Chronicles of Ryebone

Friday, March 28, 2014

Six Months of Movies: July to December 2013

Ah yes, it's that time again. Well, it was really that time a couple of months ago, but I'm a master procrastinator. It's nearing the end of March and all the stats have been waiting to be assimilated into something greater

Fig 1; July 2013 to December 2013

What happened in November and December? Apparently I had a great number of free weekends and very little else to do, as I was watching movies constantly. I also utilized my time better: there are so many instances where a couple of hours goes by without anything happening, so I made an effort to fill those periods with a short movie here and there. If only I watched one more movie in December, it would have set a record, but instead it's still sitting at 17 in any given month.

Fig 2; July through December Three Year Comparison

Now we have three years worth of data for one period. I knew this would pay off long term! 2013 and 2012 follow nearly the same path, although 2013 generally had more each month. Something happened in October that caused a major dip in intake, wherein in 2010 it was the complete opposite for the horror themed month. My initial thought was my friend, Cale, when we both lived in the same city. October was most likely a lot of horror movies being watched, and when we moved apart, that trend stopped.

Fig 3; Total Movies in 2013 by Month

Finally, we have a month by month break down of total movies watched. It's quite the rollercoaster ride.

At the end of 2013, I subscribed to Letterboxd, which has provided for even more statistics that I couldn't hope to create on my own. They even create a handy little page for it, which can be found here. I'll give you a little rundown of what it says though.

Total Movies watched in 2013: 143
263.5 hours of movies
11.9 movies per month
2.8 movies per week
Sunday has the most movies watched at 43
Thursday is the lowest day, with 10 overall
Top Genres:

Thriller
Action
Drama

30.8% of movies were made in 2013
91.6% of movies I was watching for the first time
Most common rating I gave movies was 3.5 / 5

Check out some of the older posts:
Six Months of Movies: July to December 2012
Six Months of Movies: January to June 2013

Friday, March 21, 2014

Movie Collection part 4: High Definition

Many of you may remember the high definition format war that occured between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray. It was a confusing time that I would equate to Betamax and VHS (although my family had plenty of both) back in the eighties but not something that I had to deal with directly; I was a child, after all. The high definition wars had me at my prime: I had money, I had knowledge, and I had a love for movies. So which one do I go with?

It came down to dollars, initially. Since I had an Xbox 360 it was cheapest for me to get the HD-DVD add on, and with it, I bought a slew of movies. Many of them were upgrades of DVDs, so I was able to continue to get rid of the original DVD collection. One of the first movies I recall playing was TRAINING DAY. The scene I remember as a standout of high definition was an interior shot of a car driving in the rain; the rain drops collected on the window, while the actors inside remained sharp. The detail throughout was amazing, and you could see the depth of the picture: the actors, the window and the world outside. HD-DVD really impressed me, especially on the 50 inch DLP television I was able to pick up around the same time, which was a set that would last me years and never failed to impress with quality. It was very sad to let go of.

Blu-ray players were very expensive. And it looked like Sony was going to pull the same trick with the PS3 as they did with the PS2, and it worked. The PS3 came out and ended up being the most inexpensive player around, not to mention the best one on the market. It's also worth noting that it has withstood the test of standards through the ages: as the Blu-ray spec was bumped, the PS3 was able to accommodate. It was future proof, so I bought one for the cool price of $500. Being a bit of a gamer, the decision was a no brainer: getting Blu-ray capability plus the ability to play the PS2 and PS3 library of game made it a great addition to my collection. Then, I started buying Blu-ray movies.

Every day I watched the news on the wars. It flipped back and forth a bit, but it looked like Blu-ray was going to win out. Then, the adult industry declared support for HD-DVD, which in the past, has been a deciding factor in format decisions. However, as I imagine digital/internet distribution being the major source for that industry, that their support lent very little to the war. In the end, it was the announcement coming from Warner Bros to support Blu-ray, that led to a quick demise for HD-DVD. If you will recall, Warner was a huge supporter of DVD, so yet again, many of my initial HD-DVDs were from Warner and their affiliate studios. With the war over, I was able to happily invest in Blu-ray, and after a couple of years, I parted with all of them, giving them to a friend who owned a dedicated HD-DVD player (the only person I know who did, actually). They have a good home.

