FFWD REW

Stockpiling entertainment

You never know when you might suddenly need 600 DVDs

When the hell am I going to find the time to watch all these movies?

It’s a question that lots of people with sizable video collections ask themselves. Any movie collector will tell you that more time is spent accumulating films than actually viewing them. The world is just full of amazing stuff to watch and we can’t bear the thought of missing out. “Hey look! Island of Lost Souls is finally on Blu-ray! Ooh and so is Frankenhooker ! …And Hell Comes to Frogtown !”

It’s a sickness. There comes a time when you look at your movie shelves/storage units/DVR/hard drive and wonder what kind of apocalyptic scenario would require this many kung fu movies and episodes of Dangermouse .

I think that frigid Canadian winters are partly to blame. There’s something about a -68 C windchill that makes you want to stock up on canned goods and DVD box sets. We’re preparing for the day that we throw on a scarf step outside and take in one long breath of super-chilled winter air that makes our lungs collapse. At that point the only sensible thing to do is go back inside make hot chocolate scan the video collection for unopened goodies (“Oh good! Season 4 of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia still in its shrink wrap!”) and get under a duvet in front of the tube. This is also a valid response to influenza roving street gangs doors blocked by pianos and the zombie apocalypse.

The thing is my collecting habits have been with me since the days of VHS and are a bit out of date. There’s no need to worry about running out of things to watch because that scenario is no longer possible. Nevertheless the compulsion remains. I just know that if I don’t pick up those bargain-priced copies of Amélie Shaolin Soccer and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit then I’m going to regret it.

Later this month a surgeon is going to dig a 1.9-centimetre kidney stone out of my side presumably leaving me in a state of pain-filled heavily medicated inactivity for a couple of weeks. I’m actually kind of looking forward to it. Sick I know but I can’t help it. There will finally be time to watch some of the films I’ve been stockpiling. Maybe I’ll marathon my way through The Wire or Game of Thrones . I might take another stab at getting through Sci-Fi Classics 50 Movie Pack . Or maybe I’ll just watch The Incredibles again. Who knows? The section of my brain that forces me to stockpile DVDs is chuckling and saying “See? I told you we’d need all this stuff!” Will the extended cut of Superbad make me forget about the fact that I’ll have a hole in my gut? I guess I’ll find out. Eventually I’ll heal up and rejoin the outside world but until then I’ve got stuff to watch.

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