Musings & Thoughts for Wednesday, January 12, 2022, or: Blu-ray Collecting: A Cure for the Blues?


Hi there, Dear Reader. It is early afternoon here in Lithia, Florida on Wednesday, January 12, 2022. It is a mild winter day in the subtropics. Currently, the temperature is 72˚F (22˚C) under sunny skies. With the wind blowing from the east-northeast at 10 MPH (16 KM/H) the feels-like temperature is 72˚F (22˚C). Today’s forecast calls for partly sunny skies and a high of 76˚F (24˚C). Tonight, we can expect partly cloudy skies and a low of 56˚F (13˚C).

My Amazon order with the Kino Lorber 4K UHD Blu-ray version of The Great Escape arrived early yesterday afternoon. The Caregiver retrieved it from the front porch and placed it on the kitchen island sometime between 12 and 1 PM, and I removed it from its blue-and-white Amazon shipping envelope a short time later. I have not watched it yet; the most that I’ve done is to carefully tear the plastic wrapping material from the slipcover and place it in the portion of my IKEA media storage shelves that are reserved for most of my 4K UHD Blu-rays.

(C) 2022 Kino Lorber. The Great Escape (C) 1963 The Mirisch Company and MGM-United Artists

I might take the 4K Blu-ray disc for a test watch later; I’ve watched The Great Escape several times since I moved here in April of 2016, so I’m not in the mood to watch the entire film. Of course, I might change my mind and enjoy all of John Sturges’ 172-minute action-adventure film based on the true story of an attempt by 250 Allied (mostly British and Commonwealth) airmen to escape from a Luftwaffe prisoner-of-war camp in Lower Silesia in 1944 Germany. (Sagan, the town close to where that POW camp was located) is now in Poland; parts of eastern Germany, including most of East Prussia) were given to that country to compensate for the Soviet Union’s annexation of eastern Poland in 1939 and 1945. Right now, though, I just want to see how good the 1963 film looks on my 4K TV.

I don’t think I’ll be ordering any more movies in January; I just paid off my Amazon Visa bill for December and don’t want to have a large credit card balance to pay off in February. I already splurged on The Cowboys Blu-ray and not one but two Star Wars The Black Series action figures (I’m expecting Han Solo (Hoth) to arrive this afternoon, plus I also ordered the expanded 2-CD soundtrack of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan from La-La Land Records. That’s more “stuff” than I usually buy in a month, and that’s enough. The only thing I’ll do is pre-order the 4K UHD Blu-ray set of Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story if and when 20th Century Home Entertainment (a Walt Disney company) decides to release it in March and puts the title on pre-order status.  

Note: There’s nothing on the Ordered queue.
This is the A-C page of my DVD collection.

In case you’re wondering, my Blu-ray collection now consists of 71 4K UHD titles and 452 2K high-definition Blu-ray titles. (My DVD collection is a bit more modest: 240.) Most – but not all – of my 4K discs are upgrades of movies I already have on the older type of Blu-rays, and in the case of some franchises – Star Wars and Jurassic Park, especially, I have quite a few “repeats” since I have individual releases as well as box sets. Of the 71 4K UHD titles I own, only 13 are films I never owned or watched in any format till I bought them.

The only category of my collection that you can see on one page at Blu-ray.com is my 4K UHD Blu-ray stash. Note all the box sets!

My Blu-ray collection – as of January 12, 2022 – is a combination of upgrades from DVDs – including the de rigueur Star Wars, Star Trek, and Lord of the Rings franchise titles, plus titles I bought only on Blu-ray after 2008, and 58 seasons’ worth of TV series, TV movies, and miniseries. Of the 452 Blu-ray titles in my collection, 394 titles are feature films. (Keep in mind, however, that quite a few of those titles are repeats, especially when it comes to the three Star Wars Skywalker Saga trilogies. I have back up sets for the ones I watch, and back ups for those.

Anyway, yeah. Unless West Side Story (2021) is suddenly in the pre-order queue by Disney-owned 20th Century Home Entertainment, I shan’t be ordering any more flicks this month.

Other than that? I don’t have much to report, Dear Reader. Oh, I could rant about how the feud between my half-sister Vicky and me still bugs me to no end. I am, after all, here in Lithia in no small part because of this estrangement. But what good does that do, besides the brief sense of relief I get after I vent? None at all. When all is said and done, I’ll still be here in Lithia, while my half-sister remains blissfully unaware of my situation here.

Tomorrow, perhaps, I’ll post about politics and other weighty issues that occupy my thoughts. For now, though, it’s time for me to wrap this post up and publish it on WordPress. So, until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny 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.

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