The vigor that took place when collecting DVDs was gone. It was difficult for me to part with my money in most instances, although some movies were purchased immediately. One of the contributing factors was the idea that I had spent money on the DVD beforehand, and this is essentially a "double-dip." The initial run of Blu-rays being released were often bare-bone releases, with little to no special features, and terrible packaging that wasn't going to stand the test of time. Another factor was downloading. No, I'm not particularly proud of it, but I did partake and it made the idea of purchasing a skeletal release that much harder. I invested a lot of money in HTPCs, hard drives and saw the collecting of digital movies become a hobby upon itself that combined my love for movies with my love for technology. In the end though, it felt empty, and I'm happy that I was purchasing my most beloved movies on physical medium all the time throughout.

Services like Netflix also seemed to negate the purpose of buying these movies, as they were available for streaming immediately. It didn't take long to notice though that titles would disappear after but a few months, and it was definitely clear that this wasn't your collection of movies. They wouldn't always be available at times for reasons beyond your control.

Having dealt with movie-only digital formats for a while, my interest toward special features begun swinging back into focus. The industry began releasing collector-focused editions that grabbed my attention and sparked an interest in the medium that hadn't been around since DVDs were in their prime. I stumbled across CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, in an 'ultimate' edition, gorgeous box that included multiple cuts of the film, a delightful book and a low price point. My love for digibooks was born as I found BATMAN, SE7EN and killer editions of JAWS and FULL METAL JACKET. The hunt in stores and online for these kinds of editions is tremendous fun.

Unlike DVD, Blu-ray movies would come down in price fairly quickly. It would be foolish to buy a new movie within the first four or six months, as they always came down. There was also a multitude of movies coming in under $10, which made any lack of features or special packaging nearly irrelevant. Indeed, $10 seemed to become the magic price point, at which I could happily purchase a movie that I've owned before, or take a chance on one I maybe haven't seen.

Collecting Blu-ray has become quite exciting: there are lots of editions of movies coming out, new masters being struck and released, and different packaging becoming available. At first, I wasn't a fan of Steelbook releases, viewing them as a cheap way to grab a buck: often they contained less content than their standard counterparts at the trade-off of beautiful cover art and presentation.

I was also going to approach things differently, with a philosophy and some rules in mind. I didn't want to buy new releases: if I loved the movie I could wait a year after release. This could help clear my mind on the quality of the film itself, but also allow for any new editions to come out or be released. Most importantly, it would save money. I wanted to collect what was important to me, and suppress the impulse purchases. What I end up with is a solid collection that I'm proud of.

MOVIE COLLECTION

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Movie Collection part 3: The Great DVD Purge

In 2005, everything changed.

I finished school: four years of university and an additional year of college. I quickly moved back to my home town and was living in my friend's basement trying to find a job. Four long months went by with nothing. To say that times were tough is an understatement, but I had supportive parents who kept me afloat. Unfortunately it meant a complete stoppage of luxury items, which included DVDs. The collecting had come to a crashing halt, to which it has never recovered. When I did get a job, I went out looking for a movie to buy, but couldn't pull the trigger on anything. THE AVIATOR had just come out - a movie I thoroughly enjoyed - but I couldn't justify the cost. Bills were in the way, including car payments, rent and groceries.

Digital convergence was upon us, but not many people knew what was coming. I modded my (original) Xbox and installed XBMC, which allowed me to stream video and music across the network. It didn't take long to find a solid process that enabled me to rip all of my DVDs to my hard drive and stream them to my television through the Xbox. I could enjoy the collection in a whole new way, but in an effort to save drive space, everything was stripped away, including any and all special features. Then something bad started to happen. We were already in the habit of renting movies, so now we could rip them and store them on our drives to enjoy later on (although we rarely did). Over the months we amassed hundreds of films (between myself and my friend renting every week). I think we watched a quarter of them, at best. We were obsessed with collecting and sorting, just like with physical DVDs but it was all digital now. The low cost of renting was the ultimate enabler. The DVD collection in my room gathered dust, and became less relevant, especially as we focused on watching movies moreso than caring about special features.

In late 2005, the Xbox 360 came out, and I needed one. I had also heard that a new digital format was coming to support our high definition televisions, and it was coming quickly. I was reminded of the old VHS movies of yesteryear sitting sadly on the shelf, so I decided to get ahead of the curve on this one. I would sell all my DVDs in anticipation of the new format(s). Movies were sorted by gut feeling: a pile of "get rid of" and a pile of "keep." Over two months I sold 100 DVDs to local stores.

