Pack Ratting the Rat Pack

I recently downloaded some software to catalog my collection of DVDs. I went through my whole collection and entered them into this software. The result? 161 sets of DVDs. Sound high? Just wait until I explain the concept of "set."

I entered the DVDs as I purchased them. So one season of Stargate SG-1 is one entry, but it is really 5 DVDs. The same goes for sets of movies. I have one set for Bing & Bob's "Road" movies. It is one entry in the database, but contains 4 movies. I also have several DVDs of older movies that contain 2 movies.

The upshot is that I have more than 161 movies and more than 161 actual discs. Sad? Maybe.

Anyway, what have I learned about my taste in movies? Let's analyze.

I have 13 entries featuring Bing Crosby. Bing is definitely a victim of the 2 movies per disc problem. I think the number of movies I own featuring Bing is actually over 20. But we knew that I love Bing, no surprise there.

The next biggest group of actors are the cast of Stargate SG-1. Also not surprising since I own all 8 seasons of that show. Perhaps you didn't know that, though.

Mr. Adam Baldwin comes in third with 6 entries. Who? You've probably seen him in lots of stuff, but just don't recognize his name. I actually met Adam at the one Dragoncon I attended. He was a nice guy. Oops, I just realized that his total should be 7 entries. I have a burned DVD copy of a made for TV remake of The Poseidon Adventure that he was in a couple of months ago.

There's a huge lump of people at tied with 4 entries a piece:

Dorothy Lamour and Bob Hope (again, these figures should be higher)
Tom Hanks
Leonardo DiCaprio
Christian Bale (this should be higher, he's a personal favorite)
Robert Sean Leonard (I was pleased to see this so high, I like him)
Hugh Grant (another favorite, there are a couple of edited movies of his I'd like to add)
Tom Wilkinson who? oh, him
Alan Tudyk (gaining ground in my esteem)
Johnny Depp (though I like him, I was surprised he was this high)

Perhaps you'll notice that list doesn't contain any ladies (except Dorothy Lamour and she's just a tag-a-long from the "Road" movies). Hmm. So who are my highest ladies? They begin with 3 entries:

Drew Barrymore (sure, I like Drew)
Julia Roberts (actually, she should be higher)
Sigourney Weaver (I wouldn't have guessed that)
Alfre Woodard (cool)
and the two ladies from Star Trek: The Next Generation (that's a no brainer)

OK, so that's the break down on actors. What's the break down on genres?

I am actually surprised to find that Dramas (66) outweigh SciFi (35) almost 2 to 1. Those figures may be a little misleading because movies belong to multiple categories. So a movie like Contact falls into both categories. It may be more interesting to note the most poorly represented genres in my collection:

Silent (1) - College, my only Buster Keaton movie
Late Night (1) - Chain Reaction. What does that mean? I'm fixing that.
Sport (1) - Sports Night, this is actually wrong. Remember the Titans and Radio should also be in this category
Romantic Comedy (1) - Well, that's just wrong.
Horror (1) - This one's a hoot! It's my 1936 version of Flash Gordon: Space Soldiers. Horror? Hardly.
Documentary (1) - My Date with Drew. One of my newest favorite movies.

One of the things that surprised me most was that I only own one movie featuring Li Gong. Again, who? She's one of the most brilliant actresses ever. Only, you've never heard of her because most of her films are in Mandarin. She worked with one of my favorite directors for a long time, Yimou Zhang. Yes, he's Chinese, too. The unfortunate thing about him is that he is finally making movies for American audiences. And I have no desire to watch any of these new movies. But I still love most of what he did in Hong Kong.

I should create a category called Unseen. I like to pick up movies from the dollar bins at Walmart and Target. All of them are old, some are cartoons and TV shows. I still have not seen many of those. I'll make that update and let you know the results later.