Do you curate your large blu-ray collection? (1 Viewer)

[Winston T. Boogie]

Do you create film festivals for yourself and/or friends? Do you actively create a calendar of "showings" so you have a program to look forward to? How do you organize working your way through your collection so they are not just sitting on a shelf?

 

[JohnMor]

Not really. I watch every single one of my discs, with possibly 3 odd exceptions that I haven't gotten around to, so no need to organize working my way through them. Aside from those 3 titles, nothing sits on my shelf for very long after purchase (a week at most).


Sadly, most of my friends don't share my taste in films, so no festivals. And, oddly, when I do sort plan a program for my own benefit, I never stick to it and usually go in a different direction.

 

[Mike2001]

I keep track of what I have on filmaf. I do have quite a few in the wrappers still. My plan when I retire in a few years is to refile them by release date and then watch them all in chronological order.

 

[Michel_Hafner]

I put discs I think I want to watch very soon rather than later on a separate staple next to the players. But I don't always pick something from that staple. Sometimes I feel like rewatching a film and just pick it from the shelves. Or I react to current events. For example when Robin Williams died I rewatched some of his key films one after the other. A mini festival, kind of. Or I get inspired by a disc I just watched (for example with actor x, director y or subject z) and then watch something else with actor x, director y or subject z. Or I get some new equipment and have to rewatch some of my favourites to see if and how they look/sound different now. When I have guests they decide what they want to see. With several thousand titles the choice is vast.

 

[Vic Pardo]

Not exactly. But I did show clips from a J-pop concert on Blu-ray to a visitor this past Sunday:

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

Thanks for the responses. I ask because I also have a sizable collection. I realized that just coming home and randomly pulling a title off the shelf generally left me not interacting with a majority of the films I own. At the same time I realized I really was never watching whatever was on television and if I turned it on to see what might be on, I would end up turning it off and watching something I owned instead. This basically led me to downsizing my DirecTV package to a basic one...leading me further into the land of never watching television. So, with a boatload of content already sitting on shelves in my house I decided I would focus on watching these films rather than wasting time and money on flicking through channels and never really finding anything I want to watch.


So, I picked up a calendar and began to fill in what I would watch on each day of the month. It turned into a lot of fun because I started going through my collection and found ways to get things into the blu-ray player that I had not watched in some time. This became much better than wandering around staring at the shelves and trying to pick something out. Plus everything I was watching was something I enjoyed so I was not staring blankly at a television or wasting time flicking through endless channels of garbage.


One of the first months I programmed I used a program I had picked up from the Cinematheque Francaise when I was in Paris and just followed what they had scheduled. They happened to be focusing on the films of Hitchcock and Kubrick and so it was easy and featured a couple of directors I loved. Occasionally I still do this by looking up what different festivals are doing and then mirroring that festival in my home. I do often invite friends and family to participate and they do but obviously people will not turn up every day of the month to watch something so most of this I am doing for myself.


I often come up with themes and try to play off of whatever might be going on that month. As a funny example, this month I am doing a series of Alan Rudolph films and I thought it would be funny to do Rudolph because it is Christmas...get it, ha ha...but I also did this because Kino was wonderful enough to release a pair of his films on blu-ray this month and I knew I wanted to get them and watch them so I used that as an excuse as well to put together a little Alan Rudolph festival. I kicked that off by showing this video, followed by showing Welcome to L.A. as the opening film:





The rest of the Rudolph line-up includes:


Trouble In Mind

Love At Large

Afterglow

Breakfast of Champions


And to close out the Rudolph festival with a chuckle and seasonal flare a showing of the Rankin and Bass Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. I felt like inviting Alan to attend after watching the above video as the guy seems not to get a lot of love. Of course this month features plenty of seasonal stuff as well but honestly I can't watch a ton of the Christmas stuff. I will of course have A Christmas Carol with Alistair Sim, The Cheaters from 1945, Meet John Doe, Desk Set and It's a Wonderful Life this month among the seasonal favorites.


