{"id":4089,"date":"2014-01-03T00:00:18","date_gmt":"2014-01-03T05:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=4089"},"modified":"2014-01-03T05:41:45","modified_gmt":"2014-01-03T10:41:45","slug":"walmarts-bargain-bin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/walmarts-bargain-bin\/","title":{"rendered":"A Dig Through Walmart\u2019s Bargain Bin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nI never go to Walmart.\u00a0 Not out of some liberal hatred for it or anything, though. I don’t go because here in Michigan, we have a superstore called Meijer<\/a> which makes it unnecessary to shop anywhere else.\u00a0 (The people here call it \u2018Meijers\u2019 by the way\u2014it’s a stupid, Michigander thing.)\u00a0 Anyway, last night I went to Walmart with some friends, because they wanted to go to Walmart, and I was at their mercy, so I went.<\/p>\n

Walmart has a bargain bin.\u00a0 A real <\/i>one.\u00a0 Meijer phased out their bargain bins a while back, which sucks, and is really the only thing that sucks about Meijer.
\n
\nThe only thing that bugs me about Walmart\u2019s bin is that the sides are adorned with advertisements for movies you\u2019ll find inside.\u00a0 The whole fun of a bargain bin is not knowing what\u2019s inside, and digging through like a maniac and finding a surprise copy of the Tremors 4-Film Attack Pack<\/a> on the bottom. Luckily for me, the movies advertised on the side had all long since been picked out\u2014none of them were in the one I was digging through (which was double great, since those movies suck, and they would’ve taken up valuable bin space.)<\/p>\n

Holding seven movies in your hand and simply multiplying that number by five to see how much of a dent the bin is making in your wallet is so much fun.\u00a0 You find a few more, and put back the ones you don’t care as much about.\u00a0 I had to throw away a bunch of titles because they weren’t anamorphic, which actually really bummed me out because I really wanted to buy Batman Forever<\/a> (because I love it) and Batman and Robin<\/a> (because it sucks so bad).\u00a0 I probably should’ve thrown School Ties<\/a> back\u2014it really teetered on the “do I really care about this enough to own this” precipice, but, I\u2019d just scored another music video gig, so in the words of John Hammond, “I spared no expense!”<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what I got:<\/p>\n

Wanderlust<\/a> (The David Wain instant classic from last year.)
\nHugo<\/a> (Which I haven’t seen yet, and I’m sure the DVD is the absolute wrong way to watch it, but whatever.)
\nLimitless<\/a> (I bought this because it sucks so bad in a really fun way.)
\nMoneyball<\/a> (One of the few great movies of the last few years.)
\nSchool Ties<\/a> (Eh, why not, it was five bucks!)
\nUncle Buck\/The\u00a0Great Outdoors<\/a> Double Feature
\nPretty In Pink<\/a>\/Some Kind of Wonderful<\/a> Double Feature
\nSerenity<\/a> (Never seen it before\u2014isn’t it connected to some TV show? I probably won\u2019t ever watch this.)
\nFalling Down<\/a> (I mean, you can’t not<\/i> buy this. Everyone should own this movie.)
\nTremors 4-Film Attack Pack<\/a> (That’s all four movies for five bucks. That’s insane, especially since the first one is literally one of the best movies ever made.)
\nOutbreak\/Contagion<\/a> Double Feature (I like Outbreak enough, and I hear Contagion is joke bad.)
\nWall Street: The Insider Trading Edition
\n<\/b><\/a>and lastly\u2026
\nThis Means War<\/a> (The Reese Witherspoon vehicle featuring the guy who plays Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek<\/a> movies.\u00a0 This movie could\u2019ve easily made it on my 10 Movies Nobody Has Seen<\/a>\u00a0list.)<\/p>\n

I bought that last one because I’m especially curious about those sorts of movies.\u00a0 When I watch them, I feel like I’m the only person on earth that ever has.\u00a0 Like Al Capone\u2019s vault, they’re empty, but still intriguing.<\/p>\n

I watched it as soon as I got home, and to be honest, I was pleasantly surprised.\u00a0 It’s not a good movie, but, it’s not terrible.\u00a0 It’s about two FBI agents who end up meeting the same girl, unbeknownst to each other.\u00a0 Once they find out, they duel for her hand by using all kinds of covert FBI surveillance toys.\u00a0 It’s a very cute premise, and the movie actually does a good job of having fun with it.<\/p>\n

I like movies with very clear, built-in conflicts.\u00a0 Not only are these two guys against each other, but we know that right around the climax Reese is going to find out about their little bet and hate them both.<\/p>\n

