If you’re someone who occasionally laments the fact that you live with fairly limited horizons, there are some easy ways to expand your experiences, without even leaving the house.
Trying out new film genres – whether they’re totally new, or just new to you – can open the doors of a whole cinematic universe to your eyes and ears.
You might be able to stream films on-demand from the internet, depending on your equipment and whether you subscribe to any such services.
But if you’re one of those people who likes to watch a film again and again, or listen to the DVD commentaries and watch the extras, you’re probably going to want to have it on disc for quite a while before you get rid of it.
Alternatives to Renting
Renting movies is OK, but you often receive a basic rental copy without the usual special features; for the full experience, you really need to buy the full commercial product.
Personally, I like to work my DVD collection on a rolling basis, with a stack of films I haven’t watched yet, and a separate stack where I dip in and watch some of the special features when I have only a limited amount of spare time.
As the third stack – those where I’ve watched both the film itself and all of the special features – starts to grow, I know that it’s time to sell my old movie DVDs.
I’ve found that trading in old discs that I no longer want via online services is the best solution for me, allowing me to own movies for as long as I wish, but still get some money back when I decide to get rid of them.
For me, it’s better than renting the movie, as that can quickly become quite expensive in its own right if you watch a lot of films, and there’s the added expense of buying them on DVD or Blu-ray if you see one that you’re going to want in your collection for the future.
The Fourth Stack
The fourth stack of DVDs on my bookcase is for those films I have just mentioned, the ones I love so much that I don’t want to part with them.
As you work your way through different genres, you’ll occasionally come across something that stands alone, either in terms of plot, or quality, or both.
Put it to one side, and you can quickly build up a collection of films that you believe have genuine merit – and not just those that you bought because they were on special offer, or because they grossed the most when they were in the cinema.
Building a unique movie collection in this way is what being a film buff is really all about, and you could soon find your friends and family want to have a movie night at your place, when they discover your treasure trove of genre-spanning little-known classics that really separates the wheat from the chaff of the total selection of movies you’ve seen.
