Saturday, May 30

Rabid Collector and the "Film Fan"

Set phasers to ramble...

The place of this altercation shall remain nameless, but a slow-burning flame war pitting me against a person who "owns films out of love for film" has been smoldering for a week or so now. After much back and forth (yea, I know about the old adage about arguing on the 'net), a quasi-stalemate was reached, but the most recent charge against lil ol' me is that I "own obscure films because I think others view me as cool for doing so."

The stumbling block for the "film fan" was a declaration by yours truly concerning my preference with not caring to own non-Horror "classics", and admittedly I don't. That's not to say I don't have a few, like the Godfather films, but I'm not an adamant supporter or viewer of them. I often find widely-considered "classics" out of my beloved genre a bit of a bore. Shit, I haven't seen even one scene from any of the Lord of the Rings films. Sure, I can sit down and enjoy them once in a blue moon, but where's the beef? They'll be in-print on home video until the sun burns out and Satan emerges from the Dead Sea. So there's little fun or future profit in actually owning them. Same goes for the majority of mainstream pap that infests Blockbuster and bloated listings on Amazon's Marketplace going for 1¢.

As a collector, I love the thrill of the hunt as much as actually finally locating the prize. My modus operandi is to buy now and ask questions later. If it looks odd, it's cheap enough, and I'm looking at it--to hell with me ever hearing of it before or not. To hell with what the critics say. To hell with my girlfriend's bitching. That fucker is mine and I will piss on your head if you attempt to pry it away.

I may not like it, but I just might. This is where the factor of the chance of finding it again comes in. What would happen if I didn't get it? I may not find it for years, run across a copy in poorer condition, or maybe find another copy next week. It's all luck and collecting movies naturally has the upside of an actual experience from the item being sought-after instead of just staring at stamps in a book. Striking fried gold upon watching is all part of the fun.

You simply don't get this feeling with "popular." Oh look, there's a copy of Saving Private Ryan. Hurray, throw the bitch on the bottomless stack. Now find a copy of say, Hauntedween, and you've found glory. Don't buy it and you've effectively sat on a cactus bare-assed. Don't buy Transformers? Just wait a week, it'll be even cheaper. Or wait until it's on Showtime again, or On-Demand, or Netflix, or Red Box, or Hulu, or until your dumbass cousin gets it. Also needless to say I'd much rather watch Reb Brown screaming like a girl than a drooling Brando keel over in his tomato garden or an aging Bruce Willis make an ass of himself. If said Reb is on some grotty bootleg with Dutch subtitles bought for a quarter then fuck man my night is made.

At the end of the day, I know what I like, so what if it's a pursuit with no end with an endless "to-watch" pile, and Fellini can still go suck a fatty.

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