This is part six 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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Last month (August), was one of my best months of the experiment so far, bringing home diverse additions to the collection. The month was kickstarted with four favorites from my childhood and ended with some lucky bargain finds at the thrift stores. Feeling a little superstitious, I continued this approach by using up most of my budget at the start of the month, once again focusing on key programs from my childhood before dedicating the rest of budget to the 20-cent bins of my local thrift stores and one garage sale in North Hollywood.
eBay: Nickelodeon Seasons – $25.98 (shipped)
- Hey Arnold! The Complete Series
- Doug The Complete Nickelodeon Series
- Rugrats: Season 1
- SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete First Season
- SpongeBob SquarePants: The Complete Second Season
This lot was listed for $29.99, plus shipping, with a best offer option. The seller admitted in the item description: “All DVDs were purchased and ripped to our PLEX server.” I knew that the seller didn’t have a strong attachment to the DVDs, so I made an offer of $20, which was accepted.
“Hey Arnold!” was the primary reason for picking up this lot. Although I never had cable growing up, I would watch some of these shows at friends houses or when they were syndicated on ABC. I enjoyed “Hey Arnold!” as the only children’s program that I recall that took place in the inner city and dealt with issues related to urban living. According to “Hey Arnold!” creator Craig Bartlett, the show was based on his experiences in Seattle, Portland, and Brooklyn. With the this box set of the entire five seasons, I only need the two “Hey Arnold!” movies to complete my “Hey Arnold!” collection.
“Doug” was a show I enjoyed as a kid, despite it being a lot more gentle and slow-paced from what I was used to. This set includes the first four seasons, which were released on the Nickelodeon network before being picked up by Disney Television Animation for the remaining three seasons. Many fans, myself included, consider the later seasons to be less authentic— with Disney making several changes to the show’s production. One major difference was that the voice actors no longer recorded together in-studio and instead recorded their lines from home, which many later admitted led to a less energetic performances. “Rugrats” and “Spongebob” were nice bonuses. I enjoyed both shows, but never got super into them due never having cable and also ageing out of the target demographic by the time of their release. I’ll keep an eye out for cheap copies of the remaining releases of the seasons, feature films, and compilation sets (particularly the Halloween-themed releases), but I’m definitely glad to have the earlier seasons.
This purchase kickstarts my television collection on DVD and more specifically, the Family/Children’s television collection, which will kept separated.
Community Bookshelf: “The Simpsons: Treehouse of Horror,” “The Simpsons: Christmas,” and “The Simpsons: Gone Wild” – Free
I had recently given up on patronizing free sources of DVDs— mainly Free Blockbusters (due to disuse). Then this month, I scored my first free haul since the first month of this experiment. Once again, I just happened to stumble upon a pop-up Community Bookshelf in a Los Angeles neighborhood. I glanced at the box of tattered books and spotted three DVDs on the bottom shelf: all “Simpsons” specials.
The Simpsons began releasing compilations of four or five episodes on VHS in 1991. By 2002, they made the switch to DVD, although most compilations remained exclusive to Europe. After acquiring these three, only three more Simpsons compilations were released in the U.S.: “Bart Wars (Star Wars parody),” “Christmas 2,” and “Kiss and Tell: The Story of Their Love.”
I was pretty bummed that the majority of the Simpsons compilations weren’t released outside of Europe, including titles like “The Simpsons Go to Hollywood” and “The Last Temptation of Homer.” Even more of a bummer is that only one “Treehouse of Horror” compilation was released in the U.S. With one Halloween episode released each season (34 seasons total) and four episodes featured on each DVD release, we would be on the eighth compilation DVD of horror episodes if they continued releasing them with this cadence. As someone who enjoys “The Simpsons” enough to pick up these “best of” themed collections but not enough to purchase complete seasons, this was a little disappointing. These three freebies kickstart my non-Family television sub-collection, despite “The Simpsons” infamously skirting the line between being family-friendly and adult-oriented.
Local Thrift Store: 5-movie haul – $1
- “Top Gun”
- “Kung Fu Panda”
- “Finding Forrester”
- FYC: “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (2004 season)
- FYC: “Arrested Development”
My first trip to my favorite thrift spot was short and sweet. With how little $1 goes these days, it’s always satisfying paying a single dollar for a small stack of DVDs. “Top Gun” and “Kung Fu Panda” fall into the camp of films that I’m not actively looking out for but will pick up for 20 cents each. “Finding Forrester” was a pleasant find. I’ve never owned a copy of the film, but I did take a class in college about basketball in film to fulfill a presentation requirement and presented my final project on “Finding Forrester.” The film also kickstarts my Gus Van Sant filmography, which I hope to expand soon with “Drugstore Cowboy” and “My Own Private Idaho.”
The For Your Consideration (FYC) copies of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (2004 season) and “Arrested Development” are welcomed additions to my FYC collection. Both are submissions to the Emmys, with “Arrested Development” sealed and similar in style to the “Malcolm in the Middle” FYC DVD that I found last month.
