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DVD Question

Thursday, January 25, 2007 | 07:30 PM

A question for the assembled multitudes here: I received a very generous gift -- a honkin' big Amazon gift certificate -- from a friend who I helped out some time ago (got him out of a big trade just before it went very bad).

My Audio collection -- CDs, MP3s, AACs, etc. -- is fairly ginormo. What I don't have much of are DVDs. I have a few TV collections Seinfeld 1-6 and BBC's Coupling), a dozen or so concerts, and a few dozen movies. That's it! (My now defunct VHS collection was many times larger).

And yes, I am very much concerned that DVD is a dying format.

So Question #1 for y'all is this: If money were no object, what DVDs would you have to own? Films, concerts, TV shows, anime, porn -- anything on a silver disc is fair game.

Question 2 is more subtle -- do you wait for the next format, or is that still years away? BluRay or HD DVD?

~~~

Some DVDs I already own are:

Television shows: Coupling (UK 1-4), Seinfeld (seasons 1-6)
(I also have Cody's Entourage that I must return!)

Films: Bladerunner, Sin City, Princess Bride, Ronin, Grosse Point Blank, The Fifth Element, High Fidelity, Groundhog Day, Pulp Fiction, Kill Bills, 50 First Dates, and lots of Hitchcock (mostly off of TCM) and a few others;

Concerts: Jack Johnson Live in Japan, Peter Gabriel (Growing Up Live and Secret World Live), Led Zeppelin, CSNY, Sarah McLachlan (VH1 Storytellers and Mirrorball), Talking Head's Stop Making Sense, James Taylor (Live at the Beacon Theatre and Pull Over) and a few others I am forgetting.

What are the MUST OWNs -- not just the stuff to see, but the works that MUST be on your shelf for instant viewing 24/7, the stuff thats work so much better on DVD than on Cable/HBO, the discs with with all the great extras -- or the simply must own disc that no video loving home should be without?

The oddball and eclectic are welcome!

What say ye?

~~~

UPDATE: January 26, 2006 5:53am

Thank you, everyone! I love the suggestions -- I've seen nearly all of the mainstream and cult flicks suggested (Young Frankenstein, Big Lebowski, Repo Man, This is Spinal Tap, Thin Men Series, Usual Suspects, Caddyshack, Braveheart, Koyaanisqatsi, Matrix, LOTR, 10 Things I Hate About You, Shakespeare in Love, etc.), and everything by Tim Burton.

Two under-rated sci-fi flix are Serenity and Chronicles of Riddick. Of course, Monty Python and the Holy Grail was formative (the wife dragged me to Spamalot this week, which was cute in a derivative way, but not a must see). I love Arsenic and Old Lace, and anything else with Cary Grant. I can watch anything by John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Preston Sturges or Billy Wilder. I saw the re-release of Lawrence of Arabia at the Ziegfeld (astonishing evening).

I am also a big fan of Arrested Development and Futurama, two prematurely cancelled Fox shows; Sport's Night is another cancelled too soon show I adored.

Suggestions: Some of the things I hadn't thought of were the documentaries, Pink Floyd at Pompei, I did not know about Naqoyqatsi, Firefly (the series), The Devil's Backbone (Spanish), The Seduction of Mimi (Italian), Kundun, Meet the Feebles, Dogville, Rescue Me, One Giant Leap, Jazz on a Summer's Day, Magnolia, Horowitz Live in Moscow, The Machinist, Hendrix at Monterrey, Ben Harper Hollywood Bowl and Dave Matthews Band in Central Park, U2 Live @ Red Rocks.

The many suggestions for documentaries were also quite good: Carl Sagan's Cosmos and Clarke's Civilisation both look great.

A few people suggested the Amazon page titled DVD Essentials; In clicking around, I discovered Browse DVD Genres.

Got quite a few suggestions for The Wire; The American Film Institute 100 is also a great idea. And I am amazed how many people privately emailed me to gush about the Shield -- that has a real cult following.

As a Brit-pop/BBC fan, the Sandbaggers sounds very interesting; And I loved The Larry Sanders Show, but I know I missed a few, so that goes on the list.

Great suggestions all. Thanks!