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It seems it was a problem with the software. Your angst seems unwarrented.

Problem with the software or not it's terrible press. And problems with the software don't usually lead to something this specific.

Sounds like they were hacked. Happens to Amazon sometimes. But I believe that's because the Amazon software is based on what other people view after viewing the current page, so it can be fixed with a bot. Not sure if this works the same way.

The only thing I can do is laugh. It's so out there it has to be a really tasteless joke. I hope for their sake it is just a software issue.

I can't think a company like this would even ponder doing this even for a joke.

Has to be a hack job. No sane person does that. No one.

I hope that the software that picks the recomendations just happened to pick these 4 movies. But something tells me that it was a very mean-spirited joke by either a rouge programmer or a hacker.

"...subtextual event of overt racism that feels completely intentional given the context." Sounds like something Farrakhan would say. Your blog entry is more overtly racist than this story.

Did you even read the article you linked to, David? Did you see the other seemingly unrelated movies that Walmart's system was calling "similar"?

He said that it 'feels' intentional. Not that it actually was, because as has been said, no corporation in their right mind would deliberately do something like this. But in the PR arena, for a corporation like Wal-Mart to appear racist, mistakenly or not, is damaging enough.

DP characterizes the matter as a "subtexual event of overt racism", and I can only assume that he's speaking for himself when he says that it "feels completely intentional". Perhaps he can clarify his position.

Eveyrone has lost their sense of humor.

"Fabulously horrible."

It's hysterically funny. And it is horribly embarrassing.

Why? Because it fits too well for a lot of people who think Wal-Mart is out to kill poor Americans and poor black Americans in particular.

Maybe I didn't indicate just how funny I thought this was.

It's totally hysterical and totally inappropriate...DP is dead on. Shut up, mysteryperfecta.....one should never be a Walmart apologist.

Come on, people. One of the best types of comedy is when somebody or something fits a stereotype to an exaggerrated degree. This is one of those moments.

>>>>>"But it still feels like the white-est place on earth."

Have you been to a Wal-mart in SoCal????

Dave, no offense, but if you think of Wal-Mart as the whitest place on earth, you haven't been to many Wal Marts. At least, you haven't been to any of the ones where I shop. And before you ask: Yes, I have a Wal Mart credit card.

I'm a hundred percent with David on this one, I saw TV news coverage of this earlier and thought it was hilarious. Grotesque, but undeniably funny.

Sidebar: I live in Brooklyn, NYC, and they've been threatening to build a WalMart in the Red Hook area for at least a year. If that did happen, the bulk of the clientele will probably be black and Hispanic, just as with the not-so-far-away Target off Flatbush. (I am among those against WalMart coming in, not on principle, but because of the havoc it's going to play with traffic patterns.)

Suggestion: isn't it at least vaguely possible that more blacks happen to be buying all these same discs at the same time? The mapping software could have been hacked, but hell, PLANET OF THE APES is a classic, and Martin Luther King and Tina Turner are legends, it's not a stretch to imagine the individual(s) who'd want all three products (the King and Turner discs are what were shown on Eyewitness News, I didn't read the article).

Forgive me for qualifying my post with my race, but me being a black man I found it hysterical at first. Shoot if I had the opportunity to work at the company I would have hacked the software myself as a joke. All joking aside, traditionally these systems, with a little artificial intelligence, take different factors into consideration when making a recommendation so in my assessment this is no mistake. I am on imdb.com right now trying to compile the same recommendations so far to no avail.

It is horribly embarrassing, and amusing that Wal-mart can't seem to win for losing, but I only want people to pay for the sins they've actually done. Maybe it would be more acceptable if I was sympathizing for terrorists, rather than an evil corporation.

Sorry, Dave. I'm finding your sarcasm too subtle today. Or perhaps my sarcasm detector is off.

I thought it was laugh out loud funny (which I did when I first saw the piece). Funny, because it is so friggin stupid. I don't think even Walmart is that dumb.