Toluca Lake Yard Sale: 6-movie haul – $3
- Rat Race
- Liar Liar
- Let The Right One In
- Veronika Decides to Die
- Old School (sealed)
- Zoolander (sealed)
On a Saturday morning coffee run, I decided to stop at a few garage sales that were happening in the Toluca Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles. About 20 families were expected to participate in the community garage sale, but my partner and I decided to stop at only about five before moving on with our morning. This seller had a large container of about 30 DVDs for 50 cents each. I sifted through for a few minutes and found six to round out the month, bringing the total count to 20 additions to the collection.
“Rat Race” is the highlight from the batch. I was close to ordering this movie a few months back $15 for the out-of-print Blu-ray copy, but I ran out of my budget before buying. I rewatched this movie a few years ago and still really enjoy it for what it is: a crudely-written, star-studded comedy with a similar plot to “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.” It’s pretty low-brow but a good time. “Let The Right One In” is one of my favorite horror movies of all time, so I was thrilled to find this copy for 50 cents. I wasn’t sure if I owned it, and came home to remember that I have the film on Blu-ray. But I’m happy to have a back-up copy of such an essential horror classic. Along with “A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night,” this is my favorite vampire film.
Jim Carrey in “Liar Liar” / Gif via GIPHY
I expanded my Jim Carrey collection last month with his best feature “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” and I was happy to add “Liar Liar” this month. I’d rank “Liar Liar” along with the “Ace Ventura” and “Dumb and Dumber” movies as some of his better work. I picked up “Veronika Decides to Die,” because the title was so intriguing. But after reading about the premise a little more, I’m must less intrigued.
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Looking Forward to The Final Half
Looking back at my introductory post of this series, I wanted to reflect on how the experiment stacked up against my expectations. The primary divergence comes from my assumption that I would spend more of my time seeking out specific titles. Instead, most of my purchases have been accidental discoveries. Somewhere along the way, as my watch queue outgrew my wanted list, my priority shifted towards stretching my dollar as far as I can. For now, I’m happy with this approach and the results its yielded.
My first six months brought some stellar titles for less than a buck, helping me kickstart a respectable collection of films and televisions shows, spanning varying eras, genres, and formats. Looking ahead, I’m hoping to round out the final half of this experiment by filling out some gaps. In the spirit of manifesting, I’ve developed a list of films that I’m most looking forward to adding to the collection before the experiment concludes. As always, Blu-ray is preferable, but I’d be happy to stumble across any of these on DVD for the right price.
My Movie Wish List For The Final Half:
- “Scooby Doo On Zombie Island” – I haven’t found any “Scooby Doo” yet, but plan to keep my eyes peeled. In addition to “Zombie Island,” “Return To Zombie Island,” “The Witch’s Ghost,” “The Cyber Chase,” and the first two live-action films are high on my list.
- “Kiki’s Delivery Service” – I intend to eventually put together a complete Studio Ghibli collection with “Kiki” at top priority. Although the first six months didn’t present any Ghibli finds, I’m hoping to end the one-year experiment with at least three.
- “Dogma,” “Evolution,” and “Saved” – I’m going to call this the Forbidden Trilogy. Growing up in an ultra-conservative Christian household, there were a lot of cinematic experiences that were arbitrarily forbidden. These three continue to intrigue that part of me.
- “Be Kind Rewind” – “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” kickstarted my Michel Gondry collection. The 2008 Jack Black and Mos Def-starring buddy comedy is my next priority from the filmmaker. The film helped re-ignite my love for video rental stores.
- “Dave Chappelle’s Block Party,” “Half Baked,” and “Dave Chappelle: Killin’ Them Softly” – Dave Chappelle is a pretty controversial figure these days, so it’s fun to rewind back to some of his most prolific work: a documentary about a party, poorly-received comedy, and his best stand-up.
- “But I’m a Cheerleader” – I was fortunate enough to catch a special screening of this queer comedy classic at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery a few summers ago and have been thinking about it ever since. A must-have for my DVD collection.
- “Election,” “Ghost World,” and “Heathers” – Y2K was an interesting time for female-led dark coming-of-age comedies. These three have always struck me as some of the most re-watchable of this era. I’d be happy if I found just one of these before the end of the experiment.
- “Ernest Goes To Camp,” Ernest Scared Stupid,” and “Ernest Goes To Jail” – If you know, you know. The Jim Varney character starred in ten features between 1985 and 1998. But fans of the series will usually finger these three as the highlights.
- “Tusk,” “Slither,” and “Red State” – I love weird and bold horror films and have found too few of them in the first six months of this experiment. These three batshit crazy flicks continue to be my most coveted on my wanted list.
- Any Harmony Korine films – As one of the most experimental ectors of our time, Korine’s filmography are often the most coveted films for collectors. “Gummo,” “Kids,” and “Trash Humpers” are some of the most collectible movies on DVD and VHS.
With these first six 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
- Gus Van Sant
- Superbit DVDs
- Slumber Party Multi-Film Collection
- Television
- Children/Family Television
- For Your Consideration (Special Collection)
If the latter half of this experiment is as fruitful as the first, I’ll be a happy collector. Thanks for following along!
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This is part six 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.