Basically, now that I have been doing this for a while I have got into a groove with it and I look forward to making each months calendar. I do make choices many times based upon new releases that are coming out that month that I want to see. This keeps things shifting and so not everything depends upon what is already in my collection. The key thing is I feel like I am making a lot more out of my investment in all of these DVD's and blu-rays doing this.

 

[atfree]

I watch every BD I purchase, usually within a week of it arriving. After that, it's pretty much a random choice. I revisit some films religiously each year (Bond, North by Northwest, Where Eagles Dare, other Hitchcock films, Ben-Hur, LOA, John Wayne films, etc). No festivals, as none of my friends or family are into "old" films, as they call them. I've said before, if I want peace and quiet all I have to do is slip in an old B&W classic and my living room will clear out in secords!


As for organization, I've been planning on doing that. I do keep all my Hitchcock's in one place, John Wayne, Bonds, and other franchises/series. But other than that, their just in my TV armoire drawers and media storage baskets in the living room....I've got about 10 of these around the living room (under the armoire, beside the armoire, on top of the armoire).


These hold about 20 BD's each and keeps my wife happy aesthetically-speaking. I'm up to about 600 BD's now and 100 DVD's, so space is becoming an issue as I also have about 400 hardcover books in bookcases in the living area as well.

 

[Scott Merryfield]

I use DVD Profiler to catalog my collection, and it allows you to keep track of when you watch a title. Usually, I look at items that have yet to be watched, but my inventory of unwatched titles is usually not that large -- right now I have about a half dozen unwatched films (plus another half dozen TV sets), which is actually more than usual due to some holiday sale purchases. After that, we'll watch things randomly depending on what we are in the mood to see and how long it has been since we saw a particular film. There are some favorites that I will watch more often (Godfather, Casablanca, Bonds, etc.). The TV on DVD or BD sets take many, many months to work through for us, so I do not purchase new sets very often.


About the only thing I watch on TV is sports, so if we are home and there is not a game on that I am interested in, I'll be watching things from my collection, which this time of year is usually 2-3 evenings per week.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

In short, I don't.


I collect movies like a madman. Have thousands of Blu-rays and DVDs in my collection.


Well over 50% of them are still in shrink-wrap.


I just don't have the time to watch films. I keep thinking they will be there when I retire -- at which point, the formats I own will be outdated.

 

[Rob_Ray]

In short, I don't.


I collect movies like a madman. Have thousands of Blu-rays and DVDs in my collection.


Well over 50% of them are still in shrink-wrap.


I just don't have the time to watch films. I keep thinking they will be there when I retire -- at which point, the formats I own will be outdated.

That's me. Physical media can die off tomorrow and I'll still happily watch my DVDs and Blu-Rays to the end of my days. My favorite era, 1930s-1940s, isn't that well represented on Blu-Ray, so I have no disdain for collecting DVDs of the titles I want to watch and discover for the first time.

 

[dvdclon]

In short, I don't.


I collect movies like a madman. Have thousands of Blu-rays and DVDs in my collection.


Well over 50% of them are still in shrink-wrap.


I just don't have the time to watch films. I keep thinking they will be there when I retire -- at which point, the formats I own will be outdated.

I would strongly advise that you open the shrink wrap when you get a new disc. I have had a number of sets with missing discs over the years, so I open them right away, while I can still get the seller to replace them. (And before they go out of print!)

 

[AshJW]

I don't do a listing of film to be watched.


But I have an Excel file of my films and series and other stuff. Here I can see what I still have to watch and how often I watched the titles.

Right now, since last weekend, I watch my all-time-favs (called by me 100%-films) with Star Wars as the Finale right before the new one enters the cinemas.


Like Ronald or Rob Ray I still have a couple of hundred DVD's and BD's unwatched - but not in shrink-wrap.

