My 2800th Blog Post

The Bane Of The Box Set

That’s 2800 blog posts. 

If you’re still with me here then, thanks for being one of my readers.

And if you’ve been here long enough you’ll know my 100 marker blog posts and anniversarys posts tend to be articles (or sometimes designs or sketches etc) rather than an actual review. So I thought I’d say a little bit about the problems caused by the times we movie watchers are living in... the Golden Age of Physical Media (despite what some of the big companies may be telling you... but the boutique labels know, we’ve never had it so good). 

However, the abundance of beautifully restored and transferred special editions on the Blu Ray market over the last six or seven years also has its down side, in terms of the touchy problem of storage.

Now I’m not in any way a collector of movies but I do like to pick up the odd film or eight of the UK releases, when I go into London every now and again, to augment the wealth of films I have to import from places like the US and Australia. And it gets somewhat problematic in terms of actual floorspace in your dwelling as to where you can actually walk and not worry about accidentally knocking over piles of the many thousands of Blu Rays (and the occasional DVD) on your ‘to watch’ stash. 

And I know I’m not alone in this. I’ve seen photos of people’s kitchens on Twitter, even, where they’ve had to resort to emptying the kitchen cupboards of food and utensils in order to be able to fit all the Blu Rays into their homes (I don’t have access to kitchen cupboards for this sort of thing so, I’m definitely not that bad... right?).

So one of the things I’ve been doing for about 20 plus years now is to buy plastic or cardboard storage boxes of a similar size to shoe boxes, along with a bunch of sleeved up lever arch files plus CD sleeves and, once I’ve watched a movie, the disc goes into the plastic sleeve which is then put with the other few hundred in that particular box, while the sleeve artwork and any other ephemera (such as the booklet, postcard, poster, top seal label... on US films... and, if it was attached to the shrink wrap, a front sticker with typography relating to the film used on said sticker also goes onto the binder sleeve to join the many others in that particular lever arch file (although these often get so full and bulgy that the mechanism breaks and I have to buy some more).Then the virgin plastic case goes into the recycling bin... thus saving lots of space... just not enough space to leave much room for footfall in my sexy movie lair. 

I have a day job so, since I don’t get to watch nearly as many films these days (I maybe get through two to four a week on average... instead of the twelve to fifteen I was getting through when I had more time and didn’t write this blog), I’m probably ‘emergency purchasing’ (aka limited editions before they go out of print for good) more than I am getting to watch and file on a monthly basis, sad to say.

But, it’s a good idea in principal. 

A good idea scuppered by the rise of the box set, it has to be said.

Now, I get it, the increased frequency of the sheer amount of boutique label Blu Ray boxes on the market since the pandemic (not too sure on why the correlation but I have some suspicions) is primarily because the labels have realised that people who wouldn’t buy a title or two they have the rights to, would pay extra for a themed boxed edition which also contains movies they would normally purchase. And much as the cynic in me says this is a sly move on the part of said labels, I know from podcasts with some of the people behind the labels that it cuts both ways. There’s also a huge benefit which is a) they are giving people the opportunity to see something which they might not have had the opportunity to see and that they themselves love and belive in (genuinely, I believe people at labels like Severin and Vinegar Syndrome think like this). And b) it means films that would not have been saved from the ravages of vinegar syndrome (the condition, not the label), are lovingly restored from prints and negatives that have been tracked down (sometimes over a number of years) and scanned in and saved for the ages by these labels. So, one downer and two more nobler factors for sure. 

Well maybe two downers, actually. 

The thing is, Mr. or Mrs. Blu Ray watcher and shoebox filer needs to be watching his/her single edition films as quickly as he/she can. So what this means is, if a box set is started, you know it’s going to take a number of weeks to get through (and sometimes a lot longer with those big, thorough products like All The Haunts Be Ours Volumes 1 & 2, The Sensual World Of Black Emanuelle, Shawscope Volumes 1 - 3 and The incredibly Strange Films Of Ray Dennis Steckler, for example). Which means, although you really want to watch some of these movies, you tend to not start any boxed editions because you know you won’t be filing anything away for a while. Which is annoying but, sometimes needs must, as they say.

So there you have it... box sets are great (and I’m talking about physical media here... not those stupid streaming box sets housed in a virtual box which isn’t really there... that’s a term that needs to be taken out of circulation in the digital realm, for sure) but, as much as everyone loves them (don’t we all), they are also a burden when they pile up unwatched... especially when you know the packaging doesn’t allow you to file them away. 

Oh well, the downside of owning the odd movie, I guess. And if you have been reading this blog for a while... you’ll know the odder the better, right?

Anyway, that’s me done ranting on my 2800th blog post. Regular review service will resume on Saturday. All the best to you.