Monthly Archives: May 2007

Believe it or not, my collection is almost complete.  Of movies, that is.  My Amazon.com wishlist only has five more DVDs to go before I’m done.  Although, caught up is more the word I’d like to use.  I originally estimated I’d hit the ceiling at 300 movies, but it’s actually much lower .. around 200, I think.

There’s still a few more movies I’d like to get that have been released, but I’m putting them off because they were already released as fullscreen only.  Disney is the main problem in this case.  I don’t know why they don’t release them as widescreen.  My biggest guess is that they are too lazy to dig up the original print, and instead just do a transfer of the home video.

In fact, as I recall, Disney was the slowest to come to grips with the DVD market in the first place.  They have always had the worst set of features on their discs, it seems.  I know ‘Mary Poppins’ alone has seen at least three releases, and each time they got progressively better.  The first release was just a widescreen release, and didn’t even have the trailer, I think.  Not really nice treatment for one of their most signature films, handled by old Walt himself.  Fortunately, in some cases, the studio will come back later and re-release them as a better edition.  I’m really glad they did that with TRON, since the first release of that one was equally crappy.

In fact, Disney has lately picked up on re-releasing movies with more content as a cool marketing scheme, and what they will do is release a classic once on a single disc edition, and then years later as a two-disc edition.  Recent releases like that have been ‘Peter Pan’ and ‘Robin Hood.’  The catch is that each time they get to say “First time to DVD!” with the second time adding in ‘two-disc’.  Sneaky.

I doubt that I’ll get to see some of my favorite movies on widescreen re-released special editions anytime soon though.  ‘Max Keeble’s Big Move’ probably just isn’t gonna make the cut, which is a real shame.

I still do have some options though … you can buy it in another region, provided they also have an English translation.  That’s what I had to do with ‘Shipwrecked’, another awesome Disney movie which I don’t think has even been released in the US yet.  I bought it from Amazon.co.uk, and then had the change the region code on my DVD player to rip it.  So now I have a perpetual movie.vob sitting on my harddrive that I better not lose, since I can only change my drive’s region code a few times before it locks up for good.

The Ultimate Disney website has a great page bout which ones have only had pan and scan releases (fullscreen), and where you can buy the widescreen ones.  Sometimes it’s a pain being a perfectionist, but that’s what comes with the territory in being a collector.  Besides, it’s a lot of fun hunting these down and finding them as well.

Once I’m done with my wishlist queue, I’m still going to go looking for some more movies.  I’ve still got my Netflix queue, which has 465 movies in there right now.  The success rate is pretty small though.  I remember doing the math once, and it was something like 5% of movies I watch, I end up buying.  However, the ones I do find, are usually great treasures, so it’s all worth it.

I still have a lot of TV shows on DVD to collect as well.  There’s more coming out every month too of stuff that I want to get, and I imagine it’s going to be that way for a while.  However, I’m also going to shift to collecting old records.  I’ve got a few at home, and I’ve got my record player too.  I want to get one that has an audio output jack as well, so I can record MP3s of them.  There is some great stuff out there, I tell you what.  Pretty exciting.

I have *no* idea how I missed these, they weren’t even in my wish list. I didn’t see these three until I was dinking around on Amazon.com this morning. Maybe they were recent additions.

July looks to be a good month for new releases. First, on the 17th, we get treated to the complete series of both Birdman and Space Ghost.

I really love both of those shows, and remember them quite fondly, mostly because they were *never* on television, and being able to catch them was a very rare treat. Plus, as a little kid, I loved the sci-fi / fantasy cartoons as my favorites, so of course that made them only even cooler. I’m really excited to pick up these two sets and can’t wait to give them a watch. I’m hoping that we get treated to even more classic sci-fi cartoons from Hanna-Barbera in the future, too. Their works have been so extensive, there’s just so much good stuff in there.

