My VHS hidden treasures - gone but not forgotten.
By Burbanked on Feb 25, 2008 in Blogging, DVD, Movies | 1,280 views |
Nifty: Rob over at The Projection Booth is hosting a VHS Blog-a-thon all this week until Thursday, 2.28.08. Make sure you stop by there and check out what folks have to say about this late great movie format.
Now that we’ve been told that Blu-Ray is The! Best! Format! Ever!, apparently what will follow is a long and drawn-out period where film dorks like me will be expected to upgrade our entire collections of DVDs, or else face the scorn of being left behind in the race not just to own an entirely new collection of movies, but also to rhapsodize to no one in particular how stupendous it is to own every Adam Sandler crapfest in as clear a digital signal as is technologically possible. And believe me, I plan to get right on with that, as soon as I clear up one other lingering issue.
I haven’t finished replacing all of my old VHS tapes with DVDs yet.
It’s news to exactly no one that the VHS home movie boom was a revolution not just for the consumer market, but also for movie lovers everywhere. Our options for keeping and owning our favorite films were severely limited before home video and for me personally there wasn’t even a VHS machine in our house for many years into the revolution. I remember growing up watching James Bond movies on ABC on Sunday nights long past my bedtime and desperately wishing that there was another way to watch them. And the first time I saw the 1984 Terminator, it was not in the theater but on a worn-down VHS tape viewed on a terrible dormitory TV - and even so, I felt as though I was falling love with film all over again. In my own VHS purchasing patterns that would follow, I tried to limit what I owned to those movies that truly meant something to me, that I saw the potential for long-term repeat viewings. For many of the movies I owned on VHS that I did end up replacing on DVD, this is still true.
I’m not sure exactly when I’ll finish off this project to replace the VHS tapes, either. Is there some kind of rule that you’re allowed to be two or three formats behind for any given movie? The sad thing is, I can’t see myself ever watching these movies again if I don’t just break down and replace them with something manufactured after 1989. My lonely, still-lingering VHS tapes fall into several categories.
The movies I really should replace at some point:
- The Abyss
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off
- Hard Boiled
- L.A. Confidential
- Midnight Run
- Silverado
The ones that I haven’t bought because the moment I buy them, literally as I’m leaving the store, a better version with additional features will be suddenly become available:
- Defending Your Life
- Fearless - actually, this one’s probably a safe bet that a better version is never coming. Bummer.
- The Fugitive
- Three Days of the Condor
- Witness
- The World According to Garp
The one I thought I had on DVD but apparently I don’t:
- Field of Dreams
The ones I have a hard time spending more money on:
- Always
- Awakenings
- Backdraft
- Casablanca - yeah, I know, it’s a frigging classic and everything. But I just can’t see myself watching it all that often.
- Dead Poets Society
- The English Patient
- Forest Gump
- Green Card - taking a look at this list, apparently my VHS-buying days went through a distinctly Peter Weir-ian period.
- Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
So what’s the answer, spend a boatload of money upfront? Forget about the old stuff and just move forward? Throw everything in the trash and start reading books again?
And what’s your story? What three VHS Movies do YOU own that you never replaced with DVDs?
Dedicated screenwriting 101 here: From an interview with Harrison Ford on the MTV Movies Blog in which the inevitability of another Indiana Jones movie is mentioned:
How do I get out of this? I love going to the movies with my boys, opening up their minds to the great pleasures of cinema and all that, but this is a hard one. Please help me: do I suck it up and just go, or can anyone out there provide me with a plausible, kind-hearted, permanent way out? (
© Copyright
Megan | Feb 26, 2008 | Reply
This is a great post, because my mom just said last night, “Why should we buy DVDs at all?” She’s right…why not wait 10 years and get the film with a single click? It’s coming, just be patient…
In the meantime, support these types:
http://www.afi.com/about/preservation/preservation.aspx
so that nothing gets lost…
Ray | Feb 26, 2008 | Reply
Let your desires be your guide. You might, at some point, want to revisit one of these films again, and THEN you should find it on the superior format and watch it.
The thing that bugs me about the newer formats is that they are not very user-friendly. VHS allowed great flexibility. I mean, how many of us have VHS tapes of movies that we taped from cable or television?? And think of all the old newscasts and other pop culture crap that inadvertently gets saved on those tapes - like in between movies on a VHS tape - that becomes a treasure years later.
We just don’t have that opportunity with the new formats.
pacheco | Feb 26, 2008 | Reply
Let’s see, what three VHS’s?
1. There’s Something About Mary. Love the film, would love to have it on DVD, but for some reason, it’s just never happened…
2. Eyes Wide Shut. Same thing. I’m in love with the film, but that VHS tape holds so much nostalgia…
3. D3: The Mighty Ducks. Received it as a birthday gift when I was much younger, but I still watch it; call it a guilty pleasure, if you like.
A lot of times I don’t get rid of VHS tapes because — as dumb as it sounds — they have a little more character. I’ve seen my VHS recording of D2 (yes, another duck movie) so much that not only have I memorized most of the film, I’ve also memorized the points at which the VHS sputters, etc. After switching to DVD from some of my VHS’s, I felt so jarred. First, some of the films didn’t seem “right.” And second, I found that I was watching some movies under false pretenses! I would say, “Hey, that background noise is missing…” and realize that it was a noise artifact from the VHS and NOT part of the soundtrack! Gah!
Moviezzz | Feb 26, 2008 | Reply
I’m still a VHS fan. I regularly watch them (just blogged about one today).
As much as I like DVD, and have replaced most of my VHS collection, I still can’t get rid of the VHS versions because they seem to be a more stable format. A single scratch on a DVD can make it unplayable. Yet VHS can survive a lot more.
And as Ray said, VHS often records things that, at the time, may not seem important, but turn out to be far more interesting.
When I used to tape a lot of shows in the 80’s, I routinely cut out the commercials. Now, I wish I had just taped the commercials and cut out the show. Those tapes would be far more interesting.
MC | Feb 26, 2008 | Reply
I haven’t picked up a new copy of Raising Arizona, The Paper or Ronin.
cjKennedy | Feb 28, 2008 | Reply
I love the commercials on old junk I’d recorded and forgotten!
Contrary to my normal anti-early-adopter stance, I’ve fallen in with Blu-Ray by way of a PS3, but with the exception of some free discs I got via rebate (anyone want Pearl Harbor in Blu-Ray with 20% extra suck?) and a couple of gifts, I’m not actually buying any discs. I’ll rent them from Netflix. Replacing my DVDs is out of the question and there are still even a handful of Laser Discs I’ll hang on to forever.
VHS? Not so much. Unless it can’t be had in any other format, it’s already gone. I’ll go to Eddie Brandt’s and rent VHS when it’s the only alternative, but that’s about it.
I’m kind of a ratio snob and I have a hard time watching rectangular movies chopped up into squares, but for stuff before the 50s, VHS is perfectly acceptable. As for the rest of your collection, I’d only consider replacing them as you decide to watch them. If you simply must see Always or Backdraft or Awakenings again, consider the DVD, but also consider that movies on silver platters may become a thing of the past not too far down the road.
I’m talking in circles now. This is usually a good time for me to stop.
Burbanked | Feb 28, 2008 | Reply
Wow! And here I thought that Pearl Harbor was already jam-packed full of suck!
Raul | Mar 17, 2008 | Reply
Apparently no one here has heard of BitTorrent.