Best Buy Wins Bid For New Almost Famous Blu-Ray

Best Buy and Target are waging a little-known war in the realm of exclusive DVD and Blu-Ray releases. Both companies are large and make a tidy percentage of their overall revenue from movie sales. What do you do when you are competing against the likes of Netflix subscribers, cable On Demand, and illegal downloaders, not to mention all the tiny rental places still hanging on like deer ticks? It’s difficult to get people to buy hard copies of films unless you’re Walmart’s five-dollar bin, but a great way to do it is to get exclusive release contracts. Unfortunately for Target, they lost out in terms of a new Almost Famous release.

The exclusive Blu-Ray will be titled Almost Famous Untitled (The Bootleg Cut). The disc will appear in Best Buy stores nationwide on the 30th of January and will feature the director’s cut of the film, which will hopefully include the “Stairway to Heaven”-less scene. Other extras include an interview with Lester Bangs, a music video for “Fever Dog,” a “making of” featurette, and lots of commentary, favorite lists, and intros from director Cameron Crowe.

If you haven’t seen Almost Famous, it’s Cameron Crowe’s masterpiece, and its attention to detail is astounding. If you have seen Almost Famous, but are interested in the director's cut, this will be its first run on Blu-Ray, so I recommend the Best Buy route. Yellow and blue is more appealing to the eyes than Target’s red and white anyway.