Grr, Brotherhood of the Wolf sold out everywhere

[JonathanLB]

These retail stores are SO stupid! Anyone could have told them that this movie would be a huge DVD seller, and they for some reason stocked it like some cheap foreign film that nobody knows about, which couldn't be further from the truth. Every store in Oregon is sold out of this movie from what I can tell. My sister went to a few Targets, a few Fred Meyers, Blockbusters, Hollywoods, and nobody has any copies of it. The Fred Meyer here in Corvallis sold out too, way early, and maybe they are "supposed" to get more copies in tomorrow, but I bet they get like 4 copies and think, "Gee aren't we so smart, we got 4 more copies," and in the first hour they'll all sell out.

I don't understand this level of stupidity. Any store with that much cashflow should stock DVDs for expected sales over the first two to three WEEKS, not just for the first day. When a DVD sells out the first day, I don't care what DVD that is, it means they were being totally idiotic and couldn't anticipate the demand whatsoever. There is no excuse for that poor of planning. It's one thing if you stock for 3 weeks and you run out in the first week, like on day 6, so you order more, but it's another thing entirely when you sell out in the first few hours of the first day they go on sale because you are so stupid you only stocked like 3 of them originally.

Basically everyone who saw the movie is going to buy it because it was a very good film, so I don't know what they were thinking with their estimations. This isn't just a one time thing, it happens every week almost.

Last time it happened to me was only a few weeks ago with Blade II, when Target apparently got only about 5 or 6 copies in and when I got there at 4:30 or so, they were totally sold out, and furthermore the guy I asked about the movie said, "I got to work at noon today and they were already sold out then." WTF? OBVIOUSLY Blade II was going to be a massive DVD seller, so why would they have such poor planning? It just costs them a lot of money by being so stupid. I went elsewhere and did eventually find the movie, so they lost my business.

[jjwr]

Brotherhood of the Wolf....sounds like a National Geographic Special :)

My local stores had droves of them, maybe the movie was big in your area and they mobbed the stores. It happens.

[JonathanLB]

Where do YOU live?! None of the stores have copies still, they sold out of the ONE copy they got in Tuesday (one?! WTF?) and now are getting more in Thursday or Saturday, they don't know.

Every place is sold out. It's pretty big everywhere, given its relative lack of hype and whatnot. I mean, it was a very good film.

[jjwr]

I'm in Vermont, sometimes it pays to live in a small town :) Unless something really odd happens I can get pretty much any new release like that a day or two after without any problems.

[JonathanLB]

Sounds great, hehe.

I have a lot of trouble getting DVDs sometimes because these stores are really idiotic.

BTW, still haven't gotten it...

Went in 3 times so far, and I got 2 other things (these thieves!), but haven't gotten Brotherhood of the Wolf yet. I should get it this weekend supposedly if they get this shipment in. Grr.

[Arya Ravenwing]

Actually, I've been going around buying all the DVDs and reselling them on the web.

JUST TO SPITE YOU, JONATHAN! BWAHAHAHAHAH!! >D

j/k..that IS weird that no one would have it anywhere. Try Blockbuster. :)

[Jinn Fizz]

Both my Target and WalMart were drowning in copies today.

[Taylor Millard]

And I got mine from Best Buy just fine.

Oh word of warning on Brotherhood of the Wolf.

If you want it dubbed, go directly to play. If not...go to languages, then select the language you want, and then be sure to select Subtitles. Or else you'll just get the language track and no subtitles.

[JonathanLB]

Thanks for the advice.

UGG!! I was so busy this weekend, seeing movies in theaters mainly, that I had no time to buy it when I was back in Portland... So I came to Corvallis and barely got to the Fred Meyer before it closed at 11 (I got there at 10:54), and they still do not have it! I am amazed... So... umm, haha, looks like I'll be waiting a while.

This week, I am buying 3 of the new releases, so I hope they get them. Mr. Deeds, Insomnia, and About A Boy. All films I gave 3.5 stars, so I consider them worry of adding to my collection. Plus, Insomnia was the best 3.5 star movie I saw all year I think. It's 1 point shy of my A rating, or four stars.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

About a Boy was great. Can't wait to buy it. :)

[JonathanLB]

It was one of the funniest comedies of the year, I thought. If that was a chick flick, which I very much think it was not, then it would be one of the best recently, hehe.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

Couldn't be a chick flick, it was about a boy!! ;) :lol

[Admiral Lebron]

You should be pun-ished.:)

[Lilaena De'Ville]

:mischief

[Admiral Lebron]

I got that from an episode of pokemon.

[JonathanLB]

god...

That was funny, though. :)

[dbn]

I have my copy of BotW, and it is wonderful. I did not have a chance to see it on the big screen, but I knew the movie would be good buy!

[JonathanLB]

Two weeks later and I still don't have my copy. I'm ticked...

Well maybe tomorrow they'll get some more. Hopefully I can get the three new releases that I want plus that.

