This is part five of a 12-part series on my experience re-building my physical film collection in response to streaming fatigue. I’m giving myself a $30/month budget for curating a new personal movie collection from thrift stores. Read the introductory post and follow along here on Retro Chronicle.
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August brought brutal heatwaves to the west coast, resulting in fewer trips to the thrift stores and no garage sale outings. This month, I took a different approach with the experiment, allocating most of my budget at the start of the month to an online purchase of a specific collection before using the remainders at my closest thrift store. Surprisingly, this resulted in one of my favorite months of this series, ending the month with 35 additions to the DVD collection.
eBay: “Recess: School’s Out,” “Recess Christmas: Miracle on Third Street,” “Recess: All Growed Down,” and “Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade” – $21.89 (shipped)
“Recess” marked a time in my childhood when my love for episodic animated morning television piqued. The series premiered in 1997 and aired on ABC for six seasons. “Recess” featured six elementary school students and follows them as they explore social and class conflict within the the confines of recess, which serves as a microcosm that represents larger society. Unfortunately, the show is currently owned by Disney and was never released physically. So like many other shows unlucky enough to be owned by the media studio, “Recess” is currently only viewable on Disney+. Hard pass.
Instead, I ordered all four films that were released outside of the series for $21.89 shipped. The first film released, “Recess: School’s Out,” was a childhood favorite of mine, featuring a stellar soundtrack and story that holds up. It’s the only “Recess” film to be released theatrically, with the following three going direct-to-video. Strangely, the three follow-up movies are not really movies at all. Instead, “Recess Christmas: Miracle on Third Street” is a compilation of four episodes, ending in a Christmas special episode, while “Recess: All Growed Down” is a compilation of three older episodes and a new story showing the main characters as kindergarteners. Finally, “Recess: Taking the Fifth Grade” essentially serves as the series finale, showing three new stories of the main characters in fifth grade.
“Recess” remains one of my favorite shows from childhood; it’s funny and sharp enough to engage adult audiences. I rewatched “School’s Out” as soon as it arrived and still love it. This was the first month that I actively sought out films from my childhood. And given that I was able to complete the “Recess” film collection with a single purchase made the decision easier. After “Recess,” I’m keen on adding the complete series of “Pepper Ann,” “Doug,” “Rocket Power,” and “Hey Arnold!” Unfortunately, “Pepper Ann” never received a physical release, and “Rocket Power” is rare and out of print.
Local Thrift Store: 15-movie haul – $3
- “Tommy Boy” (sealed)
- “Uncle Buck” (sealed)
- “Back to School” (sealed)
- “My Cousin Vinny” (sealed)
- “Ever After: A Cinderella Story” (sealed)
- “Napoleon Dynamite”
- “The Big Chill”
- “Chicago”
- “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind”
- “The Jerk”
- “Blazing Saddles”
- “The Rookie”
- “Guardians of the Galaxy”
- “Jerry Seinfeld: Live on Broadway”
- “Pixies (2004)”
After prioritizing my inner child and spending most of my budget on childhood movies at the start of August, I was left with about $8 remaining in my budget for the month. I assumed that I’d use it up on maybe two or three DVDs from a Goodwill and end the month with about 6 new additions to my DVD collection. I didn’t expect the luck I’d have visiting my favorite local thrift store (which sells all their movies for five for a dollar) in the middle of the month— and then again at the end.
Five sealed movies were added for a grand total of $1. Currently, I’m still keeping all of my sealed movies sealed and putting those aside for future trades. Even though I started this experiment to rebuild my personal DVD collection, I’ve really grown interested in starting my own video rental store some day even though it’s a bleak business model with virtually no future in the streaming age. But it’d be a dream. And I like the idea of there being a store component to the rental business, albeit hypothetical for now.
Anyway, the remaining ten titles were pretty random. “Napoleon Dynamite” was a fun find, and an indie comedy classic. “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” remains one of my absolute favorites, so this DVD will hold me over until I can find a Blu-ray copy; it also kick-starts my Michel Gondry collection (next up: “Be Kind Rewind”). I got excited to pick up “The Rookie” (released in 2002, starring Dennis Quaid) for my partner, before realizing that I had gotten it mixed up with the movie she actually liked as a child “The Kid” (released in 2000, starring Bruce Willis).
“Guardians of the Galaxy” kickstarts my Marvel Cinematic Universe collection, which is not a priority for me whatsoever. Marvel movies are extremely common physically. In fact, “The Avengers” is the 6th best selling Blu-ray film of all time. I like the Marvel movies, but lost interest when they started putting out more than two features per year. For simplicity, I plan on organizing the Marvel movies with my Children’s/Family collection.
My documentary collection gained two new sub-collections with “Jerry Seinfeld: Live on Broadway” starting my stand-up comedy collection and “Pixies (2004)” kickstarting my live music collection. As a teen, I used to buy concert DVDs for mostly grunge bands. But that collection grew less appealing with the advent of Youtube. The only stand-up that I’ve owned physically is a boxset that was gifted to me of every George Carlin stand-up ever released. “Dave Chappelle: Killin’ Them Softly” is one I wouldn’t mind picking up; I’m also interested in For Your Consideration (FYC) copies of stand-ups that were otherwise not released physically (mostly from Netflix and HBO Max).
