Thursday, November 13, 2008

The DVD Collection that time forgot


I was recently asked to share my Netflix queue by a friend and accepted, eager to expose just how many great films I didn't have on DVD.  Obviously, if I had them I wouldn't be renting them.  Also, I wanted to see how much soft porn my friend was renting.  Alas, there was none.  Still, sharing the queue made me realize there are plenty of classic films he does not own either (unless for some bizarre reason he enjoys renting films he already has).  How did this occur, this odd turn of events between two such aficionados of film.  I can't speak for my friend, but for me it happened little by little, year by year until I finally realized at least half of the movies I own on DVD are movies I don't even like, much less would ever want to see again.

When DVD players first came on the market in the nineties no one was renting the DVDs themselves.  As a result, if you wanted a DVD player (I did) and wanted to actually watch DVDs on it (this seemed a logical extension of owning the player) it was necessary to buy DVDs, not rent them.  And so I bought anything I wanted to see.  Anything.  So any new movie, good or bad, I purchased and watched.  As new responsibilities came into my life I did not feel the need to buy them anymore as they were now available for rent and money was growing harder and harder to come by anyway.   The end result is a DVD collection stuck in the nineties, with a smattering of classic titles for good measure.  

And I hate it. 

My wife and I have resolved to purchase two classic DVDs a month, one we have seen, to add to the collection, and one we have not, to watch. We don't buy anything for ourselves ever as it is, so this should be something we can afford.  It is hoped that gradually, over the course of several years, we will have a DVD collection of which we can be proud.  Of course, by that time they probably won't even exist anymore, so the whole process will start over.  But when and if that happens, I'm sticking with renting for new movies and purchasing for older ones.

I have always liked the idea of a classic movie collection.  That, for me, is movies done from the teens through the seventies.  Why?  I don't really know, I just consider the eighties on to be an entirely different animal in the history of film and while I like many movies from that time period, very few are as cherished by me as the older ones.  For starters, I'd like to own every movie I love from the twenties and thirties that's available on DVD, from A list movies like Sherlock, jr, I am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang and Stagecoach to serials and B movies like the  Flash Gordon, Torchy Blaine and Philo Vance series.  Then I'd move into noir and musicals, then the social dramas and sci-fi classics of the fifties.  It's a must to own all of the Universal horror classics and of course all the later Hammer films as well.  And how about the amazing amount of great foreign films that dotted the landscape of the fifties and sixties while Hollywood started to founder?  I must have those too.   

But why?  I've seen them all so what does it matter if I own them?  Why can't I just put them in the queue when I want to see them again?  It's not logical or rational but there's something about owning the real thing.  Something satisfying.  Just recently, as I popped in my Criterion copy of The Most Dangerous Game to snag a short scene from it for my Name That Movie game on the sidebar, I felt good knowing I owned it.  "I'm glad I bought this," I thought.  Stupid, huh?  But there I was, holding the DVD box with a gleam in my eye knowing I owned a bona fide adventure classic from the early thirties.  As I watched it again, and recognized the same sets (and some of the same cast) used in King Kong, I thought, "I'm glad I own that one too." 

And I want more.  It's not just about having a top drawer collection, it's about feeling good, the same feeling one might get from owning a great work of art.  And so many films are great works of art.  I want my DVD collection to make me feel comfortable, entertained and proud.  Right now it doesn't.  In fact, to be honest, I'd be embarrassed for people to know many of the titles in my collection in its present state , and mortified at some of the omissions at their cost.  It's time to forget this DVD collection and build a new one.  One that better reflects my taste and one that time can only make better.   A DVD collection to remember, not forget. 

46 comments:

Peter Nellhaus said...

Renting does make more sense in that there are only a handful of films that I have seen multiple times. Most of my purchases are films that are not available as Region 1 DVDs or were not at the time I bought them. Some are actually region free but are officially designated as R2 or R3.

I didn't buy my first DVD player until 2001 when Netflix was well into existence. which may have made some difference.

Arbogast said...

As a critic, though, and a blogger who routinely posts images (although you're definitely more of a picture-in-a-book guy than a screen cap guy), owning movies makes sense. I need to access and review scenes from movies all the time, whether writing about them or simply referencing them. So I rely on my own collection (a mere several hundred title library) and also make extensive use of Netflix, which is like the film critic's best friend.

