What a racket, what a shake-down.
Everything I thought as I made these many, many purchases was dead wrong. "If it's good, I'll watch it more than once." "I could see myself watching this while the wife is afield." "Oh, the kids will definitely want to see this when they're older."
The biggest lie of them all: "If I don't buy it, there's probably no other way I'll get to see it." Ka-ching!
A great percentage of discs are still handy to have around -- the Disney/Pixar stuff, basically. Even if grandkids don't ever enter my family picture, some occasion usually presents itself in the form of kids-of-friends, or other family members. So I don't begrudge those purchases -- we already got our money's worth throughout the girls' childhood.
I would estimate that at least 75% of the DVDs I own will never be played/seen by me a second time.
Of these, even the uber-classic movies I just knew I'd queue up at least once a year, are just . . . taking up space. The Godfather trilogy, for instance. Millennials are getting a bad rap because they get twitchy within minutes of the opening sequence -- but sheesh: so do I. Who wants to sit through over three hours of a single movie -- one of three -- when there's all this fabulous television to catch up with?
And now with streaming and on-demand being what it is, the catalog of possibilities is far larger than I ever could have imagined when I initially forked over the $5-$25.
Still and all, there are a handful of movie DVDs I value -- deeply. In some cases you can easily get the movie on demand, but there remains a larded pantry of wonders on the DVD extras. In other cases, it's just a fondness unique to the fetish of the particular package in question.
So this is me, coming out of "listing" retirement and announcing my list of cherished DVDs. Might be a top-10, I don't know. We'll see. What I won't do is put them in any particular order, with the exception of Number 1 -- because there is a particular DVD among the bunch that delivers maximal marginal utility.
First entry goes to . . .
Barbarian Days!??! Loved it. Made me grievingly mope for my youth that I should have lived as a William Finnegan that I should have come back as after my previous life.
ReplyDeleteHa! Yes, a life best lived vicariously if the only other option is not at all.
ReplyDeleteYou capture the process I went through exactly. I'm down to a handful that I do pull of the shelf enough to warrant their space on it.
ReplyDeleteMine are:
- Bedazzled (the original with Dudley Moore and Peter Cook)
- Harold and Maude
- The Kentucky Fried Movie (the first effort from the crew that then made Airplane!)
- Office Space (talk about needing a Criterion Edition)
- Legend (the deluxe set with the 2 1/2 versions of the movie with the 2 different scores - yes the Tom Cruise movie)
- Blade Runner (the deluxe one with 3 or 4 versions of the movie, including the superior theatrical cut with Harrison Ford's purposely crappy voiceover)
- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (there are few movies as perfect)
- Excalibur
- Raising Arizona (he's got to have his dip-tet!)
- Dazed and Confused / American Graffiti
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (the only contender with Harold and Maude as the great movie love stories of all time)
- Brainstorm
- Demolition Man (you don't know how to use the 3 seashells?)
- Fight Club
- The Andromeda Strain (the original one from the 70s, I don't know why I still watch this with regularity)
- Galaxy Quest
- Primer
- Altered States (it feels like I'm being harpooned by a monk in the act of receiving God)
- Star Wars (the one release that nearly secretly contains the original print of the movie from '77 - a must have)
- Never Cry Wolf (probably the prettiest movie put to film)
- John Carpenter's The Thing (still my favorite)
"Kentucky Fried Movie"!! - man, there's a drive-inn staple that's slipped the surly bonds of my memory! There are a few others on your list that come out of left field (as is appropriate - Legend?)
ReplyDeleteLegend is such an interesting attempt, but it still works, as flawed as it is.
ReplyDeleteTim Curry was the demon, wasn't he? Man, he had a tough time recovering from Rocky Horror Picture Show -- though he's fun to watch hamming it up in the Clue movie.
ReplyDelete