I finished the first version of this post just past Memorial Day. Why, you might ask, has it taken so long to actually publish? Well, gestures at everything around.
Once again, I want to express my admiration for folks who do this on the regular, no matter what. I, however, am of a weaker bent. If the world is on fire, I’ve a mind to say, nobody needs to hear this. And all the polishing and re-writing gets pushed away. (It also didn’t help that I was actually polishing and re-writing it and a WordPress glitch erased everything I had done soooooo)
Then again, I once did a series of social media posts… was it on Twitter? I think it was, before that went to shit… where I was whining about going to my murder mystery dinner theatre gig because I’d had a bad week, but I eventually came around to the realization that the audience was there because they needed a laugh, and I was there to provide that. That whole thread ended with “But doctor, I am Pagliacci!”. Did the show (of course. I am – or was – a professional), and actually had a blast.
Lesson learned: do the shit.
So anyway. Pagliacci reporting for duty. Now, if everyone in my life would stop getting sick and requiring my time, I might get this to be an enterprise that updates a little more frequently than every three months. *rimshot* applause
Back to the Past.
Yes, I’m sure, as our country burns to the ground, that you are still on tenterhooks to hear about the continuing struggle betwixt myself and my movie collection. If you’re joining us late, I have recently moved and not all of my discs moved with me, for various reasons. DVD Profiler claimed I had somewhere around 3300 discs, but it was an unreliable narrator because I hadn’t been doing due diligence when I gave away discs and the like.
So I’ve been going through what is actually here with me in the residence, weeding out duplicates and finding out what remained behind. Some of it was expected, some heartbreaking. I once had two copies of Paranorman, now I have none. But somehow I wound up with three copies of Star Trek Beyond.
So now, after all this, I am currently at 1939 discs and/or sets, including a couple that DVD Profiler refuses to recognize (I acknowledge that the box art for Captain America: Brave New World is dreadfully ugly, but come ON). The first recount was like. 1954, which left me with the utterly bizarre urge to go out and buy three more, so it would total 1957, the year of my birth. That likely speaks to my quotient of what the kids refer to as “The ‘Tism”, but it got quelled when I remembered my son pined for the Doctor Who discs, which pared the number down to 1939, the year The Wizard of Oz was made. I realize that only means 18 discs for him, but I kept all the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker he hadn’t already made off with.
Now the middle of June and I have gotten it back up to 1955. Two more and I have to find another year to fixate upon.
So I am close to completing something I have desired for years: my very own movie room. I was so excited that the day I finished the re-cataloguing, I took a video, even though I wasn’t really finished:
I am a senior citizen and am allowed my eccentricities (see number of discs, above).
I will agree there is some neatening-up to be done. Those unattractive boxes set horizontally across each shelf will likely stand as a monument to my inability to pull every disc beginning with a certain letter out of multiple boxes until I have advanced to another letter further into the alphabet. Also. bookshelves have more vertical spacing than is needed for DVDs and especially blu-rays. But I had a bunch of bookshelves and those specialized media shelves are much pricier.
To continue bragging about my space (though honestly looking at these pictures from my desktop, it looks like a room hastily set up by a weirdo without the skills or resources to make it look professional) (imagine that):
You couldn’t get a good view in the video, but perched over the TV are a couple of gifts from my wife: the Horrified B-Movie Victims figures, and the Godzilla neon. The HORROR neon is a gift from our old friend Rodney, and it leads to the action figure of Vampira, which is a gift from me.
There are two of those pricy media shelves, which are for special parts of the collection. You see one under the Horror neon which holds the superhero movies (shut up, I still love them and will continue to love them) and some box sets. And, as you can see, the complete Monty Python and Emma Peel Avengers sets.
But the first media shelf I bought was specifically for the Criterion Collection (and Twin Peaks sets, which I’m going to bet join other David Lynch entries in the Collection, anyway). This was to replace an older and larger media shelf which did not survive the move, probably because I put it together twenty years ago. Hopefully, these two shelves will last another twenty years, at which point I will be dead and they will be my son’s problem.
So far, so good, just typical white man oooweee, Looka what I done! but then it starts getting weird.
I attempted to put the finishing touches on it Memorial Day weekend, which was the longest span of free time I’ve had in months. The space was practical at the time of the video, yet somehow, I’ve yet to watch a movie in its entirety. I started the new French Three Musketeers last night, and though it is undeniably a quality product, I was unable to get more than halfway.
After a moment of panic and thinking omigod I’ve forgotten how to watch movies, I settled down and have been thinking about that. I have been very busy with the move and all the bullshit that comes with it while still working 40 hours a week and caring for my wife, a brittle diabetic… so maybe it’s a bit of guilt that I’m not doing anything connected with those instead of entertaining myself.
But now I realize that this feels like a stretch of time back five or six years ago, during the pandemic, during lockdown, and nobody had an attention span anymore. We were actively worried about survival, and what dreadful news the next day would bring. And we all remember who the President was then. And here we are again, only, I feel, in a much worse situation because it’s been proven my countrymen are venal, hateful idiots. If I’m feeling guilty about anything, it’s not donning a beret, smoking Galoises and plotting strikes against Nazi bases.
To attempt to turn myself back to the subject at hand: I got through the first Trump years with the help of Marvel movies, and I will doubtless again. Even if they outlaw them. Especially if they outlaw them.
And that’s where it’s been for a while. The world situation hasn’t gotten any better – and there’s my massive understatement for the day – my wife is currently in the hospital, and here I am with my fierce chiweenie dog and unit of a cat, waiting for news. So dammit, let’s finish this thing, shall we?
In a symptom of the Marvel backlash I had been predicting since Endgame, I read one article excoriating Captain America: Brave New World because “obviously Marvel was unprepared for Trump to be elected”. First of all, Who was? and second, How should it have reacted? These movies take years to get to the screen, but also if by some happenstance, Marvel had turned Thunderbolt Ross into a Trump analogue… yeah. I don’t think outlawing such things would be beyond the pale for him. As it is, I think a Chief Executive admitting his wrongdoing and accepting punishment for it is a perfect middle finger to Trump.
Thankfully, he now has his own little war to distract him, so my entertainment is safe until the nukes start flying. Sleep well, everybody, and I sincerely hope we all get to see Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Now press the damn Publish button, wouldya?
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