 

[Flashgear]

I keep track of what I have on filmaf. I do have quite a few in the wrappers still. My plan when I retire in a few years is to refile them by release date and then watch them all in chronological order.

I actually have all of my feature film dvd and blu arranged on my shelf in a chronological order of release date and year...maybe it's just empty nostalgia talking, but the context of timeline and cinematic history is so important to me...I revel, to some degree, in viewing films from the same year and Oscar season...I'm also a history buff and like to imagine myself in the dark confines of my hometown's Marquee theatre during the first run of any film in my collection, knowing also the current events of the day and perhaps discovering the film in it's rather tight historical and cultural context...I used to organize on the basis of Star and even Genre, but I don't find it difficult to immediately find any of my films on the shelf, as I have a steel trap of a memory for the year of release...

 

[Michel_Hafner]

I actually have all of my feature film dvd and blu arranged on my shelf in a chronological order of release date and year...

Interesting concept. Canadian release date or original release date.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I don't do a listing of film to be watched.


But I have an Excel file of my films and series and other stuff. Here I can see what I still have to watch and how often I watched the titles.

Right now, since last weekend, I watch my all-time-favs (called by me 100%-films) with Star Wars as the Finale right before the new one enters the cinemas.


Like Ronald or Rob Ray I still have a couple of hundred DVD's and BD's unwatched - but not in shrink-wrap.

I do the schedule for each month because it is fun for me...I feel like I am programming a film festival each month or like I am the guy running the Z Channel (if you have not seen the Z Channel documentary check it out!)...and it allows me to move through my collection in some interesting ways.


Mainly, I did not want large parts of my collection sitting around collecting dust so this was the solution for me. Now, just because I make a schedule does not mean I have to stick to it. I mean if I come home from work and I have a Bergman film on the list for that night and I feel like something else I will switch to a different film. The thing is though I mainly stick to the programs I create and I end up looking forward to watching what I have lined up because I have been thinking about the film for some time in advance of watching it.


The thing about "shelf surfing" to find a movie is as I would do that I would keep seeing disc after disc on the shelf and end up getting interested in one after another and it would then confuse the decision making process. I start out wanting to watch a comedy like Bringing Up Baby then see The French Connection and think "Wow, I have not watched that in a while!" and now while I am thinking about those I see There Will Be Blood and think "I really should revisit that." and suddenly I am spending a lot of time making up my mind.


With the calendar I come down in the morning, look at the calendar while having coffee, see what is on the schedule and go pull that film off the shelf and set it aside so when I get home I can just drop it right in the player. Plus I end up thinking about the movie all day before I watch it and I end up really looking forward to it.


For me it just works.


Of course when people come over they end up in the library room...this is the room that all around the room there is shelving with doors (my wife insisted on these) and they are in there going through the collection and if a guest picks something out and says "Can we watch this?" of course we watch that rather than what I had on my schedule. Thanksgiving always brings a week of house guests so while I might pick out some films I want to show...well...the guests determine what we will watch in the end.


It's funny the month I struggle with the most...and often most want to be over...is October. I, like a lot of people here, program at least one horror film to watch for each day of the month. By the end of the month I feel like I have seen so much murder and mayhem, blood and gore, I think I am about to lose my mind or go on a killing spree of my own. It may be the easiest month to program but night after night of variations on how to torture, kill, maim, chop, hack, stab, slaughter, transform into a werewolf, stitch together body parts, drink blood, exorcise a demon and bring the dead back to life so they can eat somebody's brain...well...after the first 10 nights I feel like I have become

Jack in The Shining and I am looking at any visitors in some odd ways. So, this year I did include some other programming in the month of October and luckily when I made it through the bathroom door with the axe as my wife tried to scramble out the window rather than yelling "Here's Johnny!" I just said "So, do you want to go out for dinner?"


Honestly, I don't know how some of you guys do more than 31 horror films in October...that's as far as I can take it.


