OOOOooo!!! Please tell me where I can get this! Send me an email if you don’t want to post it-I missed the first four seasons, and I need to see this “Flo” that annoys so many…
Ummmmm…you may want to rent this one first. I liked it, just because Tom Waits is in it, but it’s really not everyone’s cuppa tea. Just sayin’…
Personally speaking, as a general policy, I think it’s nuts.
But I know plenty of people who do it all the time. Go figure. 
Then again, I see probably a hundred films every year, at least 3/4 in the theater. I know not everyone can do this (or are equally inclined).
TV shows where I have seen most of the episodes but not all: Babylon 5, The Prisoner and Jonny Quest (I also didn’t see all the episodes of Firefly, but that is because they weren’t all aired). I figured buying the DVDs was my best chance to see all the episodes. I bought the Toy Story / Toy Story 2 DVD but I had only seen the first movie. I think the only movie I’ve bought unseen was The Seven Samurai.
Brian
It’s extremely rare that I’d buy a DVD of a movie I’ve never seen, but I did just get Robert Altman’s Secret Honor. I like Altman in general, and as my collection already includes All the President’s Men, Dick, and Oliver Stone’s Nixon, you might guess that Nixon and Watergate is an interest of mine.
My GF and I do this frequently. The latest was Monster. Sadly, that’s one that while good, we’re not sure that we will watch again. We paid $13 for it. It would have cost us about $26 (with snacks) to see it in the theater.
Renting locally isn’t an option as I have made a vow not to rent from our single local video store (not a chain store) after being boned by them. Netflix doesn’t satisfy the impulse to see a movie immediately.
I will often buy DVDs unseen if they are inexpensive ($10 or less) and have been recommended to me. I got Being John Malkovitch and The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension this way (among others). At $10, if I watch it twice, I’ve gotten my money’s worth, and if it’s truly terrible, I’ll give it to someone who likes it as a gift. I buy Woody Allen movies without watching them first because I know I like Woody Allen movies.
I’m just about to buy Firefly based on numerous recommendations.
Exactly. I don’t want to buy the movie if I havn’t seen it… but if I’ve seen it, I don’t need to buy the movie.
I do this occasionally. I bought The Cooler with WH Macy and Alec Baldwin having not seen it. It was 8.00 at Blockbuster. I liked it enough but probably wouldn’t watch it again. Same with Zombi 3. I hadn’t seen one of the famed Italian Zombi series… What a terrible choice. I returned it. House of the Dead was purchased unseen as well… Now that’s a GREAT bad movie. I watch it regularly with friends. So far my average isn’t taht good. So I pretty much stopped doing it. It 's hard when you have those 3 for 20 deals at Blockbuster and Hollywood and you are struggling to find that third movie. I think that’s how I ended up with Saving Private Ryan. I’ve seen it and really liked it. but it’s not a movie I will probably watch after my initial viewing of the DVD.
That’s pretty much how I felt for a long time. I still feel that way to some extent. But…you buy a movie, or get one as a gift…and then you think, for instance, “If I have Castle Cagliostro, I ought to have Laputa too, it’s just as good…And, heck, Yojimbo is more of a personal fave than those…so I should get that…” It’s insidious. Eventually you have a full blown collection. It’s not necessarily even about watching the movies, it’s about having them. Strange, I know.
I used to buy a lot of movies when I lived in the Caribbean. There wasn’t a good place to rent (besides, most of the rentals were stolen property anyway, and I didn’t want to support that) so when I visited the states I’d stock up on movies I hadn’t seen. This is how I came to own Dangerous Beauty. All the reviews I saw said it was good. Oh, how wrong they were. Yuck! Since then I’ve mostly bought movies that I’ve already seen. But, if ever a Miyazaki movie manages to get onto DVD without me having seen it first, I’ll buy it unquestioningly.
For me, it’s a matter of building a film library in much the same way as one might build a book library or a CD library. I don’t “blind buy” in the strictest sense of the phrase; usually I’ll have some reason to believe I would want to own the film, such as a known favorite director or screenwriter. I’ll do a little research, read some reviews and listen to trusted recommendations, and then I might buy a film I never saw. But it isn’t like an impulse buy with no basis whatsoever. (Well, ordinarily not. That still happens, but it’s rare.)
I just got The Princess Bride today. I’ll watch it after I’ve seen Lost and American Idol.
Just a question about the SE DVD: Does it really not come with an insert (the card/booklet that has the scene listing)? It was factory sealed too.
Please tell me this wasn’t just on my copy, as this also happened to my copy of Mean Girls and I was pretty annoyed about that.
I do this all the time, but only when I can get the movie for $10 or less, i.e. pre-watched from the video store. Since renting it is almost $5, I figure it’s a bargain to buy the thing for $10. I can take as long as I want to watch it, without having to return it. If I like it, I can watch it over and over again. If I hate it, I can give it to someone or sell it. Shouldn’t be too hard to get $5 for it, putting it at the same cost as a rental in the end.
I usually only buy movies that I’ve seen and expect to watch repeatedly. The exceptions have been:
Spirited Away
Napoleon Dynamite
Julie Taymor’s Titus
Castle in the Sky
Chinese Hercules
The last one was three bucks, and was purchased solely on account of the awesomeness of the title. Never did get around to watching it…
Right. If there’s a movie you want to see, do you rent it or just buy it? It’s a risk either way. You have to balance the risk of wasting the rental fee on a disc you end up buying anyway, with the risk of spending money on a DVD you don’t like well enough to keep.
But if you don’t want to keep it, there are places you can sell uses DVDs, so that your net loss isn’t much more than a rental fee anyway.
And, it’s kinda nice to have a DVD that I haven’t watched yet sitting on the shelf, in case I feel like watching a movie but don’t feel like running out to the video store (or am not able to for some reason).
**newcomb being** Join Date: Jul 2001
Charter Member Posts: 31
Dude, will you stop SPAMMING us with your non-stop posting? 
I usually only buy movies or tv shows that I know I like. However, I recently bought the first seasons of Dark Angel and Millenium, of which I’ve only seen a couple of episodes each. If I like them, I might try this more often, but probably with TV shows, since I’m more interested in having them on DVD than movies.
We occasionally buy movies we’ve not seen. Basically, if it’s gotten great reviews and positive buzz from friends, we’ll buy it rather than rent and then purchase.
Going to the movie theatre does not appeal to me at all anymore. It’s not really the money involved, but the obnoxious @ssholes that talk incessantly throughout.
For the most part, I don’t understand purchasing DVDs of TV series that are being shown in syndication (IE, Simpsons). Why would I pay to see something I’ve seen dozens of times and is on 12 times a day? I have, however, purchased seasons 1 and 2 of Six Feet Under because those are not being shown in reruns in my neck of the woods. I just ordered Wonderfalls (of course, I only saw the 4 episodes that Fox originally aired before cancelling the series). Based on the 4 known episodes, I feel confident I will be satisfied with the remainder.
I do it all the time. A quick rundown:
War Games
Red Dragon
The Ring
Men in Black II
Spider-Babe*
Baby Snakes
Does Humor Belong In Music?
Strange Brew
Reefer Madness
Cocaine Fiends
Joshua-The Black Rider/Kid Vengeance**
The Black Six/The Black Gestapo**
*Hey, Misty Mundae is hot.
**Anyone who has ever looked through the movie section of a BX/PX knows that AAFES has a talent for finding the worst movies ever. If you really want the Maniac Cop trilogy on DVD, or want to see the sequel to Amazing Colossal Man, ask your friendly neighborhood troop. These are two films on one disc, and they’re all bad blaxploitation films.