I did go through a big Asian horror/crime kick around the turn of the century and those are the only DVDs I have in excess now that I probably won't look at again. I've also picked up a lot of free stuff over the years (from the sublime to the ridiculous) and really should thin my collection of that stuff, too. But when is there time? When you freelance, you weigh everything you might do on a given day against how much money it's going to bring in. I don't even shave but once every week or so because, hey, I can't invoice for that!

I will say, however, that my collection is almost entirely free of anything made post-1982.

bill r. said...

My DVD collection is also, unfortunately, is primarily made up of movies from the last 30 years or so, but I've been taking steps to correct that. Foreign or classic American films are almost the only kind of movie I'll buy sight unseen (those and some horror films) because even if I end up not liking them, it's awfully nice having them in the collection, especially if they're from Criterion. And if I'm out buying DVDs, and I put back a classic or foreign film in favor of something less classic or not quite as foreign, I actually feel guilty about it. Honest to God guilt!

Anyone looking to prune their collection can send any unwanted DVDs to me.

Iris said...

Very well said. I have the same problem with my DVD collection, although I didn't start buying a lot of DVDs until a couple of years ago, so I have no excuse! I've actually been a Netflix member the whole time, but could never resist grabbing DVDs off the sale rack or making impulse purchases online, without thinking about whether I really needed to own the movie.

But I am much pickier now. I still buy movies I haven't seen but only if they are classics and I'm really confident that I'll love them, usually because I've already seen and loved other movies by the same director -- if I stick to this rule, I'm almost always happy with what I buy. For newer movies, I get them from Netflix first, and I usually don't feel the need to buy them afterwards (even if I enjoyed them).

I am currently going through my DVD collection and weeding out the ones I don't want to keep (almost all 80s or later, like you said). There is definitely something depressing about having mediocre or just not-my-cup-of-tea movies mixed in with my favorites, so I'm going to sell a bunch of them to DVD Planet and use the credit to buy better films!

Fox said...

I've totally neglected my collection over the past two years. Netflix has definitely had an influence on that, but also my decision to make financial cutbacks in less important areas.

The problem with Netflix, for me, is that I rarely watch the extras b/c I like to return the movie as soon as I watch it. And that sucks, cuz I love the extras and listening to commentary. So in THAT respect, I need to buy more.

I love just putting on commentary tracks while I'm cleaning the house or when I'm making out with chicks. It makes them think I'm smart when they hear Donald Richie's voice inb the background

Jandy said...

I have a heavily newer-film-biased collection, too, which is bothering me more and more lately. I blame mine on the fact that I'm cheap and tend to buy previously viewed DVDs, and those tend to be new releases most of the time. Now I'm consciously trying to buy fewer and buy better.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Peter, Netflix wasn't even on my radar until about 2003 but once I signed up it was such a relief from having to go to a video store, an experience I can't stand. I still don't have a region free player though. The two we have are about four or five years old at this point and have multiple problems including the sound going off synch after about an hour but if you simply pause it, rewind a couple of seconds of screen time it readjusts itself.

I don't plan on getting anything better right now. The kids leave movies on pause for hours, try to shove dvds in when another is inside, drop the remote constantly, etc. When they're grown, I'll upgrade. That line of Rip Torn's from Defending Your Life really is true: "Teenagers destroy everything."

Jonathan Lapper said...

Arbo, I wish I could say mine was almost entirely free of anything post 82 but I can't obviously, hence the post. I have purged a few here and there over the years. I've bought some movies, then after viewing them couldn't get them from the DVD player to the trash can fast enough. I have what I would call the cinephile basics, that is, if one checks out the last Sight and Sound poll's top 25, I probably have a good twenty of that top 25. But there's so much more to film history than those top movies and my thirties collection sucks. My love of those films is satisfied by TCM but I want more available to me on a moment's notice. So far in the last couple of years I've expanded it at about a rate of five or so a year.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Bill, I've had the same feeling many times. Like buying some junk food that looks really good and tasty and then you eat it, it's unsatisfying and you feel guilty because you could have had something so much better. And at this point I can't even get my mind around what I was thinking when I look through some of the titles I have. I'll have movies that only mildly entertained me at most when I first saw them and then for some odd reason decided I wanted to see them again and bought them only to watch them and think, "Why in the hell did I buy this?"

Jonathan Lapper said...

Iris, impulse buys account for at least 60 percent of my collection. But I am rarely disappointed by getting a movie sight unseen from a beloved director or writer. I think that's a much safer bet than buying the latest blockbuster or hip new movie sight unseen.

