MCN Blogs
David Poland

By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

Serving The Customer

I was not aware of, until last night, WB’s Red2Blu site, which allows HD movie buyers to get Blu-rays to replace the now obsolete discs for just $4.95 a pop. It doesn’t cover all the WB HDs that are now on Blu, but it’s a nice offer and a smart play for Warners, as it gets Blu-ray buyers on their website – as opposed to Amazon or others – and gives a nice, warm feeling of loyalty of the company to people who have been buyers in the past. And they likely make a buck or two in the deal to boot.
Also interesting was a piece of mail today that came in offering a year of EW for $10… with an extra coupon to let a friend in on the same offer. $10. Does that cover postage? Got to keep those subscription rates up.
I had a conversation just a couple of days ago with an Academy member who didn’t pay for a Variety subscription, but was sent the paper daily for years anyway… I suppose so Variety could claim that all Academy members (or some very high percentage) received the print version of the paper which charges so very much for that front cover during Oscar season. The paper stopped showing up on his doorstep each morning in February of this year. Will it start again in October? Probably. But interesting times… interesting times…

Be Sociable, Share!

10 Responses to “Serving The Customer”

  1. lazarus says:

    Don’t know if you read the fine print, DP, but each Red2Blu order has a shipping and handling charge of $6.95. That’s some crazy Ticketmaster shit. Strange because every DVD order through Amazon is only $3.00.
    Fuck Warners. I’m not paying $20 for their Archive DVD-Rs, and I’m certainly not paying $12 for a format upgrade.

  2. Joe Leydon says:

    Er, David: I got the EW offer in the mail quite a few months ago. (And took advantage of it.) And, actually, it’s not the cheapest magazine subscription offer I’ve received in recent years. As you indicate: Publications are eager to maintain circulation levels.

  3. yancyskancy says:

    Yeah, my $10 EW subscription just lapsed, so I renewed for another $10. I’m not even that big a fan of the magazine, but that’s not a bad price for a year’s worth of bathroom reading.

  4. Bob Violence says:

    Strange because every DVD order through Amazon is only $3.00.

    They tack on an additional $1 per disc.

  5. Tofu says:

    The bit to Red2Blu program is you don’t have to send in your discs, right? Just the boxes?
    Doesn’t the $7 charge cover all the shipping if you have multiple boxes to send in?

  6. seymourgrant says:

    They only want you to send in the HD-DVD cover art slips. So you get to keep the discs and cases. Plus it’s a single $6.95 shipping & handling charge whether you trade in 1 disc or up to the limit of 25. A pretty good deal all the way around.

  7. azmoviegoer says:

    David I read your site every day but this is the first time I’ve posted a comment. I just simply wanted to say thanks for the heads up on the EW offer. My subscription just lapsed and I was paying $20.00 yr. I called them and got the $10.00 yr rate. Last laugh is on me if they go web only though I guess.

  8. LexG says:

    Entertainment Weekly is essentially Twilight Weekly these days.
    (For 10 years it had been Buffy Weekly.)
    It’s become such an irritating magazine. I seem to remember some of the pieces and criticism from Tucker and Gleiberman being more incisive at one point, and that some of the feature writers used to be better.
    Now everything is filtered through this tiresome “snarky” camp/TWOP/Best Week Ever sensibility, the guiltiest offender being the TV section, which all those corny two-sentence capsule reviews featuring sub-Kathy Griffin snark lines.
    Not to mention the always irritating Mark Harris/Diablo Cody/Stephen King column, which is usually just some random association bullshit from the latter two or some Great Defender of Actresses tear from the douchey former.

  9. Wrecktum says:

    I’ve substribed to EW since the early 90s. Just let it lapse and will not renew. It used to be a nice mix of legitimate entertainment reporting, feature writing and reviews, but its format has grown stale and uninspired.
    Lex is right…EW’s insistance on trying to stay ahead of the culture curve by constantly touting tired shit like The Hills and Twilight bores me incessantly. Bye bye, EW.

  10. azmoviegoer says:

    Ok, I’ve got to admit that every point that Lex G and Wrecktum made about EW was completely valid. I feel like a complete idiot for wasting my money on this rag now.
    Did I mention that I’m only paying 17 cents an issue?

The Hot Blog

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon