The 'Aging Movie Fan' thread

[Stubblecat]

I decided to start this thread as an odd experiment in exploring the nature of movie fandom and 'collecting' as the members of Generation X begin to molt into their 40s.

I used to be a 'collecting' nut, starting with VHS and then laserdisc. DVD followed suit, of course.

Now that I'm almost 40, all of this seems so wasted on me. Sure, I LOVE film and have a deep appreciation for some movies that I've bought 5 times over (paging Doctor Blade Runner...), but now let's take the uncomfortable stance of the grownup who has to face life and the whole 'putting away childish things' quandry.

I acknowledge that a good number of members here are in their young 20s. This thread is for the slightly older collective who can offer a bit of perspective about the thousands of dollars being spent on DVDs which will eventually be sold to third parties for 10% of their original cost.

Thus begins... THE THREAD OF CHRISTMAS FUTURE... or 'Heed our warning and be happy'.

[Stubblecat]

To be fair, I'll start.

I'm 37. Between VHS, laserdisc, DVD and Blu-ray, I've probably spent over $10,000 on movies. If I had never sold off a single title my collection would probably have a street value of about $1000.

To clarify: The VHS and laserdisc collection would represent about $6000 easily, as VHS and laserdisc back in the early 90s were unbelievably expensive. Hell, I paid $70 for Pulp Fiction and $450 for the Star Wars laserdisc set.

Now that I'm an old decrepit bastard, I value my memory more than anything. When I see some young buck with racks of DVDs he'll never watch again, I think of the cost of an all-inclusive trip to a Caribbean resort. I think of the inherent value of a pile of plastic movies versus the inherent value of a week in paradise with someone you love.

Am I the only aging freak here?

I know that the very nature of this forum is NOT to crap on those who want to collect millions of DVDs, but I just feel like there needs to be one lonely voice of dissent who has already seen the sad future of collecting and wants to put some perspective on things.

Thus begins the debate...

[mkiker2089]

I'm not sure if it's an age thing or if it's something larger. Just five years ago the thought of digital distribution seemed absurd, now almost everyone has tried it.

Beyond that, I'm with you on buying movies. I only buy them if it's something that meets three criteria
1. I want to see it now and know that it's good (no more blind buys despite hype)
2. Others will want to see it and I can share it to make my money seem better spent
3. It will have extreme replay value

Those rules have taken me from two or more a month down to maybe 1 blu ray a quarter.

I still occasionally collect other things though.

[mavrach]

I'm starting to get there. I'm 29 now, just got married, about to look for a home ownership, planning kids in the next few years. So going to "adult" mode bigtime. I'm so happy to have my 1300 DVD's (see the other thread), but at that same time that money would have been quite the help now that we're scrounging for a mortgage down payment. I tell myself that when I bought those movies, I would have squandered the money anyway had I chosed not to buy DVD's. As Harold once put it, DVD's are cheaper than booze, drugs, and hookers, so I equate my spending to that of experience. In stockpiling those, I'd always hoped to build to a point that I'd have a large enough collection to hold me long-term, so I'd want to watch them over and over and have them forever.

I see your point when you mention that you've re-purchased the same movies repeatedly as the formats have changed over time. I thought the same, and had a similar sizeable collection on VHS (2/3 taped off TV though). I don't see movies going much further than DVD though, so I don't intend to purchase them further, unless they're something really special. But basically I consider these to be permanent.

I've gotten rid of all the fluff I could find. Anything that I watched once and never cared to see again, anything that sat on the shelf with no urge to ever watch, all got sold. What's left are the quality movies that I intend to watch again. The problem is that leaves me with said 1300 DVD's, and if I were to watch one movie a night, it would take me 4 years to do so! It's a point of stress even, especially when I consider storage in a place that doesn't want to look like a bachelor pad.

Buying new stuff is slowing too. The main reason of course is that I own just about everything that I would have an interest in seeing. So that takes care of existing movies. That leaves new movies, which will always come out. I'm strictly picking up the movies that I only REALLY want to see, or are sure that I will like. No more curious investigating, dabbling, or giving random stuff a shot. I have enough variety already. I'm only going to buy sure things. I'm also avoiding most TV DVD's because they are so time-intensitve.


So as far as spending now, I feel secure and not so out of control in randomly buying stuff. I feel that what I have is quality, though I wish i would widdle the current collection down a bit more. I don't see much that I wouldn't honestly want to watch again. Even titles without a great replay value, I know I'd want to see in a certain mood.

[mkiker2089]

I look at like an investment, but not a monetary one. We don't expect to get money out of used gasoline or food so why look at movies as liquid cash. instead look at it like an investment in quality of life. Will the money spent on those movies make you happier than if you spent it on a week in Bermuda, or if you spread it out all year so you could buy name brand soda instead of the store brand.

With that in mind I chose netflix over buying. I have no way of ensuring that the 10 dollars I spend on this movie will bring me lasting joy. I do know that 10 dollars to netflix a month has given me an unending joy. I've literally watched hundreds of dollars of movies (both streaming and mailed discs) in the last month. to me it's no comparison.

So I ask people like Mavrach and Steve, do you feel that having the movies on your shelf are worth it? Would you be better off renting?

However a counter point, if I were still a buyer I'd buy HD-DVD perhaps. I know we've gone in circles on this one but in the end you should be able to get them cheap, and equipment failures are truly very rare.

[mavrach]

Exactly, you said it better than I could have. Once the money is spent, it's just gone, so what you have left has a use. My dad blows his money on 3 packs of cigarettes a day, yet says I buy too many DVD's.


I have a conundrum with renting. Of my 1300 DVD's, I have over 100 that I still haven't watched. Until I watch those, I couldn't justify myself renting something. If it's worth watching at all, I'd just buy it. The only other movies I'd want to see are the oddly terrible ones that I want to see once for some reason, like say Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li.

I only bother watching new stuff that I'm really into. But in the meantime I want to see those 100 first. So I guess I'm as picky with my rentals as I am with my purchases. If I'm going to spend 2 hours with any movie, it's going to be a good one.


See this is the crap I stress myself over.

[Future Man]

I'm in my early 40s with a dvd collection of somewhere around nine hundred titles. I seem to draw satisfaction out of the owning of a desired title, even if I may not watch it more than once. I feel like having the option of watching a particualr title gives me a sense of satisfaction. It's like houses where you see a personal library of wall to wall books--how many are actually re-read if read at all? To me there's some intrinsic psychological value in possessing them. I do try to be selective and I cull occasionally. Also I have never let my dvd buying get in the way of any financial obligations or vacation money. My biggest hurdle now will be to try to come up with a hard and fast set of standards that can help me minimize the amount of dvd titles I replace with their Blu-ray counterparts.

[Stubblecat]

I can rationalize books a bit easier, because books have been around for a good millenia, and I still have books that my late Father owned. I can see a real value to a book, whether it's my copy of 'King Lear' from the late 1800s of my generic paperback copy of 'Cathcer In The Rye'. I don't really see ebooks or the Kindle thing ever making books go anywhere.
My laserdiscs used to look beautiful, but technology rendered them useless. Same with my VHS tapes. The DVD format has had a good 12-year run, but it's only a matter of time before they'll be rendered completely worthless.

Too bad Netflix is basically illegal in Canada (our relaxed copyright laws keep them at bay). I'd love that sort of service. I tend to rent and download films and I've also found that my local library has a treasure trove of awesome titles, including tons of Criterion titles.

I had a near-death experience this past year, and after that happened I asked myself what would become of all my 'stuff' were I to die tomorrow. The sad answer is that my wife (at the time) probably really wouldn't have any use for the hundreds of DVDs I had, and they'd end up either at the local Salvation Army or maybe at a used CD/DVD store. All the other odd things I collected would probably end up being boxed up and sold in a garage sale or just thrown out.

Thus (followed by the divorce) began an examination of the value of buying and keeping things that do nothing more for me but take up space in my life.

[Dimwitted]

I'm older than you guys but never got into the VHS thing. Unless there's a good reason for it or I've made a mistake I don't have multiple versions of the movies. I mostly buy cheap, i.e. it's the same or cheaper than renting it. I dropped cable so I buy the TV Series especially the cheap 1st seasons in Walmart.
Overall, I don't obssess over it.

[Ptolemy]

To quote the man: "Quantity has a quality all its own"

[hoytereden]

I may be one of the few "baby boomers" around here so you guys are youngsters to me but being a collector by nature I don't attatch myself to or buy because of value. If something I buy happens to appreciate in value it's because it goes OOP or is issued in small quantities and goes up in value long after I bought it. I love films and have been buying them in every format from 16 & 8mm to Blue-ray. I buy a film because I like it or think I might. I do blind buy but nowhere near as much as I used to. A lot of things I used to collect I've tailed off on but I still buy movies, books pertaining to film or stars, movie posters, history books (WWII especially) and video games. Money well spent or foolish purchases? Depends on who makes the judgement. These things make me happy and unless something dire happens I will continue to purchase them. If I pass on then my wife and kids know dealers to contact if they choose to sell off these items. At that point, of course, I will be beyond caring.

[Steve T Power]

I may be one of the few "baby boomers" around here so you guys are youngsters to me but being a collector by nature I don't attatch myself to or buy because of value. If something I buy happens to appreciate in value it's because it goes OOP or is issued in small quantities and goes up in value long after I bought it. I love films and have been buying them in every format from 16 & 8mm to Blue-ray. I buy a film because I like it or think I might. I do blind buy but nowhere near as much as I used to. A lot of things I used to collect I've tailed off on but I still buy movies, books pertaining to film or stars, movie posters, history books (WWII especially) and video games. Money well spent or foolish purchases? Depends on who makes the judgement. These things make me happy and unless something dire happens I will continue to purchase them. If I pass on then my wife and kids know dealers to contact if they choose to sell off these items. At that point, of course, I will be beyond caring.

What this guy said.

Well, except for the "you're all youngsters" thing - i'll be 32 on the 23rd of this month.

I never regret spending what i have between movies and games, and managing a rental store i have access to a lot of stuff i may or may not buy as it's released, which does alter my perceptions some...

[Parklife]

35 here and over the past three years my movie buying has crept to a near standstill. I still buy the occasional movie but now months go between purchases, not days. I've got a relatively moderate size collection 400-500 DVDs at this point and I've sold off plenty over the past two years. I suppose my buying slowed as life changed (marriage, a new job, etc...) and I rely more on Netflix now than I ever did. Also, I realize that the movies I started buying and focused my collection on aren't necessarily what my wife is interested in watching all that often. She enjoys foreign films, I love them. She tolerates French New Wave, I can't seem to go without it. I can watch classics over and over, she prefers to see new movies. It's made we take a look at what I own(ed) and re-evaluate. Sure, I liked owning the French flick, "The Housekeeper" and kept it for a years but never watched it after the first couple of times. Now it's on a 'to be sold' pile.

We tend to watch the same movies over and over and since we've gotten rid of cable TV we watch our favorite shows on DVD. Instant viewing on Netflix has gotten so much better over the past 12 months that it keeps us entertained much more so than buying new titles.

I'm still a collector though... my collecting has just morphed.

[hoytereden]

Also, I realize that the movies I started buying and focused my collection on aren't necessarily what my wife is interested in watching all that often. She enjoys foreign films, I love them. She tolerates French New Wave, I can't seem to go without it. I can watch classics over and over, she prefers to see new movies.

I've been married nearly 30 years and based on what my wife and I mutually like, we shouldn't have lasted 30 days! After endless "How about.......?" and getting the look we pretty much have carved out our own times for what we like and and watch them separately. It works for us.

[Steve T Power]

Also, I realize that the movies I started buying and focused my collection on aren't necessarily what my wife is interested in watching all that often. She enjoys foreign films, I love them. She tolerates French New Wave, I can't seem to go without it. I can watch classics over and over, she prefers to see new movies.

I've been married nearly 30 years and based on what my wife and I mutually like, we shouldn't have lasted 30 days! After endless "How about.......?" and getting the look we pretty much have carved out our own times for what we like and and watch them separately. It works for us.

You're my evil twin, aren't you.

[hoytereden]

Also, I realize that the movies I started buying and focused my collection on aren't necessarily what my wife is interested in watching all that often. She enjoys foreign films, I love them. She tolerates French New Wave, I can't seem to go without it. I can watch classics over and over, she prefers to see new movies.

I've been married nearly 30 years and based on what my wife and I mutually like, we shouldn't have lasted 30 days! After endless "How about.......?" and getting the look we pretty much have carved out our own times for what we like and and watch them separately. It works for us.

You're my evil twin, aren't you.

Could be, could be. Remember you and I were the only ones here who liked AVP and, of course, that whole Captain Ron thing........Hmmmmmmm! But remember-Mother told us never to talk about that!

[Parklife]

well... that's what we do but I've found I just watch less of them in isolation these days. Don't get me wrong, I'm not getting rid of my Antoine Doinel films just because she wouldn't watch them. But I do see them less and less which makes the marginal films I've owned for years less essential.

[Paul Kile]

I'm 55 and that puts me solidly into Baby Boomer territory. Like Future Man, I feel there is an intrinsic psychological value in a physical collection. To be able to hold the case and look at the title artwork and any inside documentation is important to me. OTOH, I have a monstrous wall unit in our family room that stands 8 feet tall and 6 feet wide, and it is stuffed with probably 1,000 or more VHS tapes. 3/4 of these are home-recorded off the TV. I haven't played any of the tapes in at least 3 years. That collection lurks like an 800-pound gorilla that I try to ignore. What I need to do is to systematically start going through them and transfer the good stuff to some form of virtual storage. But I seem to derive some sort of perverse satisfaction in having a huge obsolete collection dominating one wall of the family room.

On a sort of related note, I have just managed to sonically lurch into the 21st Century by buying my first portable MP3 player, a Sandisk Fuze. I have been a curmudgeonly holdout, not believing that compressed MP3s can sound as good as CDs or vinyl. After hearing some stuff digitized at 192Kbps or higher, that convinced me. Hearing a downloaded song over my home theater system, after having plugged the Fuze into the USB port on the front of my A/V receiver, further convinced me. Now I can start converting my CD collection and storing it on microSD cards that slot into the Fuze.

But I will still keep my CDs - they still look good in the rack in our living room, and sound good along with my vinyl (licorice pizzas) on the 25-year-old stereo component system in the oak cabinet that I still enjoy. Long live obsolete formats!

[Dan Mancini]

My resistance to having a huge collection has nothing to do with my rapid descent into geezerdom. I'm just something of a minimalist. I hate having a bunch of crap stacked up (or even shelved) all over the place. I think I was made that way during the early years of my marriage when I was still in grad school and we never stayed in an apartment for more than a year -- nothing makes you an anti-consumerist like having to pack up all of your crap in boxes and ply your friends with free pizza and beer to help you haul it across town every 12 months or so.

I don't think there's a thing in the world wrong with having a massive collection of whatever (provided your kids aren't starving). If that's your thing, more power to ya. It just ain't mine. (Granted, I say all that as a dude who has almost 300 DVDs and Blu-rays, which most of my friends would consider a large collection.)