I'd trade in a lot of my DVDs in a heartbeat if the places that do that then had others I wanted to buy in their place but they never do. Two weeks ago when I was having internet problems at home I went to Best Buy to get a new router. While there I went over to the DVDs and started browsing. Quickly becoming appalled by what I was seeing I decided to run a little experiment. I picked a genre, Westerns, because it was right by where I was and looked for the classics (Stagecoach, The Searchers, Shane, High Noon, The Man Who Shot Libery Valance, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West). Keep in mind there is no "Classics" Section so they would be in Westerns if they were there at all. I tell you the God's honest truth that Stagecoach was the only they had. Seriously. But they did have a zillion copies of the new 3:10 to Yuma.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Fox, I have that problem too. I used to just burn them onto my computer for future viewing when I couldn't get around to them right away. With DVD Shrink you can make an exact copy of the DVD (same menus, features, etc - everything, exactly as it is on the DVD). Problem is there's no box and hence no liner notes, no pull out booklets and you're left with a crappy DVD-R with the titled scrawled across it with a Sharpie. Not exactly a collector's dream come true. The further problem is that even on the best players, the burned DVDs freeze up constantly or have a catastrophic failure two minutes before the climax of the movie. So I just stopped doing that. It was a waste of time and computer space.

Does your wife know you're making out with girls while listening to commentary tracks?

Jonathan Lapper said...

Jandy, that's a part of the problem with my collection as well: buying previously viewed DVDs because they're cheaper. They're also of course, newer movies and that limits the selection.

I did however recently come into a great deal on a twofer DVD with two movies I love. Free. It was in a giveaway bin at a thrift shop. I can't tell you what it is yet though as I have already grabbed a clip for Name that Movie.

Adam Ross said...

I have the opposite problem with my DVD collection -- I have too many I like! (For some reason that reminded me of when Mr. Burns exclaimed "I'm too nice!") Anyway, I keep my collection lean, if there's a movie I don't like or can't envision myself watching again, it's gone. As a result it's like living with hundreds of neglected toys:

The Blues Brothers says to me: "Adam, we haven't played in over two years, how could you?" While Fort Apache pleads "You once called me one of the greatest movies ever, yet I've never even been out of my case!"

I try to decide what to watch, and by the time I make up my mind it's time to change my son's diaper again...

Krauthammer said...

When I was packing up for college, one of the hardest things to do was separate my DVDs from my parents. It turns out I didn't own Citizen Kane (dad's) or Night of the Living Dead (brother's).
Looking at my collection I have around 45 movies and 8 from 90s to today. It's mostly full of Criterions that I would get every Christmas and Birthday when word went around that I really liked movies.
I don't have Netflix anymore, but I use OhioLINK to get basically any movie I want from other campuses.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Adam, I have had that problem, of deciding what to watch, more times then I care to remember. I have some free time or a day off and say, "I'm going to watch a movie with a nice lunch." Then I start going through the collection, whittle it down to three or four top choices, finally put one in after my lunch has grown cold, get about two minutes into it and decide I want to watch one of the others. Then just repeat that step for all of the others until finally I'm done with lunch and am on the internet again having not been able to make up my mind.

Jonathan Lapper said...

It's mostly full of Criterions

Oh how I envy you Krauthammer. Still, I wouldn't trade my experience of movie gifts, long before the age of DVDs and even for the most part videotapes. When I was still getting gifts from everybody in the family and all of my relatives, you know before say 17 to 20 when you just start getting a card or a phone call instead, I always got movie books and still have most of them today.

I'd like to know how other old timey cinephiles like Peter and Arbo feel about this, but speaking for this old timey cinephile, I cherish the books much more than the movies. Which shouldn't be, I guess, but that's the case.

Peter Nellhaus said...

While Best Buy isn't the best place to buy classic films, I did win a gift certificate at work which I used to buy Hidden Fortress.

Marilyn said...

I've never been the acquisitive type, and that has created the one source of the most friction with the hubby - he's a collector or anything and everything. Living in a condo makes collecting a health hazard, and he's managed to claim every inch of our storage space from floor to ceiling - and I used to think it was pretty large!

