DVD Library

[jesus the mexican boi]

I recently did some remodeling.

Nice remodel. Who knew a '92 Civic was so roomy?

[Matt]

Here's a dilemma. You own the Criterion Earrings of Madame de.., you also own the Second Sight Madame de. Same film, different titles. Where do you file them (assuming you use alphabetical and not by director)?

I mentioned on the last page what I do with translated titles:

My French DVD of Black Narcissus is next to the Criterion under B, not under the title that's on the box: Le Narcisse noir. And L'Imperatrice rouge is under S because I know it better as The Scarlet Empress. In these cases, I am using what we call in the biz the uniform title.

So in this case, I would put both under M since Madame de... is the original title. "The Earrings of" was added to the title in other countries. Don't listen to Domino. It's insane to put the same film in two different locations. Complete madness. If you only had the Criterion, though, it's obviously fine to shelve under E.

[tojoed]

Thanks Domino and Matt. I think I'll go with Matt's suggestion, he's the pro.

Domino, My Life to Live goes for $$$, does it? Maybe I'll get rid of mine, not that there's anything wrong with it.

[domino harvey]

I put mine up on Half and within 24 hours someone bought it

[anvilscepe]

Rats.

I lost my Lorber edition slipcase, but still have the film. I made a half-assed attempt at photoshopping a decent cover, but failed miserably. I guess I'll just toss it out once the Criterion edition appears.

Oh, and to stay on topic, I normally just alphabetize my films like Matt, but ignore the spaces.

[zone_resident]

DVD Savant on his DVD library

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

DVD Savant on his DVD library

What do you suppose is his kevyip?

[milk114]

A question on kevyips...

Do you consider films you have seen but not on the dvd yet, as kevyips? Such as a film you watched in theaters or at someone else's home or in a class, that you later bought?

Just curious. Thanks

[tojoed]

Do you consider films you have seen but not on the dvd yet, as kevyips? Such as a film you watched in theaters or at someone else's home or in a class, that you later bought?

No, I consider it part of the kevyip if it's a DVD of a film I haven't seen at all.
Don't know about other people, it'll be interesting to see if we can get a ruling.

[Mr Sausage]

Do you consider films you have seen but not on the dvd yet, as kevyips? Such as a film you watched in theaters or at someone else's home or in a class, that you later bought?

No, I consider it part of the kevyip if it's a DVD of a film I haven't seen at all.
Don't know about other people, it'll be interesting to see if we can get a ruling.

If someone wants to plod their way back through the Collected Idiocies of Kevyip thread, I bet they'll find kevyip's ruling on the matter, with a mathematical equation to back it up.

[fiddlesticks]

I consider unwatched DVDs of any stripe to be members in good standing of my kevyip. Unwatched DVDs of never-before-seen films, a/k/a blind buys, are just a subset. I think kevyip1 would agree (I have no desire to wade through his hate speech, thanks for the suggestion!); think about it--you see a movie on TV and decide you must own it, so you buy it the next day and it sits on your shelf unwatched for months into years. What could be more kevyippy than that?

[zedz]

Do you consider films you have seen but not on the dvd yet, as kevyips? Such as a film you watched in theaters or at someone else's home or in a class, that you later bought?

No, I consider it part of the kevyip if it's a DVD of a film I haven't seen at all.
Don't know about other people, it'll be interesting to see if we can get a ruling.

This is such a ridiculous question I just have to weigh in and agree with "tojoed". If I've seen a film already it's usually not a priority to watch it again, but I do count any unseen extras as an 'unseen disc' and thus part of the kevyip.

It's all hypothetical anyway, since I have an Enchanted Kevyip that never decreases no matter how many DVDs I watch.

[domino harvey]

I only count the feature as the criterion for the unwatched selection

[milk114]

How often have you bought a dvd for a special feature? i've listened to maybe 20% of the commentaries in my collection... mainly for movies I've seen multiple times. I can think of a few examples where I watch the doc or included shorts before watching the feature.

So I guess I'd include all discs in my kevyip that haven't been inserted into the player. If I haven't gotten something out of the product other than that joy of pealing off the cellophane, it's getting included. Which means I've a lot to get through.

[Murdoch]

How often have you bought a dvd for a special feature? i've listened to maybe 20% of the commentaries in my collection... mainly for movies I've seen multiple times. I can think of a few examples where I watch the doc or included shorts before watching the feature.

I haven't bought one based on special features, but I did buy the Double Life of Veronique based on criterion's beautiful package, despite being ambivalent toward the film.

[domino harvey]

Special features on DVDs are like money in the bank. I may not spend it right away, but it's there when I need it, and I'll never turn down making the biggest deposit I can.

[jt]

Kevyip for me is based solely on the film. If I buy something I've seen in the cinema, I may watch some of the extras but I don't feel pressured to watch the film asap.

My dvd collection (of nearly 1000) is purely alphabetical.
My cd collection is a similar size and it's been through about 6 different orders (usually changed every time I watch or read High Fidelity) but I've settled on a few genres (classical, electronic, rock/pop/metal and hip-hop), each alphabetized. I did originally have over a dozen genres but I could never remember whether I'd stored something under ambient or IDM or trance etc.

