Bluelitespecial

The Halfway to Black Friday sale just started. One of the mystery titles is Invasion USA. Sell your Shout Factory blu-rays now while you still can.

DJariya

Bluelitespecial

Well im trying to list my Shout Factory copy of Invasion USA on ebay and if I can sell it that's great but if not I've gotten my money's worth out of my copy.

dex14

I listed mine last night and it sold within minutes.

Bluelitespecial

I listed my copy for $25 plus the cost of shipping. That might be too high but I'd like to at least get some money out of it.

dex14

Not too high. Mine sold for $40.

Bluelitespecial

I wasn't sure if my blu-ray of Invasion USA would sell but it just did!!! If I can't buy this new 4k version off the website I'll get the standard edition once it's released on Amazon.

davidlynchfan

Damn. Could've got like 70-80 for it just last month and I was about to (even not knowing its new VS release).

Brian T

Up until Friday or so, there was one used copy of INVASION USA on Amazon Canada for ages, ridiculously priced around $250 Suddenly today, I noticed a new batch of listings in the $150+ range, all from American sellers. Meanwhile, on Amazon US, most copies are listed in the $40 to $50 range (and even that seems a bit high now, but I suppose there will be folks who don’t know the VS version exists). The sellers taking advantage of the price discrepancy must be dreaming, though - for those prices you get two or three copies of the VS version (not that anyone would do that).

DJariya

I'm going to pass on Invasion USA for now. $38 plus tax and shipping is just too much of a premium for a nearly 40 year old movie.

Alan Smithee

Has anyone gotten and watched the Intermission Time set? This was something I would have instantly preordered but since it’s a reissue of stuff that Something Weird put out, I want to verify first that it does NOT have their ugly “SWV” watermark throughout. It looks like it isn’t on the 70-minute “mixtape” portion but haven’t seen any comments about the complete volumes that are included.

Another red flag is that they’re in 480i, standard def. Are they at least standard DVD quality or closer to VHS like budget public-domain titles were? I’m not expecting the best quality transfers on the trailers but they should at least be better than VHS quality.

Brian T

I’ve watched the original collections on disc one, and skimmed a bit of the new feature compilation, and the SWV logos have been removed throughout, except, I believe, for one or two spots on the original comps where it may have been too difficult (?). I’m not sure if they were removed digitally (or with AI?) or if the Something Weird S-VHS in-house masters maybe didn’t have them to begin with (and only the copies made and sold did). Either way, that distraction is largely gone.

As for the quality, I’d say they’re a little closer to DVD quality than bargain bin VHS, but they’re still taken from VHS, not film. You can certainly make out film grain in many of them but video anomalies should absolutely be expected. It is what it is. But you have to keep in mind that even when these were compiled in the 80’s/90’s the elements used for them were often in dreadful condition, worn out, colour-faded, scratchy, splice-y, blurry you name it. And that’s all still present. Then as now, these comps are the only proof of existence for many of these pieces now, albeit in the shape they were at the time of transfer. I’m not sure SWV preserved the deteriorating film materials for this kind of stuff back then, or if they even could in many instances. Likewise, I’m sure there are trailers in these comps that do exist in better versions, likely on YouTube, but at the time Mike Vraney compiled these, what you got was what he had. As much archive-digging and dumpster-diving as he did, he probably wasn’t as fussy about camera negatives and that sort of thing with the intermission stuff and short films because their only value was in nostalgic compilations.

And that nostalgia is a big part of the value of this set; the other part is value for money. The set has twelve hours of content, and can be had for about $20 at some retailers.

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Since we’re on topic, it’s also worth noting that SWV has continued adding more of the old comp tapes to YouTube. The Intermission set had me hoping we’d see more of these from AGFA down the road, but now that seems doubtful considering how quick these are going online. Here’s a few, but you can click through for many more:

Alan Smithee

Thanks, I’ll go ahead and order it. Hopefully Mike Vraney wasn’t SUCH an asshole that he thought enough to keep some masters WITHOUT his stupid watermark, even if they were just for locking up in his vault and gloating over.

Shannon Nutt

I got the 4Ks of Invasion USA, Navy Seals, and China O'Brien all in the mail today. The Navy Seals packaging, in particular, is pretty nice - with artwork of the characters playing golf on the inside of the box.

Bluelitespecial

I'm in several facebook collector's groups and everyone likes to trash Navy Seals as it was a joke in Clerks. It's got some decent action and humor to it. I always think of it as an R-rated Top Gun and there many scenes that are directly copied from it. The Golf scene is pretty goofy. I have the Standard Edition of Riddle of Fire preordered on Amazon and should have it on the 26th.