[JMK]

Geez, my local Wal-Mart can't give them away. BOTW is everywhere....

[sirdizzy]

wow mine too i bought one at target on saturday (i had never seen the movie tell i watched it at work on sunday) it just seemed like my kind of movie

[JonathanLB]

About A Boy is coming out later, but the site I checked had an incorrect listing or it was delayed, one of the two... Not sure which.

I got Insomnia today.

I would find it very hard to believe that any store is having trouble selling Brotherhood of the Wolf DVDs. We still have ZERO in Corvallis, and the reason for that is not the local store, but the ENTIRE chain warehouse is out of Brotherhood of the Wolf because of the incredible demand, so apparently we are waiting for their warehouse to order new copies from the distributor and then the warehouse to send some copies to the Corvallis store.

I think I'll just order it through Amazon at this point and get it when I get home the weekend after next, which pisses me off, but oh well.

Oh, and Mr. Deeds is next week, so again... either that was delayed or that site sucks. I think it was one of the major DVD sites, and that's the last time I ever visit them. I swear it was DVDFile.com, which I already hate. The editor there is a fool. He wouldn't know a good movie if it ran up and bit him in the @$$.

This fool at Fred Meyer today was like, "Well I know we'll be getting a lot of copies of Lord of the Rings (extended edition), but I'm not sure about Star Wars." Uhh, well then you better rethink that real fast because AOTC has outsold Spider-Man easily despite grossing less in pre-sales and will continue to outsell Spider-Man for all of time. As for LOTR, the extended edition is not going to be that big of a deal for most people. Only the die hard fans and huge movie enthusiasts such as myself will actually buy that edition. The rest already bought the first edition and didn't know any better. AOTC will absolutely annihilate that particular DVD release. Not even to mention that fans loved AOTC and it was one of the best received Star Wars films, despite a less-than-expected box office gross. TPM had no trouble breaking the all-time DVD sales record at the time (which has been broken like 25 times since then, lol, or whatever) yet people said that movie wasn't very "well liked."

Funny because even the people who complained about it ALL bought it. Sean down here in Corvallis is a huge movie buff and I like talking to him, but he has these horrible films he actually likes, for instance, 3000 Miles to Graceland and several other notable AWFUL movies, yet he had the guts to complain about TPM. Well, it STILL is part of his DVD collection, though. That didn't stop him from buying it.

[JMK]

Any DVD buff would buy a SW DVD because you're guaranteed to be getting a reference-level quality product. Apparently the AotC DVD is the best made DVD to date. That will help sales as well.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

The Extended Edition of FotR will probably sell *very* well.

[JediBoricua]

FOTR:SE will do good, i will buy it!

But I doubt it will outsold AOTC, I mean read the reviews about that disc! They are too good! It's a must have for every SW fan, casual fan and for every DVD enthusiast. It's the first time for those hardcore Home Theather owners to truly test their system's potential at maximum capacity.

But will it beat Spiderman? I don't know...with all the kids wanting it, and Christmas around the corner, if Halloween is an indicator my local party store sold out of Spider-Man Costumes the first day they arrived, true they have no Jango-Fetts either, but those were available for a week.

[Admiral Lebron]

I am getting FOTR:EE, AOTC, & prolly spiderman

[JonathanLB]

I probably don't need to say that I will be getting them all, obviously, hehe.

AOTC will outsell Spider-Man and it already is outselling it.

[JMK]

I'm not going to count online purchases. I think its pretty safe to assume that there are more SW fans online than Spider Man fans. I guess we'll see, but I won't say that AotC will beat Spider Man just yet...

[JonathanLB]

Eh, we'll see, but in the long run, yes, AOTC will definitely win. Just wait until the entire boxed set comes out in like 5 years, hehe.

In the short term, you never know.

[Jeran Conrad]

I am glad to see that the Brotherhood of the Wolf DVD is actually in demand!! That movie is so good--I love it. I have a very strange movie-ranking scale for Fantasy/Sci-Fi. Wanna hear it? (oh wait, you didn't have a choice!! :D )

On a scale of 1-100 (how much I like these movies):

Star Wars (all encompasing) = 100 (it's my favorite, duh!)

**Nothing else can get closer than a 67**
(SW has a 33 point auto-spread!)

Lord of the Rings (the trilogy so far) = 67 (as close to SW as possible)

Brotherhood of the Wolf = 65 (still, very close)

Those are my top three in this category. Nothing else of real substance comes close to these. (For example- ummmm...Star Gate--decent movie, 21)

[sirdizzy]

the only movie i have ever had lots of trouble finding was Rat Race

[JonathanLB]

Rat Race was easy to find around here...

I use a 100 point scale sometimes, but I use every scale. On my site, I only use the four-star scale, but I can tell you what every one of the movies rates on any other normal scale, 1-100, grade scale (A through F), and of course star ratings. I could convert them to five star ratings too without too much trouble, but that's just dumb. Almost all real critics use four stars, that's just what it is supposed to be, always has been that when you say, "Four stars!" that was supposed to mean a great film, the highest possible rating.