I like the cute title, and I was even surprised that it restrained itself from wall -to-wall \u2018quirky dialogue\u2019 and bizarre, tangential set pieces (like in Failure to Launch<\/a>). All in all, it was a cute little madcap comedy romp.\u00a0 It felt like a movie<\/i>\u2014which is more than I can say for 99.9% of everything else out there.\u00a0 There were times while watching it where I even slightly cared which guy won the competition.<\/p>\n

When the credits rolled, I saw that McG had directed it.\u00a0 That makes sense, because of the color palette\u2014sometimes scenes were literally completely blue, with harsh orange highlights on the actors\u2019 faces for no reason. And, there were action scenes, so the hiring of him isn\u2019t that<\/i> arbitrary, I guess. Looking at his filmography, this is far and away his best movie, so there\u2019s that.\u00a0 That’s really the best thing I can say about him. The worst<\/i> thing I can say about him is that I hate his name so much that it makes me want to strangle him.<\/p>\n

I tried to look at Hugo today before writing this, but I couldn’t get through it.\u00a0 I will never watch Hugo.\u00a0 I can’t.\u00a0 I don’t care how Scorsese handles the 3D\u2014I can’t watch him direct little kids, and I can’t listen to the faux whimsical score.\u00a0 It just goes too far against the grain for him.\u00a0 I’m looking forward to his new one though, The Wolf of Wall Street<\/a> (not to be confused with Wolves of Wall Street<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Speaking of Wall Street, I’m excited to own a special edition of Wall Street to go next to my regular edition.\u00a0 Wall Street is dear to me because it’s the only movie I love that doesn’t make me laugh.\u00a0 There isn’t even a single joke in the movie\u2014it’s a straight drama, and it works.\u00a0 It’s by far Oliver Stone’s best movie, made well before his descent into complete insanity sometime around Natural Born Killers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Wall Street is a beautiful movie.\u00a0 It boasts very specific, Scorsese-esque shot compositions, designed expertly to cut well\u2014which makes sense, because Stone was a student and prot\u00e9g\u00e9 of Marty’s.\u00a0 And similar to all Scorsese movies, Wall Street is an example of how a movie about people talking is perfect fodder for bombastic camera movements.\u00a0 The camera expresses the emotion in the drama, and that’s just how it should be.\u00a0 Stone even one-ups almost all of Scorsese’s catalogue because the story\u2014which Stone wrote\u2014is tight and clear.\u00a0 It’s a pretty perfect movie overall.\u00a0 The split-screen sequence is particularly amazing, and inspired a similar scene in Boogie Nights<\/a>.\u00a0 And the score by David Byrne and Brian Eno is fucking fantastic.<\/p>\n

I’m very excited that I now own Limitless\u2014it’ll fit nicely between The Room<\/a> and S1m0ne <\/a>on my shelf of joke movies.\u00a0 “Wouldn’t it be cool if like, when he thinks, we see all the trickling information running up the walls?! It’ll really put you in his head!”\u00a0 Yeah, great idea Mr. Eight Grader.\u00a0 Good job getting millions of dollars to put that idea on screen.<\/p>\n

Lastly, I have to say something Joel Schumacher’s classic Falling Down<\/a>. I’m well aware of the fan edits, but I have to say it.\u00a0 You can’t not<\/i> say it if you’re talking about Falling Down.\u00a0 The movie shouldn’t have had the Robert Duvall parts.\u00a0 There, I said it.\u00a0 I think they added those parts to covertly test the fortitude of fast-forward buttons or something.<\/p>\n

In conclusion\u2014go to Walmart.\u00a0 Don’t worry about the corporate greed or whatever.\u00a0 You can furnish your DVD collection for pennies (dollars) and have fun doing it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"bin\"
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\nI never go to Walmart.\u00a0 Not out of some liberal hatred for it or anything, though. I don’t go because here in Michigan, we have a superstore called Meijer<\/a> which makes it unnecessary to shop anywhere else.\u00a0 (The people here call it \u2018Meijers\u2019 by the way\u2014it’s a stupid, Michigander thing.)\u00a0 Anyway, last night I went to Walmart with some friends, because they wanted to go to Walmart, and I was at their mercy, so I went.<\/p>\n

Walmart has a bargain bin.\u00a0 A real <\/i>one.\u00a0 Meijer phased out their bargain bins a while back, which sucks, and is really the only thing that sucks about Meijer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,17],"tags":[37,104,185],"class_list":["post-4089","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-gregsessays","tag-greg-deliso","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4089"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4097,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4089\/revisions\/4097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}