I got mine at WalMart. A pleasant consumer purchasing experience. $21.61 (tax inc). I got the $100.00 chip.
The Texas Hold 'Em Rules & Strategy Guide.
Why so high of a price? My Wal-Mart was selling the same set for $16.85. If you wanted just the movie it was $13.85.
My opinion on the 2-disc set is this:
1. Great transfer of the actual film. Obviously they opted to compress the film as little as possible in order to get a sharper image. Sound is fantastic and at times I had to adjust the volume before I disturbed my neighborhood.
2. I bought the set with the playing cards. Nice little touch, I already had Bond On Set and the Corgi car looked cheap. Perhaps the reason they added the extra memorabilia to this set is explained in #3.
3. The extras on the 2nd disc is fair. Although I love watching behind the scenes on any film, and CR is no exception, the idea of adding the same trailers that plagued the opening of disc 1 was ridiculous. What happened to the actual trailers to CR? Where is the commentary track and the deleted scenes? And whose idea was it to offer Bond Girls Are Forever again? I bought this special when DAD came out. Although they have gone and updated it with 5 minutes of added interviews with Eva Green and Caterina Murino, I still feel ripped off.
4. The black and white menu vignettes were just plain weird. They made me feel that the producers of this DVD did not put much effort into it. Anyone seeing this film for the first time will probably get a wrong impression. Did anyone feel odd seeing an extreme close-up of Eva and Daniel kissing lips?
If Sony was planning to impress us with this set, they failed. I can only guess that they will release an extended version in a year or two, probably before Bond 22 (see Spiderman 2.1 trailer). Unfortunately for them I will probably view that version on Netflix and not opted to buy it.
Overall grade: B-
