Flashback Home Entertainment is selling packs of ten movies on DVD for $10. There are no special features at all, not even subtitles, but by God are they cheap. The Action and Family packs are collections of straight-to-video crap -- when it comes down to it, I don't think Invisible Mom II is worth even a dollar -- but there are some real gems in the Classic Drama and Alfred Hitchcock collections.
It's A Wonderful Life was nominated for five Oscars; The Third Man was nominated for three, and won for Best Cinematography. It won Best British Film at the BAFTA awards, and Carol Reed as director won the grand prize at Cannes. Both movies, plus Charade and The 39 Steps, are in the IMDb top 250 movies of all time.
At first (well, at second; first came delighted exclamations of "what a bargain!") I was full of righteous indignation. These movies are old, but they're undiminished by time: it's positively sacrilegeous that they've been relegated to the bargain bin.
It's a funny reaction, when you think about it. Essentially, it was indignation that I wasn't being charged more. It's sad that classics are often ignored in favour of the latest blockbusters, which doubtless is the reason for the low price, but that's not the issue. The issue is the insane conflation of "price" with "quality", the assumption that cheap is shoddy, is subpar, is unworthy of purchase.
I hope this attitude isn't so ingrained in the culture as it clearly is in me, or we're doomed forever to pay an 800% markup and be thankful for it.