Hi, there, Dear Reader, and welcome to another installment of On Movies & Movie Collecting, a semi-regular series of posts in which I discuss movies I like (mostly) and my passion for adding new titles (or upgrading others from one format to another) on Blu-ray.
For the February 1, 2023 entry in the series, let’s go to my Collection page on Blu-ray.com and see where we stand, statistically speaking, on the 2K (high definition) Blu-ray (BD) and 4K ultra-high definition (4K) fronts.
By the Numbers: My 2K (High Definition) Blu-ray (BD) Collection (As of February 1, 2023)
As of today, my collection consists of 532 BDs, which can be further broken down into 458 theatrically released movies and 74 TV seasons (including several Ken Burns documentary film series, HBO miniseries such as Band of Brothers, The Pacific, and Chernobyl, as well as “complete series/complete season” sets from such TV shows as The Office, Star Trek: The Original Series, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars).
I’m not sure if Blu-ray.com includes Ordered titles in its totals; there are no disclaimers on the site stating that they don’t, so for accuracy’s sake, I’ll posit that my high-def Blu-ray collection consists of 529 BDs on my shelves, and three (The Fabelmans, Black Sunday, and Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Season One) on pre-order.
By the Numbers: My 4K UHD Blu-ray (4K) Collection
My 4K UHD collection, being of more recent vintage (I only started buying the newer ultra-high def discs in late 2018 is, naturally, smaller than my 2K Blu-ray one. As of today, it consists of 106 titles, all of which are theatrical releases – I have no TV titles on 4K so far – and one (The Fabelmans – which is a “multi-format” release and also comes with a “regular” Blu-ray and the code for the digital copy) on the Ordered queue.
Of course, on both categories of Blu-ray there are quite a few “repeat titles” (mostly in the big franchises such as Indiana Jones, Jurassic Park/Jurassic World, Star Trek, and Star Wars). Some of these redundant titles are purely “just in case a disc gets scratched” insurance purchases, while others are “collector’s edition” purchases I made both for the “insurance” thing and because I like the packaging.
This is especially true when it comes to the Star Wars franchise, where I not only have different iterations of the 4K releases of the Sequel Trilogy (steelbook vs. regular black plastic “jewel box” cases).
Interestingly, even though my 4K UHD collection is modest in comparison to my 2K Blu-ray library, it’s still larger than my VHS videocassette collection was before I was forced by circumstance to give it away in 2005.[1] I don’t recall the exact number of VHS titles I owned, but it was nowhere near 106, even taking into account that then, too, I had a couple of Star Wars Trilogy box sets that were essentially the same version of the original 1977-1983 films but with different packaging.
New to the Collection
The classic from director Barry Levinson, writer Chris Columbus and Executive Producer Steven Spielberg comes to Blu-ray in this LIMITED EDITION steelbook. Following the teenage years of Sherlock Holmes—who meets and befriends his future sidekick John Watson during their first semester of boarding school—the adventure begins after a series of deaths occur on campus. The groundbreaking Oscar-nominated special effects includes the very first use of a completely computer-generated character in cinema. – J-Card Blurb, Young Sherlock Holmes
If you’re a regular visitor to this space, you might remember that I was expecting my copy of Young Sherlock Holmes – Limited Edition Steelbook to arrive yesterday – the same day of its release.
Apparently, I was either extremely lucky or Young Sherlock Homes – a 1985 film directed by Barry Levinson (Good Morning, Vietnam, Diner) and executive produced by Steven Spielberg – is not in high demand, but I received my package with the steelbook packaging yesterday afternoon.
I have not watched Young Sherlock Holmes yet, but I’m sure that it is an entertaining movie. I do wish, though, that in addition to the nice “steel” packaging with art by the legendary film poster artist Drew Struzan, we had gotten a few nice bonus features besides the collectible packaging and the code for a digital copy.
And in Two Weeks….
On February 14, Universal Pictures, Amblin Entertainment, and Sony Pictures Home Entertainment will release the 4K UHD/2K HD Blu-ray/Digital Copy multi-format set of Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans, a fictionalized account of the director’s childhood in the 1950s that examines his budding talent as a filmmaker and the trials and tribulations of life in the Age of Eisenhower.
A deeply personal portrait of 20th Century American childhood, Steven Spielberg’s The Fabelmans is a coming-of-age story about a young man’s discovery of a shattering family secret and an exploration of the power of movies to help us see the truth about each other and ourselves. Inspired by Spielberg’s own childhood, The Fabelmans is written by Spielberg and Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner (Angels in America, Caroline, or Change), who has earned Oscar nominations for his screenplays for Spielberg’s Lincoln and Munich. The film is produced by three-time Oscar nominee Kristie Macosko Krieger (West Side Story, The Post), Spielberg and Kushner. – from the promotional material for the 4K release of The Fablemans.
I wanted to see The Fabelmans in a movie theater, but both the COVID-19 pandemic and no easy way to go to a multiplex on my own prevented me from going. So even though I need to watch my budget, I have this title on pre-order and have no intention of canceling it.
[1] By 2005 I had stopped buying VHS tapes. Videotape was never my favorite home media format for various reasons, but it was the only widely available one between 1984 and 1998, so if I wanted to have a “movie collection” at all, it was either that or nothing. By then, I had replaced over 90% of my VHS library with DVDs and was only buying new titles on the then-new disc-based format. Now, 25 years after I bought my first DVD, I have 0 VHS titles but now own 247 DVD titles – at least by Blu-ray.com’s database account.
A Certain Point of View, Too 
I remember watching this when it first came out. The CGI effects were a wonder to behold. It was a fun, sad movie.
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I still haven’t watched it.
Maybe later today.
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I hope you enjoy it . I don’t know how well it’s worn with time. But 20-some-year-old me liked it.
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I’m going to watch it in a little bit. It does seem like it’s going to be a fun movie.
The one thing I do wish Paramount had included with this first-ever Blu-ray release is behind-the-scenes stuff. The steelbook packaging is nice, but…no making-of stuff? That’s a bit disappointing.
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The least they could do is a making-of stuff.
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Especially if it’s a first-ever release of a movie on Blu-ray.
Okay, so it didn’t do well at the box office, especially here in the U.S. And we aren’t talking about a film with as much cinematic heft as, say, “Schindler’s List” or – going to the opposite end of the Spielberg spectrum – “E.T.” I get it.
But no extras? (The steelbook art is nice, though.)
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Cheap indeed.
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