The above image was taken just months before the purge; it doesn't show the entire collection but much of it is within view. It remains the most complete image of the collection in existence. There is another shelf on the rack at the bottom that is out of frame (the Marshmallow Man was the focus of the image, it seems) as well as a smaller rack on the other side of the room that contained a few more releases, as well as a video game collection. Click on the image for the full picture, which you can then zoom into to see the individual DVDs.

Trading in at Blockbuster was the most lucrative: they would only give you store credit (which I later used to buy video games) but they would give much more for credit than other places would for cash. They were just getting into a fully developed used DVD section and needed to stock their shelves. I came in at just the right time. Often, I would take 30 movies into one store, they would take 20 of them, and I could go across the street to unload the rest. It was clockwork.

Condition wasn't that important. Neither were little extras, which is one element that bothered me. The GORILLAZ PHASE ONE: CELEBRITY TAKEDOWN set - for instance - was this gorgeous box with extras that included a book and some stickers. I was careful not to use the stickers during the period I owned it, as I wanted the set to be complete, always. The clerk opened it and the loose extras fell to the table. She asked if I wanted to keep the stickers as they wouldn't add any value to the sale. Dismayed, I quickly thought about selling it on eBay, but it wasn't worth the hassle. I said no, keep the stickers, and sold the whole thing to them. I could only rest easy in the belief that another collector came upon the set and purchased it without hesitation because of its condition and completeness.

GORILLAZ wasn't the only DVD I regret selling. PANIC ROOM was a film I loved and is now gone: it was the slim Superbit edition (yes, I was addicted to Superbit for a while). MOBY: PLAY was a fantastic collection of his greatest work and was a prime example of the type of release I wanted from artists. I had a numbered, limited edition of ARMY OF DARKNESS that I let go. I was perhaps a bit foolish to believe that studios would be quick to release high definition copies of some of these movies. Eight years pass and I'm still working without a copy of THE ABYSS, among others.

The Great Purge was going quite well: I was getting an average of $7 for each movie, which is unheard of today. Like I said, people didn't know what was coming, and I took advantage of it.

With that money, I bought myself an Xbox 360 and a few games, and never looked back. After a few years, I found myself collecting 360 games like I did movies: they were cheap enough, especially the used ones. Financially, it made sense: I could buy Oblivion for $60 and get 120 hours out of it, where I could buy 3 or 4 movies for that price and get a fraction of that time out of them. Everything was broken down into dollar per hour measurements to accommodate the strict entertainment budget I had to put myself on. Movies simply didn't fit into it, and the final nail was going down the piracy road. I'm not proud of it, but it allowed me to watch movies I wouldn't normally have done and work within my budget. Unfortunately, it would alter the way I view movies for a long time. No longer did I care about special features, nor editions. I wanted the best quality picture possible, and that was it. The industry certainly didn't help either, with double and triple dip editions becoming commonplace. I also feel vindicated to some degree because I was (and still am) an avid theatre-goer. In the summers, not a week would go by where I didn't go see the latest release.

After the dust settled, I had counted 64 DVDs. It would take many years to whittle that number down. These were movies I wanted to own, and would sell them once I replaced them with their high definition counterparts.

MOVIE COLLECTION

Friday, March 14, 2014

Movie Collection part 2: Collecting

After the family got the DVD player in 1997, DVDs were purchased on a fairly regular basis. I was always on the lookout, as it wasn't easy. As you could imagine, the selection was poor, at best. Warner Bros did the best job of releasing a good variety of movies, and as such my collection reflected many Warner titles. Nearly every birthday and Christmas, DVDs were given and received as gifts, and we built up a decent collection. I would borrow DVDs from a friend, and rental stores began offering them. The VHS collection was neglected, and gradually discarded over time. The last tapes to be given away were a collection of Disney movies, in their "collectible" oversize white plastic tombs.