I'd like to do a similar thing with my dvd's, maybe split them into Silent, Comedy, Foreign, Action, Horror and Noir but the size of the task scares me. How many genres? Is The Gold Rush a silent or comedy? Is Nosferatu a Silent, horror or foreign..?
With cds, this method has certainly helped me choose albums to listen to more quickly as I generally know which shelf to scan depending on my mood and I think it would help with films as well if I ever get round to it. I can't imagine anything worse than ordered by director or studio, that would make the task of deciding what to watch more difficult not less, which, for me is the main reason for ordering at all.

I'd also like to separate out my kevyip but I'm not going to do that until it's down to about 30 films. If my wife found out I have 100+ unwatched dvds Id get even sterner looks every time another package arrived...

[milk114]

I tried to search for a relevant thread but couldn't find one this early in the morning. Feel free to move this if necessary.

I maintain an excel spreadsheet of all my dvds (and books, games, comics, music). A bit primitive, but its been working for me for years. Two years ago I reorganized my entire collection and spreadsheet from director/year to alphabetical to make it user friendly for my wife.

Now I'd like to reorganize (just the spreadsheet, thank god) to genre. When my collection was 1/3 as large as it is now, I had fun playing with genre organization but ended up not being able to find things. So now, my wife has asked for a chick flick section, so she can find "her" movies at ease without flipping through the 5 books of dvds.

So the genres or organization boxes I had in mind were:

Chick Flicks (it'll be up to her what goes in there... basically her favorites I suppose)
Action
Mystery (only because I have a lot of noir/crime)
Comedy
Drama
Music Video/Concerts
Documentary
Sports
Animation
Television

Are there any other broad categories that you can think of? Since its to make things simple, I'm debating whether to make a Foreign category or to fit them in particular genres. I've already opted out of making a Black & White category, though am going to keep the director/year/language/color info, despite Sarah saying that means nothing to her.

The last part of this new project is to put poster art on the spreadsheet, so I can print it out for my wife. She's a very visual person, and isn't too excited when faced with 8 dvds. Now she's saying she wished we had bookshelves of cases, so she can look at the artwork to decide if she wants to see the movie, as opposed to our 5, easy to store and to move and to navigate (though not easy to update) cd cases.

At the end of the day we own a lot of movies that she hasn't seen because she's not that interested. I'm doing this project to not only stoke her interest, but also rediscover movies I haven't seen in a while (and to update my fevyip list).

Any and all help will be appreciated, other than telling me that I'm pussy-whipped. I know, I know.

[LQ]

Don't know if this would be of help, but netflix breaks down their "genres" as such:
action
anime&animation
blu-ray
children&family
classics
comedy
documentary
drama
faith&spirituality
foreign
gay&lesbian
horror
independent
music&musicals
romance
sci-fi & fantasy
special interest
sports
television
thrillers

[kaujot]

The genre of gay & lesbian has always sort of irked me. I haven't seen too much glbt cinema, but does having gay protagonists really make it less of a thriller or drama or comedy? Or is it referring to movies that are those conventional genres that also dive into glbt issues, etc.?

[swo17]

Any movie that only fits neatly into one of those genres probably isn't a very good movie.

[Matt]

The genre of gay & lesbian has always sort of irked me. I haven't seen too much glbt cinema, but does having gay protagonists really make it less of a thriller or drama or comedy? Or is it referring to movies that are those conventional genres that also dive into glbt issues, etc.?

Usually, it's the latter, but there seem to be an awful lot of gay coming-of-age movies (to appeal to pedophiles and those people who only watch foreign films if they are about children) and gay fish-out-of-water comedies (to appeal to gay fish), so much so that they might be considered their own genres. But, like a "chick-flick" genre or section, it is kind of nice to be able to look at a list of films that might have characters you can more closely identify with, sexuality-wise at least.

[fiddlesticks]

Rather than go to the trouble of adding artwork to your spreadsheet, I'd suggest you upload your spreadsheet into DVD Aficianado, which I have found to be pretty useful. They have a fairly comprehensive list of DVDs and each is assigned a genre, although you can maintain your own set of folders and sub-folders, organized into your own preferred genres (like Chick Flicks) or however else you wish. If you should happen to have a DVD that is not in their database, it is a simple matter to add it, provided you have a decent copy of the cover art that you can supply. I keep my collection organized there as well as in an Excel spreadsheet, which I keep mostly for use when I have no web access (or maybe just because I'm incredibly anal!) You should check it out, if for no other reason than to see a long list of genre suggestions.

[milk114]

thanks for moving the topic and for the suggestions,especially the netflix list. That was the other thought I had... if the online databases could be more effective and still printable.

The subgenre issue is why I decided against genre organization to begin with. I'm also not too jazzed by the notion of "classics," foreign or independent groupings. Or chick flicks, but whatareyagonnado?

[Murdoch]

I find it funny how they consider blu-ray a genre, it seems like they should just set up a different section of their site dedicated blu-ray releases, like they did with the "watch instantly".

I've started a drastic reorganization of my collection since whenever I got a new DVD I would just put it in any available space, I had American Psycho situated next to Osaka Elegy for example. I changed it so I now have it organized first by country of origin, then by director, with all the hipster movies - Pulp Fiction, Big Lebowski - towards the back, mainly so when my friends open up my carrying case I can hear them say "What's Pierrot le Fou?" :-"