I probably only have about 3 or 4 titles still in shrink wrap. These are still wrapped mainly because I just have not got them on a schedule yet but I will get them in. It has sort of become important to open these discs close to when you get them. Thankfully, I have not encountered a lot of defective discs and the only one I encountered long after buying it was Rear Window, which came with the big Hitchcock blu-ray set and because when I got the set I had recently watched Rear Window that was the one disc I ended up not playing until almost a year and a half later. Sadly when I pulled it out it was the one disc in the set that was defective. I ended up finding the blu-ray of Rear Window in a $5.00 sale and just picked it up to replace my defective disc.

 

[Winston T. Boogie]

I collect movies like a madman. Have thousands of Blu-rays and DVDs in my collection.


Well over 50% of them are still in shrink-wrap.

For years my brother seemed to be purchasing just about every DVD that was released. I was shocked how many he was purchasing. It was pretty much like he wanted to collect every film that was ever made. His house has a massive walk in attic and when you go up there, there are wooden bookcases all over filled with still shrink wrapped DVDs and then boxes that if you pull the lid off are also filled with brand new never opened DVDs. It's kind of like wandering into an abandoned Amazon warehouse. Eventually, he decided he had a problem, his wife agreed, and he went cold turkey and stopped buying. He and his wife seem to watch everything that comes out...I mean everything...but now they borrow all the films they watch from the library (free of course), watch them on television, and they are fans of Roku.


I always ask, why do you bother with the library and television when you could just go up to your attic and watch what you purchased and of course the answer is the attic does not contain new releases (he stopped buying about 4 or 5 years ago).

 

[OliverK]

Interesting concept. Canadian release date or original release date.

Indeed. I like to sort movies like that in DVD profiler but I would really hate having to reshuffle them all the time.
Most of them I just put onto the shelf in the order that I bought them with some exceptions like the Criterion Collection.

I have all discs made from large format movies in a different place though, even those that don't look like they were shot large format...

 

[Ethan Riley]

I likely have over 2000 hours of content I haven't watched yet.

 

[ScottHM]

How do you organize working your way through your collection so they are not just sitting on a shelf?

I keep tabs on my video collection with DVD Profiler, where I keep track not only of what discs I have but when they are watched.


My wife and I are generally watching our films in chronological order and have been doing so since early 2008. We are now up to the year 1953. We occasionally break the routine and watch something out of order for various reasons, but by and large stick to the schedule.


After this run is complete we plan to go back and watch all the Academy Award Best Picture Nominees/Winners in chronological order (which we've generally been skipping) and when that is done we'll start over chronologically to pick up any stragglers.


Our viewing of television on disc is much more sporadic and we usually watch episodes when we have only a short time to watch something.


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[TravisR]

It's funny the month I struggle with the most...and often most want to be over...is October. I, like a lot of people here, program at least one horror film to watch for each day of the month. By the end of the month I feel like I have seen so much murder and mayhem, blood and gore, I think I am about to lose my mind or go on a killing spree of my own. It may be the easiest month to program but night after night of variations on how to torture, kill, maim, chop, hack, stab, slaughter, transform into a werewolf, stitch together body parts, drink blood, exorcise a demon and bring the dead back to life so they can eat somebody's brain...well...after the first 10 nights I feel like I have become

Jack in The Shining and I am looking at any visitors in some odd ways. So, this year I did include some other programming in the month of October and luckily when I made it through the bathroom door with the axe as my wife tried to scramble out the window rather than yelling "Here's Johnny!" I just said "So, do you want to go out for dinner?"


Honestly, I don't know how some of you guys do more than 31 horror films in October...that's as far as I can take it.

I always get into the HTF horror movie challenge each October and end up watching 100 or more horror titles that month. There's usually a point 2 or 3 weeks in where it starts to get to be a little much and I'm trying to remember what movies without killings are like. Then after it's over, it feels strange to not see movies without a ton of violence and murder.