For some reason, I recall Woody Woodpecker as being one of the more crazy cartoons … seems like they did more … something. I can’t really pinpoint it now, but I do remember liking this cartoon almost more than any at a really young age. Of course, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry always were enjoyable too, but for some reason these seem to stick out more in my memory. One thing I do remember is they seemed to have a lot more color to them.

I did just notice that Chilly Willy is on the box. I love that little penguin. Ah, I can’t wait for this one.

Next up is another classic collection, this time of Popeye cartoons. I was always on and off about these as a kid. I remember sometimes I’d really like them, and other times I’d get bored of the formulaic plot (at such a young age, too! It still bothers me today with TV). So, I’m not sure what to say about this one. I remember liking some of them, a lot. I’m more excited to see a good, near complete, nicely put together collection come out more than anything. They are classic, though, and there’s nothing I love more than the cartoons that were originally shown in the theater. On some of my Tom and Jerry cartoons, there are some that were filmed in scope, and it is really cool watching them with such a huge aspect ratio.

Speaking of theatrical collections, Droopy’s comes out just a week from today. To be honest, I’m really surprised there even are that many Droopy cartoons to start with. I remember watching them alright, but they seemed really rare now that I think about it, or I just didn’t happen to catch them much. Either way, I can’t imagine there being very many of them, but I could be wrong. I can recall a few images of these in my head, and while I can’t really remember anything special about the cartoons, I do know I enjoyed them. I’m thinking it was probably just standard slapstick kiddy cartoon fare, and didn’t really stand out. Not to say they weren’t good, they just got mixed in with the others, and never really got individualized. I’m really curious to get my hands on this one as I think most of them will be new to me.

And here’s one that already came out, but I’ll comment on it anyway, since I’m getting all nostalgic. I got this for my birthday in March, since my little sister got me an Amazon.com gift certificate. Thanks Beckie-poo!

I picked up a copy of Captain N: The Game Master, the complete series, and I’ve been watching it lately — partially to reminisce and partially to torture me.

The animation on this thing is so horrible, it’s sad. Even Legend of Zelda fared better than this one (check out an old post on that subject). The styles don’t match half the time, and sometimes the background is missing or not moving or something. It’s pretty funny. I do, however, remember really clearly loving this show when I was a kid. Actually, it came out in 1989 it looks like, so I would have been 13 at the time.

It always really bugged me that we didn’t have a Nintendo growing up, and this was the best I could get, pretty much. The stories of arcade games always fascinated me, and watching this cartoon show was a great way for me to get into the parts that I really cared about anyway — the character development. I know it sounds odd, but just mix together my love for stories, science fiction, fantasy, computers, cartoons and games and it makes perfect sense. In all honesty, I still enjoy watching the show today, as its interesting to see how things “work” in the game world. I dunno how else to explain that. It’s just kinda fun.

Man, I love music.

This morning on the way to work, was listening to Audio Visions on XM Radio (who gave me a sweet deal, by the way, $77 for a year’s subscription), and something really cool was playing. I checked the artist info and it was some guy named Chris Spheeris, and the track name was Afterimage.

I’d never heard of the guy, but the music seemed a little more haunting and interesting than usual, so I quickly scribbled it down while stopped at a light.

When I got to work, I checked it out on Amazon.com Music and bought a used album of his called Desires of the Heart for about $5. The album name sounds cheesy, I know, but I poked at about half the track samples after buying it, and it sounds really good. I’m excited to get it. It’s always fun finding some new artist whose stuff you instantly like right away that you’ve never heard of.

Well, I loved the idea of getting a used album so cheap, so I poked around my music wishlist that I usually ignore to see if I could pick up any other sweet deals. I bought a copy of Cristofori’s Dream (David Lanz), and then Tempest (Jesse Cook). I’ve been meaning to get the first one for a very long time since I first heard it on Rhapsody about a year ago. Great stuff. And I absolutely love my Vertigo album by Jesse Cook … I never imagined I’d love flamenco so much, but it’s the guitar that gets to me.

So, I’m pretty excited to get some new music soon. I’ve been needing something new for a while now.