This is part ten 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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January was a chaotic month, with DVD hunting taking a backseat as I focused on my apartment move from Los Feliz to North Hollywood— all while my city was in flames. It was an exhausting and depleting month that I’ll remember for the rest of my life. Nevertheless, I managed to make a single trip to the thrift store in all the chaos, before using the rest of my budget on two DVD purchases on the ol’ electronic bay (not actually what eBay stands for), bringing the collection a 16-movie boost.
Thrift store: 10 movies – $2.00
- Raiders of the Lost Ark
- Indiana Jones and The Temple of Doom
- Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade
- Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
- The Artist
- Cloverfield
- Kill Bill Volume 1
- Kill Bill Volume 2
- Cast Away
- Girl, Interrupted
My first and only thrift store visit in January was productive one, with “Girl, Interrupted” being the highlight of the batch. Despite not living up to the source material, this adaptation struck a chord with me and features some poignant performances from its stellar cast of young female icons: Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Clea Duvall, Brittany Murphy, and Elizabeth Moss. “Girl, Interrupted” will be added to my James Mangold filmography, with “3:10 to Yuma” and “Cop Land” hopefully joining them soon.
I mentioned in last month’s post that my partner and I have been building a collection of our favorite horror subgenre, found footage, for several years. “Cloverfield” was an incredibly ambitious entry into the subgenre, with its stellar monster design that was conceived in an effort to give the United States its own Godzilla. “Cloverfield” will be added to the found footage horror collection, although I’ll likely want to upgrade to Blu-ray due to the visual spectacle. With much of the essentials of the subgenre already in the collection, many of the remaining found footage horror films on my wanted list were released by the horror streaming service Shudder, such as 2022’s “Deadstream,” which was released physically in partnership with Arrow Video.
I was thrilled to add the first four “Indiana Jones” films to the collection for a cool 80 cents. Like other common DVDs from big blockbuster franchises, I’m in no rush to spend anything but pocket change to acquire them. In previous posts, I’ve mentioned “Shrek,” “Pirates of the Carribbean,” and “Kung Fu Panda” as five-film franchises that I could potentially complete at my local thrift store for a single dollar, given their five-DVDs-for-a-buck pricing. This quadrilogy will make their way to the Steven Spielberg filmography, completing the collection of “Indiana Jones” films directed by the “Jurassic Park” filmmaker.
The previous owner of the “Kill Bill” DVD had consolidated Volume 1 and 2 into a single DVD case by replacing the Volume 1 bonus disc with the feature film of Volume 2, allowing me to pick up both volumes for the price of one. I chuckled to myself when I noticed this, as Quentin Tarantino fans know that the filmmaker considers the duology as a single film and counts it as such towards his plan to create a 10-feature filmography. The price advantage, however, was cancelled out by the “Indiana Jones” box set, which included a Bonus Materials DVD that counted as a movie. “Kill Bill Volume 1 and 2” will be added to the Quentin Tarantino filmography, until I upgrade to Blu-ray. “Cast Away” will kickstart my Robert Zemeckis filmography.
eBay: 5 movies – $16.15
- Welcome To Me
- In Her Shoes
- The Skeleton Twins
- The Overnight
- Girl Most Likely
In my very first entry to this series, I mentioned how watching Kristen Wiig host SNL in April 2024 reminded me of how much I enjoy her approach to comedy. This month, I discovered a seller on eBay who was selling five films that were high on my wanted list and also offered combined shipping. The seller offered DVDs at auction starting at $1.99 plus $4.63 shipping. With combined shipping, that means that you pay $4.63 for shipping for the first movie with no additional shipping costs for additional films. I bid on all five films and only had competition for “The Overnight,” which was bid up a few additional dollars.
