Posted 6:06 PM by Gene

I just got an order from Oldies.com and with it were three of that outfit's exasperating catalogs -- exasperating not just for the cheap newsprint and the rubbing-off ink but for their contents: the $5 rack-jobber "bargain" CDs (twenty minutes of music) and public-domain B- and C-picture DVDs. I have little time enough and I'm not sure I want to waste it with second-string movies. Surely a few of them are entertaining -- probably a very few -- but which ones? Time spent on a B-picture is time better spent with an A -- and lately the TWXSTERS have been selling their A's in reasonably-priced box sets (like the upcoming volume two of the Humphrey Bogart Signature Collection). What's more outside George Feltenstein and his masterly work we have trouble enough with the big studios; go to Amazon.com and you'll find some GOODTHINGS BOYS releases getting mauled for cramming three movies on compressed discs with no extras. If I want B pictures I want them at C prices. And with public domain there's no guarantee the video and sound will be any good -- these masterworks have been neglected for decades. Who wants to rummage through tons of haystacks for the glint of a golden needle? Oldies.com should sell its B's for $3 each -- and that's too much.