My scale is pretty simple.

1-100 is the essence of anything, then using typical school grades to award movies their appropriate scores, I can give them letter grades.

50/100 is not an average movie any more than 50 out of 100 is an average test score. 75 out of 100 is an average movie and a C grade, which has and always will be average. That is just the proper, logical, correct way to use that scale (Mr. Show Biz never did figure this one out). Then once I rate it, like Brotherhood of the Wolf would be about an 88 out of 100, I say, well obviously an 88 is a B+, and a B+ is 3.5 stars.

My letter scale is explained on the site too. Anything 90 to 100 is an A- to A+ grade, and is therefore four stars. 87 to 89 (short little area, but relatively 'common' grades) is a B+, or 3.5 stars. 80 to 86, or B- and B grades, are both 3 star ratings. 74-76 is 2 stars, 77 to 79 is 2.5 stars. 67 to 73, or D+ and C- grades, are a 1.5 star rating. 1 star is any other D grade (D- and D), then a flunking grade is 1/2 star, whereas a 0 star rating is an F-, or one of the worst movies imaginable, few redeeming qualities, or such an incoherent mess that it does not deserve a rating beyond "No stars."

The vast majority of the scale of course is from 0 to 59, the flunking zone, and that is the same in school. It's a system used for tens of millions of people and is a proven success in judging performance, so films should be judged in a similar fashion, I feel, and then I just convert them to star ratings because I feel that is the best easy scale to use.

[JMK]

I've seen the 5-star ratings system used alot, and I actually prefer it. I'd use it if I were a critic. That, or the letter grade.
My custom systom would be:

bomb = Do not ever see this movie even if you are paid to do so.
* = If it's the last movie in the store to rent, I'd still skip it
** = Rental only, don't waste theater money on this POS
*** = Average movie, you won't regret seeing it, but that's it.
**** = Very good movie, make time for this one.
***** = Instant classic. Reserved for movies like SW and LOTR :)

[Jeran Conrad]

Sounds like you guys have your own systems--which is the key to all criticsm, isn't it? I mean afterall, if we all had the same opinions, this would be a very boring life.

Anyway, yeah, I loved BotW. I seem to like alot of "Capital Letter-lowercase letter-lowercase letter-Capital Letter" movies. LotR, BotW, AotC, TPM--wait a second. (Singing) One of these things is not like the other...one of these things does not belong.

Ok, I've weirded myself out and I am done.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

o_O

BotW was great! Mani is definetely my favorite character. *siiiigh* I CRIED when he died. *sobsob*

I want to see it subbed though, not dubbed. Is that only possible with the DVD?

[Wik Tayl Doon]

You can purchased subbed video tapes.

[Lilaena De'Ville]

w00t!

Maybe a DVD player will fall from the sky tomorrow though... :crosses fingers*

[JonathanLB]

"BotW was great! Mani is definetely my favorite character. *siiiigh*"

Yes, agreed, for sure. He rocks.

Well your 5 star scale is your own opinion, it isn't wrong, but I can still criticize it for a few things.

If 4 stars is very good, and 3 stars is average, what the hell is just above average or good?

You jump from average to very good, which on my scale would be jumping from 2 stars to 3.5, and that's not logical. So is 3.5 stars "good" or is it "above average"? Because there is a major difference from a film that is simply above average (Ecks vs. Sever) and a film that is actually good (The Ring).

[Master Yoghurt]

I generally prefer ratings from 1-10 or 100. For example, using the 4-star system, I'd say both FOTR and Minority Report are solid 4 star movies, but FOTR is a 9.5 (one could even argue it is a perfect 10) and MR I'd say is about 9.0 perhaps a little lower.

[JMK]

Well I think that an average movie is also a "good" movie. Three stars is where I start to say the movie is good/average. I expect every movie to be at least good/average, so it's up or down from 3 stars.

[Jeran Conrad]

Yes, Mani is the best. I was upset when he died because he gets a bullet to the back. A warrior like Mani deserved a better death than a bullet.

We could argue rating systems for 100 years and never get anywhere. I say to each his own.

[JonathanLB]

Well you can argue about it all you want, but this is not right at all:

"Well I think that an average movie is also a "good" movie."

No, look up the words. Average is not good, and no dictionary will agree with that.

Average = mediocre and good = of reasonable quality.

The most important thing as a critic is to have a system of measurement that is actually logical and makes sense.

No offense, but I'm glad a lot of you aren't actually rating movies for newspapers, because it would be way too confusing! Carr says that a "pretty good" movie is the same as a "very good" movie, which is obviously totally wrong because "pretty" and "very," again just as any dictionary would say, are totally different words so that's just wrong. But funny nonetheless.

[JMK]

To me, a movie of reasonable quality is a good movie.