I’ve loved film my entire life, and being born in the early 90s, I grew up on many classic 80s and 90s movies, and to this day, these are my two favourite decades of film. My favourite genres include horror, sci-fi and crime thrillers, with my some of my favourite films comprising of Back to the Future, Goodfellas, Pulp Fiction, Seven and The Shawshank Redemption. My favourite directors include Martin Scorsese, John Carpenter, Quentin Tarantino, Denis Villeneuve and Christopher Nolan. I enjoy many actors spreading numerous eras, with stand-outs being Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Kurt Russell and Jake Gyllenhaal.
I was the perfect age for the releases of the Star Wars Prequels, Harry Potter and, in my opinion, the golden era of Pixar. In the early-to-mid 2000s, I would go to the cinema every year for my birthday. November was a great time for new releases back then, with the majority of the aforementioned Harry Potter and Pixar films, including Monster’s Inc, Finding Nemo, and The Incredibles, all being released at this time of year, which was perfect.
Of course my film viewing wasn’t confined to the cinema, I had countless favourites I watched at home regularly. These included Toy Story 1&2, A Bug’s Life, ET, Home Alone, Star Wars Original trilogy, Jurassic Park trilogy, Back to the Future trilogy, Indiana Jones trilogy, and all the Disney films, to name a few. The majority of these we had on VHS or, later on, DVD. Strangely, I generally liked sequels more when I was younger, these being Return of the Jedi, The Lost World, Back to the Future Part II and Temple of Doom, respectively.
When I then got my very own video player, I recorded so many films off TV that I didn’t already own, to keep. This eventually moved onto recording on DVD and brought with it the ability to edit! I distinctly remember recording The Santa Clause one evening on the run up to Christmas. I always wanted to get these recordings dead on, without any of the spiel before the film started. I sat there, finger poised, ready to hit “record” on the remote. As soon as the screen went black before that classic Disney logo, my finger dropped straight onto that button and from that moment on, I knew I always had that film available to watch whenever I wanted.
Once DVD became more mainstream, I started curating a small collection of my favourites, and these DVDs replaced the many-time-watched and re-wound VHS tapes of old. I used birthday and Christmas money and balanced buying these, with buying PS2 games – what a time!
When I got my first job at 16, I started buying even more, I wanted to soak up as much cinema as I possibly could. I also began to buy more mature films, after realising that if buying online, I could pick up 18s without my parents needing to buy it for me! I remember scouring Play.com for hours, deciding which films to buy, trying to get as much as I could with the money I had available. This is where I really started to get into collecting films and that’s the next chapter in my story…
Avid Film Fan 