Hello, Dear Reader. It’s almost noon here in Lithia, Florida on Monday, February 14, 2022. It is a chilly winter’s day – by Florida standards, anyway – in the Tampa Bay area. Currently, the temperature is 55˚F (13˚C) under sunny skies. With the wind blowing from the north-northeast at 11 MPH (18 KM/H) and humidity at 33%, the wind chill factor is 53˚F (12˚C). Today’s forecast calls for partly sunny skies and a high of 66˚F (19˚C). Tonight, we can expect partly cloudy skies. The low will be 45˚F (7˚C).

The TBW Stack, Close Cousin of the TBR Stack

If you’re a regular reader of this blog (and thank you if you are), you know that as a bibliophile, I buy books at least once a month, even though my weird hours and time spent at my desk are not conducive to reading in a meaningful way. (Note to self: Let’s do something about that.) That’s why I often refer to the pile (yes. It’s literally a stack) of books that I’m currently reading as a “To Be Read/TBR” pile.

What I don’t often mention is that sometimes – not constantly, but sometimes – I will go beyond my “one new movie per month” self-imposed rule and go on a Blu-ray buying spree. This is how I achieved my goal of owning every feature film directed by Steven Spielberg on Blu-ray: I acquired several titles that I was missing in that format late last week.

The movies I bought – one (Hook) sold for $5 on Amazon – are:

• The Color Purple (1985)
• Hook (1991)
• Minority Report (2002)
• Catch Me If You Can (2002)
• The Terminal (2004)

I have browsed through the extra features in all five titles, and I planned on watching either The Terminal or The Color Purple this weekend, but I did not.

And since I bought at least one Blu-ray last month – the 4K UHD Kino Lorber/MGM release of 1963’s The Great Escape – and not set aside any time to watch it, I now have a virtual – not actual – To Be Watched or TBW stack as well as a TBR one.

This weekend I tried to find an affordable Blu-ray of 1983’s Twilight Zone: The Movie so I could say, with 100% accuracy, that I own everything Steven Spielberg has directed on the big screen. Since it’s an “anthology” with four episodes directed by (respectively) John Landis, Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and George Miller, it’s not strictly just “a Steven Spielberg film” in the way that, say, Schindler’s List is. However, it’s on the list of films he directed, so…..

Alas, the only Blu-ray of Twilight Zone: The Movie I could find on Amazon sells for $55.00. Issued by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment in 2007 (making this an early release in the format), but it is so expensive now because it’s “out of print.”

Am I going to shell out $55 for a Blu-ray that has a retail price of $19.99?

No. I might be a Steven Spielberg fan, and I will pay a reasonable amount of money for a home media release of Twilight Zone: The Movie. But $55 for a minor Spielbergian flick?

Not in this lifetime, friends.

Super Bowl? What Super Bowl?

Yesterday, February 13, was Super Bowl Sunday. It was the 56^th Super Bowl, and it was held at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Since neither the Miami Dolphins (my hometown team) nor the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (my adopted hometown team) were playing, I didn’t have any interest in the game. The Caregiver and her boyfriend did, and she made homemade hamburgers and a bunch of sides, so I watched some of the game while I ate. (I had one burger during the mostly scoreless quarter, then ate another after the halftime show.) Other than that, the proceedings were only a minor blip on my entertainment radar.

Well, it’s now past noon – I am not the world’s fastest writer – so I will close for now. Until next time, Dear Reader, stay safe, stay healthy, and I’ll catch you on the sunny side of things.