DVDs take up less space than most things, but I'm a cheapskate with myriad films available to me at my library and Facets, so I've never been deprived. What I buy are those really hard to find films. For a while, I had a contact in Shanghai who sent me packages of films he had purchased to watch himself (and a few requests from me) and then sold to me for about $4 each. I cut that out because I kept getting stuck buying films I really didn't want, like Portrait of Jason and Young Torless. I've offloaded most of those.

I have started buying some of my favorite films for convenience's sake (the Alphabet Meme gave me a list I want to fulfill), but I'm still watching my space and my wallet. I'm still too much of an amateur film critic (and likely to stay that way) to need reference to everything.

It's funny that you should mention The Most Dangerous Game, Jonathan. After seeing it on so many Alpha Memes, I rented Zodiac. Can someone please tell directors that 2.5-hour films are optional, not mandatory? After the first 30 minutes, oh my Lord, what a snooze!

Ed Howard said...

This is a great post, and a very good defense of the oft-derided collector impulse.

I love having a collection full of classics, and I almost always buy blind. I don't think I've rented a movie in the last ten years -- if there's something I want to see I generally buy it (or download it, but that's another story), especially since my tastes tend to run towards "the classics" anyway, so I know ahead of time that these are movies I will want to have around. I also tend to buy in sprees, when there's a sale or when I have a few gift certificates lying around or something, the downside of which is that I have huge piles of movies that I own but haven't seen yet. It makes selecting what to watch both a pleasure and a challenge. At this point, I've declared a moratorium on buying anything new until I've watched what I have already.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Peter, your Best Buy had Hidden Fortress? That's amazing. Mine has little before 1980 outside of Gone With the Wind, Casablanca and Citizen Kane.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Marilyn, my wife and I are fortunate in that we both share the "collect nothing" impulse. As a result our house is remarkably clear, clean and uncluttered. Books and movies is about all we collect and even with the books we donate them back when it's getting too bad.

I love that you mention a "contact in Shanghai." It's make you sound like an underworld spy. But it seems like you got a lot of great unattainable stuff from that contact. I have no international contacts myself, alas.

The Most Dangerous Game is like so many other early thirties movies in running time: an hour to hour and a half and done. My speed exactly. Of course, as I noted in an earlier post I love loooonnngggg movies too, as long as their good but lately, as I also complained about in that post, it feels like a lot of padding going on instead. I'm still stunned that the makers of Pirates of the Caribbean III felt it the story required THREE HOURS to tell. Are you kidding me? Zodiac I liked but not as much as many fellow cinephiles who seemed ready to acclaim it the best movie of the last twenty years or something. I thought it was a very good police procedural but I do agree that it could have tightened the story up a bit.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Ed, beware, buying anything I wanted to see was how I got the collection I now have. Like you, I have many DVDs of movies I have still not watched. Many are newer and I take a long time to get around to the new ones. I say that a lot here so I think I should finally just admit outright that I am in a mild latency period with new movies right now. In the nineties I saw everything that came out, good or bad, and saw much less classic stuff. Then in the 2000's I started becoming obsessed with the classic movies again and remain so right now. Any time a new movie pops up on my radar I think, "But there are still so many older movies I haven't seen so these new ones can wait." Except for Oscar time, when I do see most of the nominees, most of the year I feel a bit out of the loop with many other movie bloggers. Probably why I have the regular blogs I visit that I do, because so many of them concentrate on the older stuff too.

Fox said...

Marilyn-

I'm with you on Zodiac.

Don't get the love that that film gets at all. I hear the argument that it's a mish-mash of a clusterfu*k of investigorial information and that the aestheitic and mood illuminate that,... but that all falls deaf on me.

To me, Fincher, is the ultimate example of a fine film technician who lacks the other variables needed to be a great director. Oh, and Se7en is one of the worst films of the past 20 years.

Marilyn said...

Certain directors get cache by coming up with one film that really shocks in some way, and I think Fincher's Se7en made his rep in certain circles. I see what people saw in it, just like I can see why people embraced Memento and The Matrix. They have that cool factor and as long as you don't dig too deeply, you can convince yourself that they are works of great genius/originality.

The hubby was obsessed with Zodiac and has read quite a bit about the case. He found nothing in the film except the ending, which closed a story he stopped following, very enlightening but acknowledged that it gave the information to people who didn't know about the case. The movie is plodding, doesn't give us any interesting characters at all, and ends up inconclusively. I can name other movies that deal with the price of obsession way better than Zodiac, and plenty that do serial killing much better as well.