THE MATRIX stood out as a pivotal DVD upon initial release. The movie was all the rage, especially in my circle (who wasn't in love with it?) and it seemed to be the perfect fit for the digital format. My guess is that it was the first movie for many people to go out and purchase. At the time, my friend bought and installed a DVD-ROM drive for his computer in the hopes of playing back these discs, and we used THE MATRIX as the test. Unfortunately it seemed to have some problems and would stutter, so to speak. Soon after, the PlayStation 2 would be released and easy playback of DVDs would become available to millions of users. Sony, as one of the co-creators of the format, had a vested interest in DVD technology and sales taking off, and the home video game system was the perfect platform to get it going, as standalone players were still fairly expensive.

In 1999 I had managed to save a decent amount of money and bought myself a home theatre system, that included a JVC 5.1 receiver, and a set of surround sound speakers - my uncle provided the fronts as he was replacing his own system. DVDs came to life in a new way, as I experienced surround at home for the first time. TOMORROW NEVER DIES was the demo disc of choice, with gunshots and bullet ricochets bouncing around the room. In what was probably my first true "special" edition, I would turn the volume way up on the FIGHT CLUB intro, much to the frustration of my parents upstairs. The only thing lacking was a big television, but those were prohibitively expensive, and I was going off to university.

University wasn't too far away though, as I studied in town but lived in the school's residences. The DVD collection didn't make the trip, so I would organize special trips with some of my friends to my parents house for the sole reason of watching movies. One of my roomates had a new iMac, which came equipped with a DVD-ROM. Somebody picked up AMERICAN PSYCHO and we spun that disc (what feels like) a hundred times. And of course, we were watching it on the tiny monitor as no video out option was available.

I bought the two disc digipack edition of FIGHT CLUB alongside the five star INDEPENDENCE DAY edition from Zellers (a now defunct Canadian department store chain) on a whim. FIGHT CLUB would be the best blind buy I've ever made, and sit at the top of my favourite movie list for nearly a decade. ID4, on the other hand, brought me back to the multiple times I saw it in the theatre upon release back in '96, but it offered something else that was fairly novel on DVD: different versions of the movie on one disc. It included an alternative cut that added a whole new story line to the film, and both movies presented us with audio commentaries that warranted multiple viewings. These two films on disc offered a new way to watch movies that was actually engaging. Special features became a criteria for future purchases that would both consume and disgust me over time.

Standalone players were cheap enough by my second year of university that I purchased one for my home away from home, and brought along the excessive sound setup as well. The criteria for purchasing movies was fairly loose, but I focused on special features quite a bit, and with the internet really ablaze, was able to plan ahead and become aware of future releases. Every Tuesday, my buddies and I would hit the town looking for the latest releases. They were growing their collections while I quickly surpassed a hundred movies - a feat of no insignificance as I was working on a student budget.

There was a loose $20 to $30 limit - if I recall correctly - but I allowed make some purchase above that range. EQUILIBRIUM, for instance was a very pricey title for a long time. One of my crown jewels was finding the special edition of MASTER AND COMMANDER. It disappeared from store shelves quickly and it was the envy of my friends (although it's quite inexpensive to find and buy now). Collecting went to a whole new level when my parents agreed to buy me the Criterion edition of THE ROCK for a birthday one year. It was my first hands on exposure to Criterion, and it blew me away. We had seen other Criterion movies around, mainly at large stores in downtown Toronto and in US malls, but none of us had them as they were simply too pricey (aside from a release of CHASING AMY which landed at typical retail prices). A local rental/weed shop had a hearty collection of them for rent - never for purchase - so we were able to experience some of them, including ROBOCOP.

As collecting took hold, we became enthralled with the whole process. It didn't take us long to count and compare collections, and in this process, come up with a set of guidelines for the official count, which I've included below.

Although the version 1.0 above was a bit crude, it added an additional way for us to enjoy our collections, as we could talk at length about how we count them, store and sort them after we finish talking about the discs and movies themselves. It wasn't long before we would compare number of discs, number of movies, number of packages and so forth, in addition to discussing how complete our sub-collections were - like how many David Fincher or Martin Scorsese films we had.

It may seem odd, but I sorted my collection by packaging. I amassed quite a few special editions that were either taller or wider (and both) than regular releases, and I found that they just looked out of place when strewn about through their typical alphabetical order. They were then given top priority - literally - as they took their place on the top shelf. Regular releases, which made up the bulk of the collection, were alphabetical, and at the bottom was all the Warner Bros films that used the cardboard packaging. They were slightly taller and thinner than the typical case, and drove me nuts to no end. They did not age well, getting scratched, peeled and bent, so they took their place on the bottom and were often forgotten. But when I did sit down and go through them, they brought me down memory lane: many of them were some of my first purchases and additions to the collection.

