: Last Waltz, The (Special Edition)

raw: Andy Griffith Show: The Complete Seventh Season
mod: Andy Griffith Show, The: Season 7

My data includes, for each title, all the "Technical" info CH lists (Black and White, Subtitled, etc.), the first two 2 stars of the movie that CH lists, whether it is animated or anime (not always correct), and what genre lists it can be found under on the site--as well as the prices. I only looked up the years for the $7.95 titles because I used to get them a different way, so I just continued that with the last few.

Speaking of them, the final two $7.95 titles are:

Baby Prodigy
Hello Kitty: Hello Kitty Goes to the Movies

That should make 174 of them. I didn't find any other $5.95 titles, and there is only that 1 $8.95 title smashthesymbols found.


Once all my data is cleaned up (shouldn't take too long) and I'm satisfied, I'll find some place to put it for other DVDTalkers to download. I might continue to update it every couple of months using the data from the New Releases (or whatever it's called) section of the site. I won't go through the whole database again (by myself). So the data will gradually become less and less accurate as time passes. Oh, well.

riotinmyskull

cheato- i realize this is kinda off subject so forgive me but is there any way you can sort the data by studio? specifically i'm looking for all anchor bay and blue underground titles.