Take These Chains Off Me You Damn Dirty Apes

I mentioned at the end of my last blog (which is below this blog) that I realized recently I spend way too much on blu-ray discs, dvds, and tv shows on dvd (hereafter referred to as movies) each year. I lied about that. I realized I spent way too much on movies a long long time ago. For those who haven’t seen my movie collection, let me explain:

It’s big. It’s really big. It has well over 500 movies ranging from Charlie Chaplin to Saw IV and close to if not more than 100 seasons of various television programming ranging from Eerie Indiana to the Sopranos. The collection grew so quickly, I created rules to collecting. I understand you thinks this makes me borderline crazy. For once I agree with you. Here are the rules:

1) The movie cases must look good. If I buy a movie from you and your case is damaged or your case has a sticky residue, I will return it. I am anal. I have no problem being a complete ass about this either. Once I purchased Will and Grace Season 1 (for Kelsey, natch) and upon taking the security sticker off the top of the case, the case was ruined. I returned the set to Wal-Mart and replaced it. The same thing happened. I went back ten minutes later and returned Will and Grace again. I then stayed in the store and exchanged the DVD ten times, effectively opening and ruining every copy they had in their store. I then drove across town to another Wal-Mart and did the same thing. Finally I got a call from customer service asking if I’d stop doing that if they sent me a new case that didn’t have a ripped up top. I said I’d consider it. They sent me the case. I won.

2) If you borrow a movie from me, you will not get the case. You will ruin the case. Instead, you will get the DVD in a thin CD jewel case.

2.1) If you borrow a movie from me, you have to return the movie within two weeks unless you give me an update on its status. If you continually update me on the movie’s whereabouts, you could literally keep the movie forever. If you don’t give me an update on the status, you will never borrow another movie again. Ever. No exceptions. If you then tell me, “Don’t be a jerk, let me borrow another movie,” you’re the jerk. I told you the rules. It’s not my fault you can’t follow them.

3) The movie collection must always be alphabetized. For those who don’t know the alphabet it’s: A B C D E F G H I J! K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z. People who don’t understand that are wrong and generally intimidated by simple things like leaves, cooked turkeys, and cardboard. People who say, “Wow, how long did it take you to alphabetize all of those?” don’t know the alphabet. It took me thirty seconds. My first movie, the Sixth Sense sat on a shelf. When I bought my second movie, Toy Story, it went behind the Sixth Sense on the shelf. I continued this process when procuring new movies. I understand how you might be confused if you have two movies that begin with B. If that happens, you just alphabetize by the second letter. For example, Batman goes before Be Cool because A comes before E. Do you see?

3.1) An exception to the alphabet rule: Sequels. A sequel is to go after the original movie. Prequels are to go before the quel it’s pre-ing. Yes, it’s annoying to have Jason X in the F’s after Friday the 13th, but that is life.

3.1.1) If it’s not a true sequel, but features the same characters (Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More), you don’t have to put them by each other. It’s really up to you. Austin Powers movies? Sequels. Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan movies? (Patriot Games, Sum of All Fears, etc) All bets are off.

3.1.2) I’d like to personally thank the creators of the “Jason Bourne” franchise. The three movies are not only great, but they alphabetize according to sequel placement. Bourne 1: Identity. Bourne 2: Supremacy. Bourne 3: Ultimatum. Bourne 4: Zappo the Indian Midget Strikes Again!

3.1.3) If the number in a movie is written out, it goes before the alphabet (50 First Dates, 300, 40 Year Old Virgin, 80 Whores on the Esplanade).

4) When purchasing a movie franchise, there must not be any gaps. I love Ocean’s Eleven—one of the best movies ever. I like Ocean’s Thirteen—it’s just okay enough to warrant purchasing. I hate Ocean’s Twelve—it’s really one of the worst movies ever. Everyone involved with the movie should buy us all Thin Mint Blizzards from Dairy Queen (sidenote: these exist! Go buy one.) Unfortunately I couldn’t have purchased Ocean’s 13 (given that I own 11) without purchasing 12. Those are the rules.

5) You can however stop collecting a franchise if the quality drops off. Let us say you enjoyed American Pie. You thought you enjoyed American Pie 2, because you’re an idiot. Then you purchased American Pie 3: American Wedding. You are now under no obligation to purchase American Pie: Band Camp or whatever the hell it is called. This comes into play a lot.

5.1) This does not apply to TV shows. If you start to purchase a TV show, you have to finish it. Yep, I own the last season of Roseanne—22 of the worst half hours of television ever produced. Keep this in mind when impulsively purchasing episodes to a program currently on the air. Sure you liked the Hills Season One because you are a vapid, terrible person, but if you purchase it, you’ll have to buy Season 19—the one when Lauren couldn’t believe Maria ate THREE chips in front of Sam. He’ll never want to love a woman who eats so much.

I probably have more rules. I tend to make them up as they justify my needs.

It is clear I have a problem. Movies should be enjoyed, not anal-retentively lorded over. On a similar note, anytime anyone purchases something, it should bring them some sort of satisfaction. Around one year ago, updating the move collection became a burden and stopped soliciting any sort of satisfaction. Instead of thinking, “Golly gee, I bet my movie collection will impress people,” I’ve started to feel ashamed and materialistic. Last September was similar to this September in that it cost over $600 in a two month period to purchase the movies I wanted. I’d say over two thirds of the movies I purchased those two months I didn’t watch. I’d already seen them. I bought them for completion’s sake.

Why don’t I just stop buying the movies?

I can’t. That’s not how it works. Once a collection reaches a certain point and spans movies over certain periods, it has to be maintained. It consumes me. I think it about it at the weirdest times, like during sandwich making and sexual intercourse. I scour the weekly ads to find movies on sale cheap enough to help my brain rationalize purchasing Matrix Reloaded. I certainly can’t merely stop buying movies now because four years from now when the Galgamods smote the Earth and sift through our belongings, Narfneek would look at my movie collection and ask Tellibub, “Why did he arbitrarily stop updating this collection in the fall of 2008? Where the fuck is Iron Man?” Unfortunately Telibub speaks a different dialect of Galgamodian than Narfneek and would mistake the question for an expression of love. This would cause an epic love story—the first of the Glagamod era—but would not satisfy collectors.

Luckily for Narneek, who ten years after fighting off Marinilyn and winning Telibub’s love would realize he made a horrible mistake and die crying one night in his sleep, alone and inexplicably covered in sesame chicken, this situation will never happen. One, it’s absurd to think in four years the unknown Galgamods will have enough experience and power to take over the entire United States and two, I’m selling my movie collection.

That's right, I'm selling the entire damn thing. It’s expensive, unnecessarily large, and consists of movies I rarely watch. I can’t remember the last time I got home from a mildly hard day at work and thought, “I should fire up the DVD player and throw in Glitter tonight!” Fact is, with Netflix, I generally always have something on hand I haven’t seen.

Thus it’s begun. I originally planned to sell the whole collection. Of the 600 plus movies, I’ve decided to keep around 20-30, or as my wife put it, “normal people movie collection” size. I have no idea how to begin selling a collection of this magnitude—probably some sort of yard sale, but it will be done. Unhyperbolically, I feel free. I am no longer burdened by the weekly urge to buy every new release. This will be good.

That said, if anyone wants to buy any of the movies, let me know.