I rarely organize my collections alphabetically, at least not as the major organizational tool, since the letter the title starts with is usually less meaningful than the year it was made or the genre that it’s in. But there’s a meme going around film blogs (starting with Blog Cabins) to choose one favorite film that starts with each letter of the alphabet. Forcing you to pick something from each letter is generating some interesting results, so I thought I’d give it a try. (Other entries I’ve seen include: Only the Cinema, Film Doctor, The House Next Door, and Spoutblog.)
Shameless self-promotion – this task was made a lot easier since I recently completed a full list of all the films I’ve ever seen over at my archive site. Still working on the ancillary lists organized by year and rating, but the by title one is done.
A – The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938; Michael Curtiz & William Keighley)
B – Band of Outsiders (1964; Jean-Luc Godard)
C – City of Lost Children (1995; Jean-Pierre Jeunet)
D – The Double Life of Veronique (1993; Krzysztof Kieslowski)
E – Election (1999; Alexander Payne)
F – The Fountain (2006; Darren Aronofsky)
G – Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953; Howard Hawks)
H – A Hard Day’s Night (1964; Richard Lester)
I – In a Lonely Place (1951; Nicholas Ray)
J – JFK (1991; Oliver Stone)
K – Key Largo (1948; John Huston)
L – Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998; Guy Ritchie)
M – Mulholland Drive (2001; David Lynch)
N – The Naked Kiss (1964; Samuel Fuller)
O – O Brother Where Art Thou (2000; Joel & Ethan Coen)
P – Persona (1966; Ingmar Bergman)
Q – The Quiet Man (1952; John Ford)
R – Rear Window (1954; Alfred Hitchcock)
S – Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927; F.W. Murnau)
T – The Thin Man (1934; W.S. Van Dyke)
U – The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964; Jacques Demy)
V – Vertigo (1958; Alfred Hitchcock)
W – The Women (1939; George Cukor)
X – X-Men (2000; Bryan Singer)
Y – Young Frankenstein (1974; Mel Brooks)
Z – Zodiac (2007; David Fincher)
Anyone else reading this, please feel free to post your own. Consider yourself tagged.
logicalextremes
I organize many of my DVDs chronologically, some by genre, director, studio, or grouping (e.g., trilogy). Movies I've seen at the theater I have in simple chronological lists by the year I saw them. Picking a best of by alpha I think would require a good alpha database like you have. I'm looking for a good way to database the movies I've seen (something in the neighborhood of 4000) and movies I want to see.
Jandy
Mine are chronological within genre, and genre definitions are fluid depending on available shelf space. :) But I think with film, chronologically is definitely more useful than alphabetically. I sometimes keep series together, but sometimes not. Depends on my mood.
My records are all in Excel, which is not the most powerful of solutions (spreadsheet rather than database), but it is easy to control, update, and search. I've tried more specialized database solutions, like Delicious Library, but I never seem to like them as much as plain old Excel.
Goannatree
I use movie collector a relatively inexpensive but powerful program that integrates with imdb and other online resources. It works well – they also have one for books – works well if you lend your dvd's or books to people and you want a good way to record who has them. It sorts for you in whatever way you want….
Jandy
I'll have to look that up, Anna. The lending thing would've been nice last year, when I could never keep track of who had borrowed my DVDs. (Pretty sure I got them all back before I left, though, except some Buffy ones Sarah still has.)
In unrelated news, I just found out that Architecture in Helsinki is an Australian band! I've been listening to them on and off for years, and for some reason thought they were from New York or somewhere.
Goannatree
That's kind of weird because the programmers of Movie collector are scandanavian.
I am sorry I didn't think of this program earlier for you 0- I have been using it for a few years – seeing as I don't have many DVD's here I haven't used it much lately. It even allows you to use barcodes and scan stuff.
I told you we are everywhere. I am glad you like them!
logicalextremes
I organize many of my DVDs chronologically, some by genre, director, studio, or grouping (e.g., trilogy). Movies I've seen at the theater I have in simple chronological lists by the year I saw them. Picking a best of by alpha I think would require a good alpha database like you have. I'm looking for a good way to database the movies I've seen (something in the neighborhood of 4000) and movies I want to see.
Jandy
Mine are chronological within genre, and genre definitions are fluid depending on available shelf space. :) But I think with film, chronologically is definitely more useful than alphabetically. I sometimes keep series together, but sometimes not. Depends on my mood.
My records are all in Excel, which is not the most powerful of solutions (spreadsheet rather than database), but it is easy to control, update, and search. I've tried more specialized database solutions, like Delicious Library, but I never seem to like them as much as plain old Excel.
Goannatree
I use movie collector a relatively inexpensive but powerful program that integrates with imdb and other online resources. It works well – they also have one for books – works well if you lend your dvd's or books to people and you want a good way to record who has them. It sorts for you in whatever way you want….
Jandy
I'll have to look that up, Anna. The lending thing would've been nice last year, when I could never keep track of who had borrowed my DVDs. (Pretty sure I got them all back before I left, though, except some Buffy ones Sarah still has.)
In unrelated news, I just found out that Architecture in Helsinki is an Australian band! I've been listening to them on and off for years, and for some reason thought they were from New York or somewhere.
Goannatree
That's kind of weird because the programmers of Movie collector are scandanavian.
I am sorry I didn't think of this program earlier for you 0- I have been using it for a few years – seeing as I don't have many DVD's here I haven't used it much lately. It even allows you to use barcodes and scan stuff.
I told you we are everywhere. I am glad you like them!