BTW, Jonathan, if you want to be put in touch with my Shanghai contact, I'm sure he's still open for business. I've had generally good luck with the discs he's sent, but there have been a few corrupted discs in the bunch. You can have all my rejects from him if you want. In fact, any of you can. I'll put a list out to you via email.

Ed Howard said...

Well, the thing is most of the movies I buy are older ones (or, alternatively, newer films from perennial favorite older directors, like Rohmer, Godard, Woody Allen). There's a short-list of current directors who can always get me into the theater, but otherwise I'm way more excited by older films -- classic pre-60s Hollywood and foreign film from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. I'm with you on being out of the loop; there are a handful of films I still want to see from this year, but I dedicate most of my watching time to catching up on my unwatched DVDs, which are probably something like 70-80% pre-1990.

I thought Zodiac was great. Yea, it's "just" a police procedural but an astonishingly well-crafted one that, to me, confirms Fincher as a director to watch. I'd liked Se7en and Fight Club plenty, but this was the first of his films that to me seemed like the work of a fully realized auteur in complete control of his craft.

bill r. said...

I think Seven is just okay, and I hate Fight Club, but I think Zodiac is a masterpiece.

Jonathan Lapper said...

As long as we're rating those three films, I'm with Bill on Se7en, it's okay, nothing great. As for Fight Club (SPOILERS AHEAD) I find the first half very funny and entertaining and then once all the house/terrorism stuff starts it bores me stiff. If it had only been about the narrator going through the 12 step groups and meeting Marla and left out Tyler Durden I would have liked it a lot more. I realize then it wouldn't be Fight Club anymore but whatever, I don't like the fight club stuff. I thought having a guy go from one group to another out of personal desperation was a nice touch but then it veers off wildly into all that other shit. And am I the only one who doesn't find the Jack is Tyler thing cool but stupid? It doesn't work for me as an examination of Jack's desperate life but more as an empty twist.

And Zodiac I already covered further up in the comments.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Marilyn, if Shanghai Lily has access to classics of the twenties and thirties in their original packaging at much reduced prices, then sure. But if not, don't worry about it. Right now the wife and I are looking for the early Hollywood classics mainly.

Marilyn said...

I'm not sure what you mean by original packaging, but if you have a few titles I can run past him, I'll let you know. He's picked up Vampyr for me. I never asked for too much that early, but I've gotten The Song of Bernadette, The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, and some early Joris Ivens docs.

Jonathan Lapper said...

By original packaging I mean I don't want those DVDs you see for sale in Central Park (or someplace similar in Chicago and elsewhere) where they've got bootleg copies in crappy ultra-thin cases. I mean when I get the DVD it's the original DVD in the Criterion Case it came in. As for titles, it's just a shoot from the hip kind of a thing with my wife and I, whatever's on our mind at the time. Really, it's no big deal, we're only getting two or so a month and we have an account set up with TCM that allows us to browse through titles that are all pretty inexpensive anyway.

Marilyn said...

He gets originals as well as bootlegs; I remember getting one original Criterion, but until I get home, I can't tell you want it is. I'm going to put you in touch with him, and you talk to him about it if you think you want to check into it. He normally saves up until he has 10-15 DVDs to send (cuts down on postage). Check your e-mail.

bill r. said...

And am I the only one who doesn't find the Jack is Tyler thing cool but stupid?

No, you're not. The whole story seemed as though it had been concocted by an angry teenager.

Kimberly said...

Over at the Film Walrus blog there was a recent discussion about DVD collecting habits that you should check out.

I've been buying movies since the VHS days - which led to buying Laser Discs (remember those expensive beasts?) - and finally DVDs. But I didn't buy a DVD player until 2002. 98% of the films I own were made in the '60s & '70s, which probably won't surprise you since that's were my own interest is but 95% of the films I own are horror films and foreign films.

I only buy films on DVD that I know I'll watch more than once and will probably go out of print. Since I own hundreds of rare movies on video I've been converting them to DVD and selling my videos.

I treat my film library like my book library. Both have grown completely out of hand though and when I move (which will probably be next year) I suspect that I'll get rid of a lot of things.

Marilyn said...

