BIG LOTS, BIGGER DEALS: My Big Lots Closeout DVD Purchases for 02.24.10!!!

I know, I know. Many of you may think you're "too good" for discount store Big Lots. I was once like you, until one day a year or two ago I wandered in and found so many great DVDeals. And while they always had great stuff, for some reason in the past six months, Big Lots' acquisitions have gone from great to insane in the membrane. Insane in the brain, if you will. They are getting real DVDs from real studios and, best of all, all for only three bucks! Here's my haul from this week--feel free to post yours in the comments!



I took a couple of months off from Tha Lotz, as I had gotten my quotient of $1.00 tin-buckets of cheddar cheese Elvis-brand popcorn over the holidays, ignoring even the various nerdy message-boards I frequent where they were going on and on about all the new closeouts and cut-outs that the world-famous last hope for merchandise general store were getting in. Like a battered wife, I went crawling back a few weeks ago when my pal (and fellow Lots Plotzer) John G. came up from Denver. Lately, I've been spending all my "bargain dollars" on $5 Hank Williams, Jr. CDs from Wal-Mart's bargain bin area, so I told myself that I'd spend, oh, let's say, about ten or twelve bucks, promising not to go crazy.

I effed up, big time.

I ended up spending over $30, even putting back a handful of titles like Andy Kaufman's HEARTBEEPS and the in-name-only-sequel ROADHOUSE 2: STILL BOUNCIN'. I can justify it though: many of the titles I picked up have been on my wish-list for forever now, but couldn't bring myself to pay $19.99 or more for most of them. Three bucks each, however...time to dig out the Player's Club Card!

* CAT PEOPLE - I try to collect anything with Malcolm McDowell, who, if you don't know, is my favorite actor of all-time. This 1982 hyper-erotic remake, directed by Paul Schrader, is pretty dirty, what with all the brother-sister fucking, but I've loved it ever since I saw it on HBO as a child, even leading to a young crush on Annette O'Toole, who I think was much more of a looker than star Nastassia Kinski.

* SHAFT / SHAFT'S BIG SCORE / SHAFT IN AFRICA - Everyone who owns a DVD player owns a flip-case copy of the original SHAFT. When the players first came out, those Warner titles were always the cheapest, going for only a few bucks, making the investment no question when cornered with the absolute excitement at enjoying this new format on your new player. Right? Sadly, I never picked up the two sequels, so, thanks to Big Lots, my life is now justified. It's a dollar a SHAFT!

* THE GLIMMER MAN - I never owned a single Steven Seagal movie until Big Lots. So, with THE GLIMMER MAN, starring Seagal and a then-career-having Keenan Ivory Wayans, I bring my bargain Seagal collection up to ten. Ten Seagal movies, all of them brutally entertaining.

* THE HOWLING III: THE MARSUPIALS - Fresh from NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD, the whacked-out Australian sequel that, literally, has to be seen to be believed, and you know how much I hate that term.

* THE NEW KIDS - "From the director of FRIDAY THE 13TH!" High-schooler Lori Loughlin takes on neighborhood bully James Spader...with bats and axes! (I think. I still haven't watched it yet. The box promises so much!)

* LOST HIGHWAY - I forgot how much of Patricia Arquette's rack you see in this movie! I mean, she's naked throughout 95% of it. The other five? Bill Pullman playing jazz, Balthazar Getty brooding, Robert Blake asking people to talk on his comically large cell-phone and Robert Loggia screaming about safe highway driving. All in all, it's one of David Lynch's best!

* THE SPIRIT OF '76 - Remember in the early 90s when we had that short-lived nostalgic love of all things 70s? No? Well, we did and this was the sum-total of those efforts: a time-travel comedy starring David Cassidy, Leif Garrett, Devo and power-poppers Redd Kross. Believe me--it played a lot funnier in '91.

* JABBERWOCKY - Starring Michael Palin and directed by Terry Gilliam, JABBERWOCKY is like the first Wings album, compared to Monty Python's full Beatles discography; you can see flashes of brilliance here and there, but, until BAND ON THE RUN comes out, it's still a pale imitation. (Gilliam's BAND ON THE RUN, by the way, is TIME BANDITS.)

* HEAVY METAL 2000 - Never before have I wanted my money back on a $3 bargain-bin movie. Until now.

* I LOVE YOU, ALICE B. TOKLAS - One of my cheap-movie rules? If you find a Peter Sellers flick, buy it! A wonderfully dated relic of the peace 'n' love generation, here we find Sellers' uptight lawyer-life changed after ingesting pot brownies. He immediately dumps his stereotypically social-climbing fiancee, hooks up with a stinky-yet-clean-cut slutty hippie-chick and becomes a total parody of the brain-dead love-beaded imbeciles of the time. I was kinda hoping that his character would've been shipped off to 'Nam, but, instead, he discovers his true self. LAME!

* THE ILLUSTRATED MAN - Every wanted to see Rod Steiger's naked, plump, glistening body? Me too! An anthology movie based on three stories from Ray Bradbury's collection of the same name, this is pretty hit-or-miss, with a slow, languid pace that would never work today. Also, has Steiger always looked 65-years-old?

* IT'S ALIVE - This classic mutant baby flick looks like an ugly snuff film. (But it's not, Charlie Sheen. Calm down.)

* JULIEN DONKEY-BOY - Somehow, a Harmony Korine "movie" in a Big Lots bargain-bin seems extremely apropos. No one supports the Dogme 95 movement like a closeouts superstore!