DVD 900!!

I love collecting films.  I’ve been doing it now for 7 years.  And yesterday, with the inclusion of a handful of movies bought at Target on sale, I was able to reach a collecting milestone: DVD 900.  Well, not really “DVD” 900 as I’ve been moving to Blu Ray as much as I can now, but the terminology is what I used back in 2010 when I got my 400^th film for my collection so I’ll keep it here.

I’ve been buying movies for my personal collection since 2002, the same year I got my PS2.  It was a big deal.  Movies have meant a lot to me for a very long time.  I remember visiting Movie Gallery as a kid, and my Dad helping me pick out movies to rent all the time.  I remember having to sneak to rent my favorite film, Labyrinth, because my mother didn’t like the look of Hoggle on the front.  I remember him surprising me when I was sick or feeling bad or just because with Return to Oz or Hook or TMNT 3. 

I remember opening movies for the house on Christmas and Easters.  But in 2002, I was collecting for myself.  I walked downtown to a pawn shop and picked up my very first movie: Shallow Hal.  I don’t know why that was the one.  But it was, it was the first DVD I ever owned.  I sold it some years ago because that movie blows, and I kind of wish I still had it, just to frame it, or put it in a glass case like Scrooge’s first dime in Duck Tales.  I got a few more movies after that: Disney’s Hercules, a gift of Snatch and Mallrats from Eric, and of course a copy of Labyrinth.

"Nothing more ... ok, well maybe a couple 900 more."

I bought movies then like most people do, just getting ones you like or keeping gifts you receive.  I wasn’t really a collector until 2007.  Over 5 years I had bought maybe 25 or 30 movies.  But suddenly, I was getting into film in a new way.  I spent my college years working on a double major Writing/Theatre, and somewhere in there my eyes were opened up to the artistry and skill in filmmaking.  And I loved being the guy with the weird movies, and having people hang out in my apartment or bringing Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story to a party at the lake house.  It became a part of my identity, which is a whole ‘nother ramble to go on.

I started compiling films that I thought were great, or thought were terrible but fun to share, or just curiosities.  I started working up the nerve to create I Have an Opinion at that point, though in the old form you can see in videos on this blog.  I refuse to remove them because they stand for where I was.  And I standby those bad review videos even now.   In 2010, I even created DVD 400’s little video for Sylvester Stallone’s disaster film Daylight, which is awesome by the way.  I bought it because I heard it was terrible, and got it, watched it, and was blown away.  It was so much better than I had read.  It confirmed to me that I loved doing this, having my opinion on everything, and sharing it most importantly.

Daylight's biggest fan, eh heh heh.

In 2012 I took collecting to the next step, buying myself my first blu ray player and a foreign region-free karaoke player from the Phillipines so I could start buying non-US films too, or US movies that never got a domestic DVD, like Short Time or the $200 Split Second which was only $14 if I bought the Italian version Detective Stone. 

And now, 2014, 4 years after DVD 400, I have added 500 films to my collection.  Some of that comes from getting married (probably 75-100 of them to be honest) and even better together we’ve been finding and adding more hard to find films and wonderful editions of things to blu-ray, like Three Stooges on blu-ray (the first movie we saw together) or My Favorite Year, a crazy hard to find Peter O’Toole film we were finally able to add to our collection.  I have to get used to calling it “our” collection, too.  And using “we” instead of I.  I am sure she’ll forgive me for doing it in this editorial though.

This look back into the history of this collection is not to brag, but just to share.  Film is important to me, and always has been.  Sitting and watching a movie with friends means the world to me.  Having film parties and hosting and making gourmet popcorn is awesome.  Finding new things to share with my friends, like our love of Top Secret! which came on our radar out of nowhere, or how much I hated Waitress and couldn’t hold back how unhappy I was anymore around 30 minutes in and just really pissing off Schmidt.  Those are memories that are precious to me. 

"Hi, even I can't make Waitress good!" Eh heh heh.

So yeah, there’s all that.  Looking forward to whatever movie is DVD 1000!  Also, DVD 900 actual film review will be Saturday the 15^th!