“Girl Most Likely” will kickstart my Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, which will be awkwardly filed under B for “Berman.” Although I hadn’t heard of the filmmaker duo prior to this movie, they have an impressive body of work that I’m keen on adding to my collection, particularly “Cinema Verite,” a drama that chronicles one of the earliest reality television production, and the Paul Giamatti-starring vehicle “American Splendor,” which also won the filmmakers an Academy Award. The Rotten Tomatoes consensus summarizes the poor reception it received from critics: “Largely witless and disappointingly dull, Girl Most Likely strands the gifted Kristen Wiig in a blandly hollow foray into scattershot sitcom territory.” I’m glad I didn’t let that dissuade me from viewing the film, as Kristen Wiig and Annette Bening give such great performances that it makes up for any minor shortcomings the film exhibits.
“The Skeleton Twins” is the indie comedy that made me fall in love with Wiig’s weird complexities. These three films are my favorite performances by the SNL alumna and ones that I had assumed, due to their indie nature, were made prior to the massive success of 2011’s “Bridesmaids.” I was surprised to learn that all three of these of these underappreciated gems were made post-2011. In my opinion, 2014’s “Welcome to Me” was the last great comedy-drama of this variety that Wiig stared in; and I hope she returns to these types of high-concept narrative that make use of Wiig’s skills of playing mentally-unwell but hilariously endearing women at a crossroads.
“The Overnight” will be the fourth film added to the mumblecore collection. This was also one that I noted as a high-priority for my mumblecore collection. I’ve been wanting to rewatch this one for a while, as I absolutely adore this film’s weird story and bonkers climax. My partner and I rewatched it as soon as it arrived in the mail and agreed that the film had not only aged remarkably well, but that it was also very ahead of its time. I picked up “In Her Shoes” for my partner who’s had this on her wanted list.
eBay: “Barking Dogs Never Bite” – $12
How much I do I really care about Blu-ray? And who are my top five favorite filmmakers of all time? These two questions crossed my mind in late January, as I weighted my options for how to spend the final $12 of my budget this month. I narrowed my search down to two eBay listings for $12: “Barking Dogs Never Bite” by Bong Joon-ho on DVD and “Knives Out” and “Looper” by Rian Johnson both on Blu-ray. I’d been wanting to kickstart my Rian Johnson collection and bulk up my Blu-ray acquisitions. However, as I considered my priorities, with the final three months of the series, I wanted to make my final purchases count. And “Barking Dogs Never Bite” has been on my to-watch list for longer than I can justify. The film follows an out-of-work professor who is irritated by the boisterous barking of the dogs in his apartment building and begins killing them.
The film garnered only 57,000 viewers in its initial release, with critics considering it to be a “cursed masterpiece.” “Barking Dogs” will kickstart my Bong Joon-ho filmography. As one of my favorite directors of all time, I already had most of his films physically in my collection— with his debut feature previously being sorely missing. It’s also the only Joon-ho film that I have never seen. To complete his entire filmography, I’ll need to add the Criterion copies of both “Okja” and “Parasite,” which I consider to be the greatest movie ever made.
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Looking ahead at the final two months of this experiment, I’m hoping to finish strong. In reflecting on my favorite purchases of this series so far, many of them have occurred at garage sales. As the weather heats up, I’m hoping to take advantage of living in the epicenter of the film industry by patronizing some garage sales and seeking out some hard-to-find gems.
With these first ten months complete, my current collection is composed of these mini collections:
- General DVDs
- General Blu-ray
- Family/Children
- Marvel
- Horror
- Found Footage (new)
- Mumblecore
- Documentary
- Stand-up Comedy
- Music/Concert
- Director filmographies
- Wes Anderson
- Noah Baumbach
- Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini (new)
- Cameron Crowe
- David Fincher
- Michel Gondry
- John Hughes
- Spike Jonze
- Bong Joon-ho (new)
- Ang Lee
- Richard Linklater
- James Mangold
- Christopher Nolan
- Ruben Östlund
- Alexander Payne
- Lynne Ramsay
- Martin Scorsese
- Ridley Scott
- M. Night Shyamalan
- Steven Spielberg
- Quentin Tarantino
- Lars von Trier
- Gus Van Sant
- Robert Zemeckis (new)
- Superbit DVDs
- Boutique labels
- Criterion
- Slumber Party Multi-Film Collection
- Television
- Children/Family Television
- For Your Consideration (Special Collection)
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This is part ten 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.