For the Love of Movies: Watching an Old Classic and Keeping Tabs on My Blu-ray Library

Posted byAlex Diaz-GranadosPosted in4K UHD Blu-rays, A Little Romance (1979), Amazon, Blu-ray Box Sets, Blu-ray Collection, Movies, Paramount Home Media Distribution, Ragtime (1981), The Stand (1994), The Stand (2020)Tags:, , , , , , ,

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Last night I watched George Lucas’s first box office hit, American Graffiti (1973). It was a last-minute choice; I originally planned to watch the 1994 miniseries The Stand, the first adaptation of Stephen King’s post-apocalyptic novel about a government-engineered “super flu” that kills 99% of humanity and sets up the survivors for an “end of days” battle between good and evil.

I don’t know why I changed my mind. This version of The Stand only has four parts and at 366 minutes, it’s shorter than the 2020-2021 remake, which has nine parts and a running time of 510 minutes, and my plan was to watch the first miniseries (which was a May 1994 “ratings sweeps” event) before the newer version arrives on Friday.

I don’t know for sure. Either it was the fact that none of the others in the house are Stephen King fans, or I needed to watch lighter, warm-and-fuzzy fare instead.

In any event, I watched American Graffiti from 9:30 to 11 PM, then went to sleep around 11:30 PM.

Today I looked at my Collection page on Blu-ray.com and saw that my Blu-ray library (2K and 4K combined) is a bit over twice as large as my DVD collection.

According to my statistics, including titles I pre-ordered but have not shipped yet, my Blu-ray collection now consists of 376 movies and fifty-eight seasons’ worth of TV series content. Because I have quite a few box sets, I have “only” 281 Stock Keeping Units (SKUs), and quite a few of those SKUs are either upgrades from 2K to 4K discs or “insurance” extras that I buy of favorite movies in case a disc gets lost or badly scratched.

My DVD collection, which I began assembling in 1998 (even before I bought a DVD player and compatible analog TV set in 2000) “only” has 160 movies and 78 TV seasons. It, too, includes quite a few box sets and “insurance” duplicates, though I have far fewer of the latter than I did back in Miami. Today, I own 239 DVDs in 190 SKUs.

In case you’re wondering what titles I have on order besides the new version of The Stand, here’s my list:

  • A Little Romance (1979)
  • Ragtime (1981)
  • No Time to Die (2021)

Well, that’s it for today’s installment of A Certain Point of View, Too. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the brighter side of things.

Published by Alex Diaz-Granados

Alex Diaz-Granados (1963- ) began writing movie reviews as a staff writer and Entertainment Editor for his high school newspaper in the early 1980s and was the Diversions editor for Miami-Dade Community College, South Campus' student newspaper for one semester. Using his experiences in those publications, Alex has been raving and ranting about the movies online since 2003 at various web sites, including Amazon, Ciao and Epinions. In addition to writing reviews, Alex has written or co-written three films ("A Simple Ad," "Clown 345," and "Ronnie and the Pursuit of the Elusive Bliss") for actor-director Juan Carlos Hernandez. You can find his reviews and essays on his blogs, A Certain Point of View and A Certain Point of View, Too.

5 thoughts on “For the Love of Movies: Watching an Old Classic and Keeping Tabs on My Blu-ray Library”

    1. I was 10 when ‘American Graffiti’ was in theaters. I was still learning English then, and being so young, I would not have gotten anything out of it as far as its nostalgia factor or the adolescent angst experienced by its characters.

      I saw this movie for the first time in 1977 or 1978 on ABC, by which time I knew who George Lucas was. I was a young teen, too. I also remember that the network hyped Suzanne Somers’ appearance in ‘American Graffiti’ way beyond what her onscreen time warranted, mainly because she was co-starring with John Ritter and Joyce DeWitt in “Three’s Company.”

      Liked by 1 person

      2. Oh, it must have been fun to see ‘American Graffiti’ during its original theatrical run!

        I don’t recall if the movie was reissued in theaters after George Lucas became uber-famous after ‘Star Wars.’ I would have loved to see it on the big screen.

        On the other hand, I remember that ABC promoted its telecast (which I believe was ‘American Graffiti’s’ TV debut, since it would have been 4-5 years old at the time) by not only promoting Somers as one of the film’s stars (she doesn’t have that much screen-time!) but also hyping Lucas and Harrison Ford’s ‘Star Wars” connections.

        Because ‘Happy Days’ – which was part of the Fifties Nostalgia fad of the ’70s – was a ratings champ for ABC, the show figured heavily in network ads for the telecast, too. Ronny (Ron) Howard from the show was in it, and so was Cindy Williams from ‘Laverne & Shirley.’

        Nowadays, if ABC were to rebroadcast the film, it would be a ‘family affair’ of sorts, since both the network and Lucasfilm Ltd. are owned by The Walt Disney Company.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. It was a lot of fun. It recalled a time only 10-15 years before the movie—but before my memory. The adults thought of simpler times, of course. Before things like the Vietnam War.

        Liked by 1 person

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