OK, this is what I can tell you about the DVDs. USA Home Entertainment, a division of USA Films, is printed on the DVDs that have jackets labeled Criterion. When you plop the DVDs in, they have the Criterion Collection logo on them. Some of them have all the extras advertised on the box (the Viridiana DVD is especially good), some of them don't. They are probably knock-offs, but they're very good knock-offs. I've got on both "Criterion" and other label Andrei Rublev, I Know Where I'm Going, Bob Le Flambeaur, Visages D'Enfants, Broadway Melodoy of 1940, L'Argent, Diary of a Country Priest, The Ear, The Great Dictator, Charulata, A Constant Forge and L'Age D'Or among the ones sent from Shanghai. All $4 each at the time.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Kimberly, treating my DVD collection like a book library is exactly what I'm looking to do, but a really nice library, with all hard-bound first editions. Which is why we'll work at it slowly. I wonder when downloading becomes the ubiquituous choice if they will still give the option (I think they should) of downloading the art for the DVD box that you supply so you can still have a physical collection instead of a virtual collection.

Marilyn, thanks for the further info. I think we'll stick with getting the originals for now from TCM which we can browse and pick and choose from but thank you anyway.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Bill, especially by the end with the buildings blowing up. I always found that "you caught me on a bad day" or whatever his final line is, to be an utterly adolescent way to end the movie. It's so filled with teenage angst, which is probably why so many teenagers find it so cool. But what about adults? Plenty like it after the first half too. This I have no explanation for.

Marilyn said...

I knew you wouldn't go for it.

I'll just have to offer the Eclipse Lubitsch musicals, Forbidden Hollywood Vol. 1, Lang's "Woman on the Moon" (MoC), Birth of a Nation, MK2 Chaplins, Pandora's Box, and a good deal of Hitchcock" to somebody else.

Friends of Ferdy - Please let me know if these might appeal to you.

Jonathan Lapper said...

Oh come on, I'm a Friend of Ferdy too, I just prefer the simple method of going to where I have an account set up and ordering the DVD. I'm a simple man Marilyn, but I love and appreciate that you offered.

Rick Olson said...

Late to the party, as usual, but I certainly understand the collectable issue. I have no desire to collect anything else but dvds, but I can't afford very many, especially the ones I primarily want to collect.

And I'm not just ga-ga over Zodiac, either ... although I did put it on the Alphabet meme, because I was tired and I couldn't think of anything else ...

Jonathan Lapper said...

You could have said Zulu, Zulu Dawn, Zero Effect or Z I suppose. I would have picked Zulu had I not been away and actually had time to do the meme, but thanks for tagging me. At this point, it seems a little "last week" to do it now.

Rick Olson said...

Of those Zs, the only one I've seen is 'Z' and I totally forgot about it.

Actually, I liked this meme ... it was easy and kind of fun. And people were doing the last meme for months ...

Brian Doan said...

Awesome post. I was just thinking about this the other day-- I went through a period of lots of impulse buying, and look at some of my DVDs today and say, "Why?" I also would get stuff for teaching, teach it once or twice, then never look at it again. But I think you're dead-on that the biggest reason was the scarcity of renting in the late 90s (which is when I got my player, and even the crappiest movie seemed like CITIZEN KANE when played on this new, shiny fetish object). On the other hand, some of my impulse buys were Criterion discs by directors I liked (Bunuel, Renoir) even if I hadn't seen the films. I still haven't watched all of those, but I'm glad they're in my collection, because I'm sure I'll get the urge someday. As a friend once said about books, "You can't get rid of them! You're building a collection!"
Which is true, but that said-- my most recent way to curb the bad impulse by is to say, "Do I literally have room on my shelf for this? And if I don't, what am I willing to give up to make room for it?"

Jonathan Lapper said...

On the other hand, some of my impulse buys were Criterion discs by directors I liked (Bunuel, Renoir) even if I hadn't seen the films. I still haven't watched all of those, but I'm glad they're in my collection, because I'm sure I'll get the urge someday.

Brian, I have DVDs that I purchased at the start of the century, unseen, and still have not watched them. I also, like you, had that feeling that any movie was great when played on this brand new phantasmatron I had just purchased. Why, there are menus and extras and stills and yes, it's Star Trek VIII but the menu's animated!

Oddly enough, I now cherish the Kubrick and Woody Allen DVDs I have that just go straight to the movie. All those bells and whistles that got my attention in the early days of DVDs just bug the crap out of me now. I hate popping in an anxiously awaited movie only to be forced to watch an overly elaborate animated scene leading up to the menu choices. Then you click play and the animation starts again. Geez, just play the movie already!

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