"I don't know about you, but I feel empowered" / Dude, did you just say that?

I bought GHOSTBUSTERS 1 & 2 on Blu ray digibook on Sept 30th.
I watched about 26 minutes of it last night.  Very gorgeous transfer, very clear and detailed.  Yes, there's film grain, but it's not like the whole screen is covered in snow or anything remotely close to that.  I don't know how close to presenting the film as the director envisioned the film the disc comes, but, IMO, it's just a gorgeous transfer.
It's also cool to own.  Looks good on my shelf.  Feels right(!)

I also own FORREST GUMP on blu ray.  I had bought THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 40th Anniversary Edition on blu, used at Amazon's Marketplace, but sold it yesterday for $8.50 Hastings store credit.  FG I bought brand new at Target for $9.90 w/ tax and a 5% REDcard discount.  Now the price has gone down to $8.00 + tax - $5%...dang it!

I listed 'GUMP on Amazon for sale.  Thinking about removing it...idk...if it sells, what would I really lose?

Hmm...

Spike Lee's adaption of Richard Price's CLOCKERS, from 1995, is probably a close second favorite behind Martin Scorsese's BRINGING OUT THE DEAD (1999).  I can sorta see why, seeing as Martin Scorsese was originally slated to direct it, staying on as executive producer if I remember correctly.  The look and feel of that movie just captures so many moods, as does the soundtrack.  I just got rid of the movie a few months back after owning it for 3 or 4 months, so I don't know what the point of owning/buying that (again) would be.  Same deal w/ FORREST GUMP.  It's a great movie, probably one of my favorites, but I used to own it on VHS, bought it on DVD at WalMart eons ago, and now I bought it on Blu ray.  do I really need to keep it?  If Robert Zemekis and his crew are hard up for money, they need to manage it better next time they create a box office hit.  The crew is probably fine, they don't make anywhere near the kind of money that big name director's like Zemekis do.  Zemekis and Hanks probably ate up most of the profit the movie made as well, although I don't know if Tom Hanks was being paid Big$$$ prior to the release of FORREST GUMP like he eventually did...when THE GREEN MILE came out, the poster had an image of Tom Hanks and nothing more.  The basic DVD edition has that same image.  Part of that is because Tom Hanks was the only heavyweight name in the movie, part of that was also probably the intricate yet kind of simple story the film presented.  How do you capture the spirit of such a movie in a poster without neglecting to make it known that the great & powerful Tom Hanks IS IN it??

Anyway.  So I guess my movie collection, on disc anyway, is down to BRINGING OUT THE DEAD, GHOSTBUSTERS, GHOSTBUSTERS 2 and Gregg Araki's NOWHERE.  And if you count GENESIS - LIVE AT WEMBLEY STADIUM as a "movie", count that in too if you will.  I certainly don't count it as an album.  Albums don't have FBI warnings and "Main Menus" with music of their own to plow through before enjoying them.  Also, thanks to the video portion of that disc, the first two minutes of "Mama" (the opening song) are not utterly annoying.  Seeing the band make its progress from off to on the stage and getting ready to being ready to play makes the extended drum machine intro a little easier to stomach.  Musically, it's monotonous and the crowd noise doesn't help...

As far as CDs go, music as it is experienced by people who "actually like" music is a multi-faceted thing and can almost change definition depending on who you talk to.  I prefer emotionally stimulating music.  I also like nostalgic music, much of which was passed from my father to me by osmosis, but does not awaken any emotions.  I also like owning CDs with absolutely stunning album covers.  After all these years, SKELETONS IN THE CLOSET: THE BEST OF OINGO BOINGO still is a striking album cover.  And I can almost fall back into my early childhood (1987-1989) when seeing the album cover for Genesis' INVISIBLE TOUCH.  When I first heard "Say It's Alright Joe" on Yahoo!'s Launchcast customized radio (before it went defunct) from Genesis' ...AND THEN THERE WERE THREE..., I almost woke up on that hillside depicted on Crosby Stills & Nash's DAYLIGHT AGAIN.  I suspect my father played a lot of Genesis records when I was a baby/toddler.  I had kind of a blind flashback when I heard this one series of notes in "The Battle Of Epping Forrest" on SELLING ENGLAND BY THE POUND.  It was like I'd heard it before, but since it sure as heck wasn't on the radio, where could I have heard it?
But anyway...music - especially music that brings out the past - is a long and twisted collection.  On one hand, there's my teenage years, when I was 14 and 15, then there's my high school grad years, when I was 17-19, and then there was my still-youthful existentialist wannabe college kid when I was 21-25, and the winds of change during 2006 and 2007 when many emo bands were trying to expand their sound so they wouldn't be spat on by happyhappy "chin up kid" arrogance in the flesh...it's almost like it became a trend to hate emo.  Stupid.  Yeah, it's not for everyone.  Yeah, a lot of people joined the pre-hate-emo emo trend for reasons that don't make any sense.  Those people should be cowering in the corner awaiting discovery of their fraudulent behavior.  But for people who really do just like sad songs and don't want to listen to R.E.M. every hour of every day, the emo movement was a friend indeed.

My book "collection" is hopeless.  Basically there's The Bible and Elliot Perlman's SEVEN TYPES OF AMBIGUITY which I STILL have not finished reading (!!!).

So that's the story of my life presently.  Trying to make my stuff more meaningful and less meaningless.  Not that it matters.  I could have a dead body in my room and nobody would know.  Except whoever shipped it...unless UPS opened the package...ANYway...And of course, it's just inanimate materials that will outlive me by at least 50 years and become obsolete in 25 years when blu ray is like VHS is today.  And what difference does it all make?  My happiness and lack thereof is fleeting.  Yes, I know all of this.  That's why I'm hoping God overlooks all of my weakness and sin, and lets me into His kingdom.  As I expressed last night tho, it seems like there's something I need to be doing to "earn my keep" as they might say(?), but I don't know what that is and if it's just prayer, I don't know if I can do it.  I tried praying this morning for God to give me strength and guide me in the right direction.  That direction has not become apparent.  Not yet.  Maybe tomorrow?.
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