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Welcome to How to Spend $20, BOP’s look at the latest Blu-ray discs and DVDs to hit stores nationwide. This week: Emma Stone turns scarlet, Angelina Jolie prefers a one-syllable moniker and Gordon Gekko lives on.

Pick of the Week

For people who couldn’t follow The Scarlet Letter the first time around: Easy A

Either a few studios are clearly capitalizing on Christmas, or the period between a film’s theatrical and home media release has shortened from what it once was – a year ago even. Easy A was released in U.S. theaters on September 17th, a smidge over three months from its Blu-ray release today. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, which I’ll cover a bit later on, was even quicker. That one came out in late September. So, if you’re following along at home, you’ll realize like I did that that’s less than three months from its domestic release.

Have we all gone insane, or is Hollywood out of touch with its audience? Or have I gone insane?

Man, I’ve been such an advocate for tradition lately, I suppose. I’ve certainly transitioned into crotchety old grandpa a hell of a lot sooner than anticipated. The idea of folks forking over another 20 bucks for a movie they literally just saw baffles me. (This may contradict what I said about Inception. But that, my friends, was Inception). I say why pay 12 bucks now when you can pay more or less double that later – and then keep it? Or better yet, save your dough and rent the thing. The rest of the money can go towards pizza and pop.

Easy A escaped me the first time ‘round, and I have every intention of giving it a watch now that its star, Emma Stone, got a Golden Globe nod out of the deal.





I’ve liked her in everything I’ve seen her in – Superbad, Zombieland – and am as excited as a clown on a pogo stick that she’s currently at work as Gwen Stacy in the Spider-Man reboot. I just hope she steers clear of the Broadway adaptation. We want our pretty 20-something breaking a figurative leg. Not a literal one.

Disc includes: Gag reel, Emma Stone’s Audition Footage featurette, audio commentary, The School of Pop Culture: Movies of the Eighties featurette, Vocabulary of Hilarity featurette, The Making of Easy A featurette, Pop-up Trivia Track

For people who enjoy a gun-totin’ Angelina: Salt

It’d been some time since we last saw Angelina Jolie. After a big 2008 – Wanted, Kung Fu Panda, Changeling – the lady took off the following year (theatrically, at least) to work on all the off-screen things the paparazzi eat up. She was back in cineplexes this summer in an action flick that relied all too heavily on a one-note marketing campaign: Who is Salt? I didn’t care who Salt was from the beginning, so I never imagined I’d see it. And then I didn’t.

The good news for Jolie, though, is she just may have another franchise in her hands after that Lara Croft business proved to be a twice and done business. Salt made close to $120 million Stateside (more than $290 million worldwide), so Columbia would be crazy to not be interested. The film’s director has already said he hopes to have “another one” within a couple years. That’s literally how he worded it in an interview with ContactMusic.com. Spoken like a true Hollywood-ite if I do say so myself.

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