Recap of Month 2: April 2026
Films watched: 46
Total DVDs/Blu-rays owned: 2371 (+34)
Films and series unwatched: 350 (-19)
The number of unwatched DVDs/Blu-rays has not gone down by much this month, mainly due to more purchases being made, including a boxset of 21 Hammer movies.
I have added tags with the decades and added them to the list of tags in the search. I also added an animation tag.
I have a Google sheet document with a list of all my DVDs and information and statistics. Most of the films I own are from the 2000s, which makes sense as those were my peak DVD buying years, when I went to HMV, and Virgin, and Zavvi and availed of their 5 for €50 offers frequently. The market has changed since then. The HMV in my town had closed down years ago, but reopened last year, showing that physical media are making a comeback. But what I've noticed is while the size of the shelves is still smaller than it used to be in the 2000s and 2010s, and there are still some X for €X type of offers, the majority of the shelves are collector editions: Arrow Videos, Criterion Collection, BFI, 88, 101 Films, Curzon, Radiance, Second Sight, etc... They are more expensive, but their focus on quality classics, cult classics, niche genres, international films, etc has helped me find films I had not been able to find previously (I had been wanting to see the original Godzilla for years before Criterion collection published a copy and I found it in my HMV. also had wanted to watch something by Akira Kurosawa for a while before I got the Criterion Collection's High and Low and the BFI's edition of Rashômon), and discover films I had not heard of before (BFI's Strongroom and The Appointment).
I've always considered myself more of a cinephage than a cinephile. I worked as a projectionist in the 35mm days (Cinemeccanica Victoria 5 projectors) and had to check copies of films before they went in front of the public, so I watched the majority of films that came out in cinemas in those years, good and bad. I knew John Boyega was gonna be famous someday when I saw him in Attack the Block. I had to watch Justin Bieber, Never Say Never a hellish 7 times because of a weird sound glitch. I watched the first Insidious at 2am in an empty dark closed cinema, which made that red demon absolutely terrifying. And I fell asleep watching Casino Royale. Told you spy films aren't my thing... But what I'm finding during this project is that the more movies I watch, the more I appreciate cinema as an art form, as well as as an historical cultural record.
I believe physical media are more important than ever. I believe they matter as a historical cultural record, and I believe this is under threat. Streaming services remove shows and films, including shows they own, making them entirely unavailable. They also edit them, particularly changing music due to not owning the licence for it. Even when you purchase digital copies, these can be taken away at any point, because you only own the licence for as long as the digital service owns it. We're also in an era of censorship, where librarians are under threat to remove books from schools, or gatekeep them in town libraries. Ebooks are also subject to the same issues movie digital services are. and I'm waiting for the day providers like Amazon will edit and take away books from e reader devices to comply with governments' censorship demands.
When we're back to looking for lost media, people's personal libraries will become a big source for them. That's one reason I have continued, and ramped up my purchases of books and DVDs/Blu-rays (to an extent, my disposable income is sadly not infinite). I'm less of a music person, but my husband and daughter are and I encourage vinyls and CDs buying. Unfortunately, that ship has already sailed for video games since discs now only have a licence to download. I still buy on disc, just because I like being able to browse physical shelves.
Movies watched between the 2nd of April 2026 and 2nd of May 2026:
Pitch Black (2000), David Towhy
The Jacket (2005), John Maybury
Ali (2001), Michael Mann
Mongol: The rise to Power of Genghis Khan (2007), Sergei Bodrov
Leprechaun 2 (1994), Rodman Flender
Leprechaun 3 (1995), Brian Trenchard-Smith
Leprechaun 4: In Space (1996), Brian Trenchard-Smith
Leprechaun in the Hood (2000), Rob Spera
Asylum (2005), David Mackenzie
The Railway Children (1970), Lionel Jeffries
Dune (2021), Denis Villeneuve
Miss You Already (2015), Catherine Hardwicke
The Commitments (1991), Alan Parker
What We Did on Our Holiday (2014), Andy Hamilton and Guy Jenkin
Alpha Dog (2006), Nick Cassavetes
It's a Wonderful Afterlife (2010), Grinder Chadha
His Girl Friday (1940), Howard Hawks
The Front Page (1931), Lewis Milestone
Manchester by the Sea (2016), Kenneth Lonergan
Birdman, or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance (2014), Alejandro G. Iñárritu
Annabelle Creation (2017), David F. Sandberg
Almost Famous (2000), Cameron Crowe
Of Mice and Men (1992), Gary Sinise
A Perfect World (1993), Clint Eastwood
The Fifth Estate (2013), Bill condon
The Devil Rides Out (1968), Terence Fisher
Paperhouse (1988), Bernard Rose
The Covenant (2006), Renny Harlin
Lincoln (2012), Steven Spielberg
Ghost Story (1981), John Irvin
Scoop (2006), Woody Allen
The Plague Dogs (1982), Martin Rosen
Resident Evil (2002), Paul W. S. Anderson
Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), Alexander Witt
Resident Evil: Extinction (2007), Russell Mulcahy
Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010), Paul W. S. Anderson
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City (2021), Johannes Roberts
Kubo and the Two Strings (2016), Travis Knight
The Appointment (1982), Lindsey C. Vickers
Inside I'm Dancing (2004), Damien O'Donnell
The Darjeeling Limited (2007), Wes Anderson
The Bourne Legacy (2012), Tony Gilroy
Bhaji on the Beach (1993), Grinder Chadha
Atomic Blonde (2017), David Leitch
Silk (2007), François Girard
Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee (2007), Yves Simoneau