A portion of the collection in 2004

Rarely were blind buys utilized, but there were many DVDs I just never got around to watching. Later on, the $5 bin at various stores were coming about, and DVDs were becoming pretty inexpensive, which allowed the collection to grow even more rapidly.

A spreadsheet was used to keep track of all the movies I had, but has unfortunately been lost to time. Only one number stands out in memory now: 184. That's how many I had before The Great DVD Purge, where casualties were high. 184 may seem small in comparison to some collections, but it was a sight to behold in its time. Considering the circumstances, I did pretty well for myself.

MOVIE COLLECTION

Monday, March 10, 2014

Movie Collection part 1: The Beginning

I walked out of HMV carrying two VHS movies: Beavis and Butt-Head Do America, and Reservoir Dogs. I didn't fully realize at the time that these would be the last two movies I bought on the aged format, but there was that inkling. DVD was just around the corner, after all.

My VHS collection was modest, but I can't help but think that if I was a bit older and more importantly, had money, that I would have had a much larger collection. Just as I was entering high school more films were being released on VHS in their "as the director originally intended" widescreen format. Fox released an entire series of special editions (of which my friend had many) and I picked up a couple, as well as a few other editions. Notably, I was most proud of my copy of The Rock, and reveled in its widescreen glory. I would often order PPV movies when they were widescreen, and record them onto my own tapes.

Then, DVD came out and rendered all these tapes obsolete overnight. I knew it was coming, but I didn't know how big it would really be.

In the winter months of 1997, I was in North Bay visiting family. Being a bit bored, and with my fresh drivers license, I decided to head over to the mall and quickly found myself in Wal-Mart. The store was nicer back then: it was still new, novel. And North Bay seemed to have one of the better ones. In present times, Wal-Mart is a soul crusher of retail destruction. Every time I go in the pressure of gigantic box store consumerism bears down on me and I find myself going home to curl up in the fetal position and sing myself to peace. In 1997 though, it was a different game. I make a bee-line for the electronics section, as I always do, and was perusing the movie section when I saw a small cardboard box sitting on top of the shelf. In it, were about 20 DVDs. It may have been the first time I saw them in store, and my excitement was difficult to contain.

Two titles were in my grasp, and I found myself wandering to the checkout in a zombie like trance of anticipated digital revolution. The cashier didn't share my excitement, but they rang them through and I slid my debit card to finalize the purchase. The first one I bought was CONTACT, while the second choice was U.S. MARSHALS. They were both released by Warner Bros, in what is now considered old - and horrible - packaging that was mostly cardboard secured by a plastic snap commonly known as "snappers." CONTACT was a great movie that I had seen a few times, and was well worth the price. U.S. MARSHALS, on the other hand, would become my first blind-buy - I had some money to spare and no other title held my interest. Consequently, it would become one of the first DVDs I sold in The Great DVD Purge, which will be discussed later on. My copy of CONTACT remains in my collection as a memento and symbol of a dawn of the digital age and of serious collecting and critical viewing of movies.

Driving home, I was giddy. My parents were visiting an uncle, and I eagerly showed off my latest purchase. The sixteen year old Ryebone was full of life and energy, as he explained why DVD was superior to tape in a multitude of ways, and how it would change the way we consume movies and television shows. They may not have been convinced, but were amused at my ramblings. They were also in stitches when they discovered that I had no way of playing these CD-sized discs back. They didn't work any your computer, in your CD player and most definitely not in your VHS player. An investment for the future, I would tell them. In retrospect, it was pretty funny, but I was confident back then - for good reason. DVD would reign supreme to the foreseeable future.

Luckily, my father was into it as well. For Christmas, he picked up a DVD player for the family, and we all got to enjoy digital clarity that day once it was all hooked up. I spared no time in getting it connected to the stereo, and became enveloped in sweeping audio. The intro to CONTACT, where we zoom out of the planet and listen to various radio broadcasts was incredible, and still a demo worthy technical achievement. The picture, going from VHS to DVD was really astounding, and was noticed by everybody we showed it to. There was no doubt that DVD was going to take the world by storm.

MOVIE COLLECTION