Maybe David should have called Walmart the most redneck place on Earth (but then he would have offended someone and been attacked by The Waterboy movement). So true, many of them are not very white. But gosh, every time I am in one, I think the stores must be the biggest wet dreams for every trailer home owner in America.

I lived in small-town North Carolina for ten miserable years. Wal-Mart was a big attraction. You ain't kidding -- a regular redneck haven, it was. Kids sitting in shopping carts with nothing but shitty diapers on, barefoot families running around gawking at fluorescent-colored laundry baskets. It was a nightmare. If there had been a Pizza Hut Express, the place would have imploded.

Wallmart, because it is cheap attracts everybody, all backgrounds...but it does feel like it is run like a redneck haven, but that is just an impression.

There was successful opposition to one where I live recently. Yeee-haw! I'm a Target & Sears & Loehmnn's girl myself.

And this is national News too. What a country.

Maybe I shouldn't reveal that I bought my DVD of "Citizen Kane" at a Wal-Mart.

Joe Leydon: Maybe I shouldn't reveal that I bought my DVD of "Citizen Kane" at a Wal-Mart.

Joe, if it makes you feel any better, I bought Citizen Kane at Wal-Mart too, simply because they were $5 cheaper than everyone else plus my 10% employee discount. Yes, I worked at Wal-Mart. What are you going to do about it, huh? :)

I don't necessarily find shopping at Wal-Mart a sin. Hell, I get some things there from time to time. I pick up DVDs there occasionally because more often than not they're better priced than the Best Buy across the street. I only wonder, does supporting an evil corporation make me an evil person?

I love IMDb's recomendations. If you like 'Spanglish' see... 'American Beauty'. WTF? They're not even remotely similar. Plus, one is really good another really freakin bad.

Let me preface this by saying that I am indeed a black man. Planet of the Apes, at least the original, had something to do with racism and could logically be connected to King's message.

When you get into the racial subtext of Planet of the Apes, I would think it's not exactly pleasing or flattering...?

You know what's really offensive? A post from JeffMCM.

Do you have anything to add to this conversation? I can give you my street address so you can come throw eggs at it and save everyone's eyeballs some reading time.

Wal-Mart has good crunchy Cheeto knock-offs that are really good and only a buck a bag.

My worry in regards to Wal-Mart (plus similar stores) and films is this: Exclusive bonus DVDs. Now, there used to be special little bonuses if you bought a DVD from a certain place. You'd get a nice "There's Something About Mary" soundtrack sampler if you bought it from K-Mart. Now they're making the two-disc DVD sets exclusive to certain stores, lik Wal-Mart or Best Buy. If this becomes the norm, it could be VERY frustrating, especially if Wal-Mart takes the lead. And I'll have to jump to another paragraph to say why.

Okay, The Island's DVD release. Either Wal-Mart or someone else wqas offering an exclusive two-disc set. Now, one day, I'd like to add it my colelction. I liked it, and sometimes, I need something big budget with a lot of explosions other than The Fifth Element to watch. But, I'm not made of money, and I'm not exactly going to run out and buy The Island the Tuesday it comes out. But this is about two weeks later, and there are no two-disc sets to be found. Just the regular version. Does anyone imagine this being exceptionally frustrating, moreso than the "Super Extreme Mega 10th Anniversary Director's Deluxe Edition" that ALWAYS show up after purchasing the regular edition? At least then, you're ripped off, but at least you can sit on it and buy the SEMTADDE DVD later. Now, if you don't pick up it up the first week, you may never see it again. As one of those dorks who has to go through every special feature in every DVD they own, this is very disturbing.

The releasing of extra dvd's of really the same movie is a huge scam.

The irony of this is that Wal-Mart, with some new techno-advances, is likely to be the first place where you can buy virtually any DVD you can imagine... which will make their power to censor even more cloaked from public attack.

I thank god that James Cameron decided to wait till he was ready to release Titanic on DVD. Instead of releasing ever-increasingly better versions. He just had the lame version that Paramount forced out and then the new edition there is now that sits oh so pretty like on my shelf. I watched it tonight, excellent filmmaking there.

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