OCDVD
Tips for organizing your collection.
A glance in any retailer’s entertainment section will show that the average price of a DVD is steadily dropping. Ten years ago, it wouldn’t be uncommon to spend $35 on a single-disk DVD whose extra features consisted only of a theatrical trailer and an “innovative animated menu.” Nowadays, though, consumers can dive Scrooge McDuck-style into the various DVD bargain bins that litter the landscape of every big box retailer — doing the breast-stroke in a sea of $5 copies of last year’s summer blockbuster.
With the increased affordability of DVDs, it shouldn’t be a surprise that people own more and more movies. As the size of America’s DVD library continues to increase, there comes a very important question: How does one organize their movies?
While sorting your movies alphabetically may seem like a safe and easy choice, it’s also really, really boring. Just like one’s movie collection is an extension of their personality, the way a person organizes their DVDs says as much about who they are as the way they pronounce “caramel.”
Instead of just arranging your movies from Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid to Zorba the Greek, here are a few organizational choices that can spice up your collection and offer a glimpse into your inner film geek’s soul.
Chronological
There are two ways to sort your movies chronologically. The first way, organizing your movies by the year they were released, isn’t much better then sorting them alphabetically. The second method of chronologically sorting films is a little trickier then just looking up the film’s release date on IMDB.com, it involves sorting films by the year they take place.
From The Flintstones to Jetsons: the Movie, your collection would track mankind’s mastery of dinosaurs to its mastery of flying cars.
The only problem with sorting your DVDs by their place in history is reconciling conflicting views of the past and future. Which version of dinosaurs are you going to begin with: the happy-go-lucky antics of The Land Before Time or the Married with Children-esque lifestyle that was described in the first season of Jim Henson’s Dinosaurs.
Do you include Disney’s reassuringly quaint version of Pocahontas or do you go with Terrance Malick’s complex interpretation of the events in The New World. Or do you forgo both versions for the 1995 film, Pocahontas: The Legend?
Even more difficult of a question to answer, though, is what apocalyptic future will you choose to give your DVD collection. Will the world be overrun by monkeys, robots or road warring Australians?
The best way to settle these lingering questions is simple: parallel DVD collection universes.
Genre
Sorting your DVD by genre can make it easy when it comes time to choose what film you are going to watch on a Friday night. In the mood for a non-stop, pulse-pounding adrenaline ride? Sick with the action genre in your collection.
For increased effect, you can even narrow down your genres into tinier sub-genres. Instead of having an action film section in your collection, you can have a whole smorgasbord of sub-sections that each includes a particular type of action film.
In the mood for a non-stop, pulse-pounding adrenaline ride that has nudity? Try the “TNT and T&A” section.
When organizing your collection into subgenres, the possibilities are limitless. You can have an entire section dedicated to Films That Feature Nazi Monkeys (population: Raiders of the Lost Ark). Other possible subgenres to sort movies into include “Mobster Films that Steal Shamelessly from The Godfather,” “Cop Movies that Feature Multiethnic Partners Who Just Don’t Understand Each Other,” “Horror Movies that Use Credence Clearwater Revival Songs in an Ironic Way” and “Murder Mysteries Where the Husband Did It.”
Appropriateness for Children
This method of organization is perfect for couples who have recently had children. It involves buying a really, really tall bookshelf and sorting your movies from the ground up by their suitability for children.
The bottom shelf would house the tamest of children’s movies – those that encourage either education or respecting parents. As you went further up the bookshelf, the movies would become less and less appropriate for showing your children (probably eventually ending with Todd Solondz’s ode to sexual deviants, Happiness). As the child developed and grew in size, the films that you did not want your kid to watch would always be a shelf out of reach.
This plan is an almost flawless way of regulating and maintaining your children’s innocence. In fact, the plan has only has one weakness: stepstools.
car-mel! :-)