OldBoy

I get so jaded and frustrated when I look at my now smaller selection (since my dvd's are in storage, but I have convenient access to them) and can't decide what to watch next, and this is from a pool of 30ish!.

I look and look and I know we've discussed before, but I need some tried and true steps as to what and how to decide to watch next and be at peace with that decision. It is just so aggravating. I literally get exasperated as to what I feel like or what i am in the mood for, i can't just freggin' pick and be happy, i have to think and think and....

please help!!

islandclaws

Roy Scheider just died, so I'm watching all of his films I own. Other than keeping up with the dead pool I usually just get into a genre-groove and keep on it until I feel like something else. Although, that's easy for me to do with over 2300 DVDs to choose from.

hindolio

lol this question kinda reminds me of another similar question... how to decide what to eat?

chris_sc77

I can definitely relate OP. I have about 2500 titles and many I have never watched but still it drives me crazy trying to pick something to watch.
What has been a fantastic help is the Academy Award movie challenge which has gotten me to watch many films I ave had for a good long while but have never a chance to until I started participating in this "challenge". We need one of these "challenges" more than just a a few times a year.....
What are all of the "challenges we got on here"? I know the Academy Awards is one and the Horror movie challenge but are there any others that occur annually?

Maxflier

I, too suffer from this sickness.
I don't have a lot of time to watch movies and what happens to me a lot is I will spend so much time trying to decide which movie to watch that I end up not having enough time left to watch anything.

Abe.

Mix in a huge collection with free rentals.... lethal.

dcrw6

I was having this same problem. I've got about 2150 or so, with literally hundreds I've never seen at all before. When I would have time to watch one, I would agonize over what I want to watch. Finally, I said screw it. I would go through each shelf or stack or whatever, and the first one that caught my eye and whether I felt "in the mood" for it or not, I threw it in. It's actually been working out pretty well so far. I marathoned four of them last night, and all of them were surprisingly better than I thought they would be, save for Hills Have Eyes 2. That one just sucked.

Dr Mabuse

me too...

i only have over 1000... maybe around ~1200...

very few, less than 5, that i haven't watched yet...

but i have a hell of a time too...

i will re-watch a Tarkovsky many times if it takes more than few minutes to choose...

i watch the Sword films... 'Samurai Trilogy', 'Sword Of Doom', 'Ronin Gai', 'Hara Kiri', 'Kill! Kill! Kill!', 'Yojimbo', etc. a lot too...

Sondheim

Wow, I have this exact same problem. I'll decide that I have two hours or so to watch a movie, and by the time I've actually decided on one to watch (I have a collection of around 700 DVDs, about 300 of which are unwatched) I've run out of time to watch it.

It's really quite sad.

domino harvey

First World Problems

dhmac

I just go through and pick out about 8 to 10 titles from my collection, stack them conveniently near the DVD player, and gradually watch them until through (which could take weeks). Then I repeat.

Disc-Flipper

Always carry a notepad with yourself.
When you're away from your collection and a movie-craving comes to mind, jot it down.
Then watch it the next time you are sitting at your home theatre.

nemein

Since I'm trying to get through my collection I have most of my new DVDs stacked by my computer (where I watch most things... occasionally I'll watch things on big screen). Rentals always come first though but when I don't have any of those I just grab something off the pile. Right now I'm trying not to rewatch anything until everything is watched/rated. At that point I have a stack of ones I'm starting to collect that I'm thinking about getting rid of. I'll go through those and see whether or not I want to hang on to them.

OldBoy

rentals are the best, i actually feel relief when i rent which isn't often, but at least from BBV where i get i have a time limit and those are the ones that go in instantly. i am looking very forward to renting a few this weekend bc i will have to watch those and not sit there pondering what to choose from in my collection.

Giles

it's easy now with the second annual Academy Award Challenge going on - look in my collection see what's either won or been nominated and I'm good to go

Yakuza Bengoshi

Wolf359

This is a pretty common problem, and not just with dvds. I know this isn't the book forum, but this is a really interesting book on just this topic.

The Paradox of Choice

The Man with the Golden Doujinshi

My movie database, Movie Collector, has a random thing but I usually just go in order of what I haven't seen yet. If it's in binders, I work my way from front to back. If it's on the shelf, I go alphabetical.

It does help get through stuff that I might just keep putting off forever, like Asylum movies or other straight to video indie stuff that usually sucks.

rpr151

I always have this problem...while my collection is not as large as some of you guys (300 or so) I still run into this. What I usally do is one of 3 things. 1) Have a friend/s over and let them pick. 2) Start my own marathon. I'll watch all the movies I have by one actor or director. 3) As dumb as this sounds I'll just close my eyes and point. Which ever movie it is I watch it. Most times when none of this works I just default to watching Simpsons.

DVDMagic

There are the 2 you mentioned, and then there is a Holiday Challenge that incorporates Thanksgiving and Christmas too.

Numes

I feel like this is my first day in a support group. I thought I was alone! (tear) I have the same problem.

"Hello, my name is Mike, and I am a DVDaholoic and an indecisive title chooser."

The recent Holiday Movie Challenge didn't help a whole lot because I focused almost solely on TV shows on cable, so I didn't catch a lot of movies in that time frame. The Academy Award Movie Challenge has definitely helped make my decisions. I decided to re-watch all 6 Star Wars movies again.

Without the challenges, I have a few things I do. I have a DVD rack that I put titles up there that at some point I have told myself I want to watch. That way I kind of have a starting point when I need to decide. A lot of times when I come back to the rack, though, I'm not as keen to watch them anymore. Other times I will choose a movie with sequels, so I automatically have the next few movies chosen for me already. Another thing that is semi-conscious / semi-unconscious is that if I see a movie by a certain director or has certain actor(s) in it, I will lean towards the movies with that same cast/crew.

The last thing that I just started doing is keeping track of my oldest titles (5-10) that I haven't watched yet and try to pick one of those to watch. Right now my oldest title is "The Mummy Returns" at #51/1200+, so it may be time to watch that! I bought it way back in 2001 (!)

meglet

I'm finally making progress on my unwatched movie pile. I actually keep all the unwatched DVDs on a separate section of the DVD rack, which gives a scary visual when it gets 4 shelves deep.

I also have all the unwatched movies marked in my tracking software, so I can pull up a list of just the unwatched ones and scroll through until something catches my eye.

Amazingly, movie trailers have made the biggest difference. I was really bored one weekend and grabbed as many trailers as I could find for the unwatched movies, then threw them in a folder. Now I just start scanning through trailers until something looks interesting, then go watch it.

hindolio

thanks, that actually sounds fantastic! i will, however, have to squeeze it somewhere into my current list of not-yet-read books though

Chad

Copy & paste your unwatched titles into the List Randomizer at random.org and you have yourself an instant queue -or- Use the Movie Pick button if you're a DVD Profiler user.

BuckNaked2k

When in doubt........Big Lebowski