Local Thrift Store: 16-movie haul – $3.20
- Pink Panther 6-Movie Collection
- “Joy Luck Club”
- “102 Dalmatians”
- “The Village”
- “Adaptation”
- “Rushmore”
- “Caddyshack”
- “Snow White and The Huntsman”
- Seinfeld Season 4 (sealed)
- FYC: SNL Episode: March 13, 2004 (host: Ben Affleck)
- FYC: Malcolm in the Middle
- FYC: Alpha House
- FYC: Sneaky Pete
- FYC: The Bernie Mac Show
- FYC: The Tender Bar
- FYC: Alex, Inc.
Following my previous thrift store outing this month, I was pretty happy with my hauls for the month and wasn’t expecting to find much else— with this thrift store’s typically infrequent DVD restocks. I was very surprised, bringing home 16 more additions to end the month.
I pulled the “Pink Panther” 6-Movie Collection off the shelf, thinking that it was a clamshell VHS tape. To my surprise, it’s a collector’s edition DVD set with some really nice art and features. “Joy Luck Club” was a really exciting find, because I was close to purchasing it online a few months prior after watching a fascinating documentary on Youtube titled “The Joy Luck Club: The Roots of Asian Representation,” which I highly recommend.
“Adaptation” is a film that I’ve been eager to revisit, as I don’t think I appreciated it properly the first viewing. “Rushmore” is an early Wes Anderson film that I haven’t seen that I’m looking forward to screening. “Adaptation” kickstarts my Spike Jonze collection, while “Rushmore” kickstarts my Wes Anderson collection. “Adaptation” is also my first Superbit edition find since “Spider-Man” in May.
“The Village” was a very welcomed discovery. My very first purchase as a part of this journey was of M Night Shyamalan’s first three feature films in a single box set. “The Village,” his fourth feature, was a favorite of mine in my youth and the last consecutive film of Shyamalan’s early work before his descent into his lesser filmography. I rewatched “The Village” recently and contend that it’s still an under-appreciated flick that is mostly weighted down by some sloppy dialog and the inclusion of Adrien Brody’s character. This is my second copy of “The Village” (the first being a FYC copy) and my fourth addition to the Shyamalan filmography.
Speaking of FYC, this thrift store visit resulted in six additional FYC screeners being added to the Special Collection. Four of the FYC copies were pretty modern and rather uninteresting; I only picked those up because they were 20 cents each. The other three were more interesting. The SNL screener was really surprising to find. The cover, which features a photo of the iconic Studio 8H, immediately caught my eye as well as the mention of N.E.R.D., the rock and hip hop group from Virginia Beach featuring Pharrell Williams.
“Malcolm in the Middle” is officially my favorite FYC edition in my collection, with the inclusion of a bag of microwave popcorn included with the Emmy screener. I was very stocked to see the bag still sealed and with the show’s logo printed on the bag. My partner and I loved the show growing up and enjoyed a rewatch recently. This FYC campaign was successful, with the series creator receiving a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series for the pilot episode. The “Bernie Mac Show” screener is also a personal favorite in the FYC collection with its unique lenticular cover. Like “Malcolm in the Middle,” “The Bernie Mac Show” also found success in their FYC campaign, earning an Emmy Award for “Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series.”
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Final Thoughts
After a somewhat disappointing July, August turned into one of my favorite months of this experience so far, rivalled only by the June haul, which was the result of the Sierra Madre community yard sale. Highlights for the month included: “Joy Luck Club,” “The Village,” “Adaptation, “”Rushmore,” and the FYC copies of Malcolm in the Middle and the Bernie Mac Show. With 35 additions to the collection this month, I’m very happy with what I discovered. If there were any disappointments this month, it’s that the haul provided zero Blu-ray releases nor any films in the horror genre. With October on the horizon, I’m definitely keen on growing my spooky collection. But with my current approach, happenstance is often the name of the game.
With these first five months complete, my current collection is composed of these mini collections:
- General DVDs
- General Blu-ray
- Family/Children
- Marvel
- Horror
- Criterion
- Documentary
- Stand-up Comedy
- Live Music
- Director filmographies
- Wes Anderson
- Noah Baumbach
- Cameron Crowe
- David Fincher
- Michel Gondry
- John Hughes
- Spike Jonze
- Ang Lee
- Richard Linklater
- James Mangold
- Alexander Payne
- Martin Scorsese
- Ridley Scott
- M. Night Shyamalan
- Quentin Tarantino
- Lars von Trier
- Superbit DVDs
- Slumber Party Multi-Film Collection
- For Your Consideration (Special Collection)
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This is part five of a 12-part series on my experience re-building my physical film collection in response to streaming fatigue. I’m giving myself a $30/month budget for curating a new personal movie collection from thrift stores. Read the introductory post and follow along here.