Sometimes You Just Gotta Watch a Dude Browse Movies
I have an extensive movie collection, and it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself as far as quality of life. I should specify that I mean physical media—I don’t think folders of downloaded movies (legal or illegal) counts as a movie collection. Those are just movie folders, and anyone can have them, and it’s hard to feel anything browsing them—you might as well be at an office somewhere sorting the company’s databases or whatever. (I don’t actually know what happens in an office or what office work consists of.)
Browsing through the movies I own—on shelves I built with my own two hands, no less—is so pleasurable. My fingers grazing across movies I love, or that I like, or that I barely even like but there’s one or two things in them that are so good that I could never discard them, is the best. Picking out one that catches the eye again for the first time in a while and reading the front and back—and no matter how many times you’ve watched it before, it feeling brand new again, because now’s the right time again for you to watch it. I love that—and I also love watching friends of mine check out my movie collection as well. Don’t get me wrong—sometimes people come over and it’s like a wall of white noise to them. They don’t address the beauty surrounding them—they don’t even think to possibly do so. They’re just not into that sort of thing, and that’s fine—these are the people that repopulate with titles the thrift stores I buy so many of my movies for cheap at. The more people there are who don’t care about VHS tapes, or DVDs, or Blu-Rays, the more movies I can acquire.
But, sometimes, a friend comes over who goes wild for my collection—they’re like a kid in a candvd store. (I’m sorry.) That’s what happened when actor and filmmaker Brent Michal (here’s his Vimeo) came over to be on an episode of my podcast (which you can listen to here). He was blown away—he was ‘marking out’, as the wrestling saying goes. So, I just had to film him going through some of my movies. Because I knew that capturing his enthusiasm would be important, as it is most likely infectious, and why deprive strangers of that possible infection? So, if you want to love movies a little more than you already do, or remember how much you love them, please watch the following 23-minute video that is purely just him going through some of my movies (this is only about 25% of my collection) and giving his thoughts on particular ones. There’s no intro, there’s no ad breaks, there’s no anything but pure pleasure. Throw it on, and be transported: