Vive la difference

I just got back from renting a movie at Video Difference (hereafter Vid Diff).  Have no fear though, this isn't going to be a boring "what I did today" blogpost, or even worse, a triathletes' "what I trained today" blogpost.

I was looking for the Star Trek reboot movie, the 2009 one, for Son#1 to watch tonight, as requested.  It took a while to find, eventually tracking it down under "Action" on the ground floor whereas all the other Star Trek movies, from whatever generation, were under "SciFi" on the upper floor.  The last time I was there I was looking for Die Hard for my Christmas movie marathon and eventually found it not in "Action" (ground floor), "Archive" (lower floor) with Die-Hards 2-4 but "Greatest Villans" on the top floor.  Needless to say, Villans was the last place I looked.

So here's a plea to Vid Diff.  I love you guys, I really do.  Awesome selection, some really esoteric stuff, always open, plenty of copies and plenty of places to return a movie even though you only have one location.  But despite my love for you please, please, re-order the collection.

I think the time has come to just alphabetise the whole store.  Start with A, say in the top corner of the upper floor, and wend your way through to Z in the basement.  Enough with this division and sub-division and sub-division of the subdivision ("Action/70s", "Action/80s", "Action/90s".......).  

When I finally found Die Hard it was, as discussed, under "Greatest Villians".  On the other side of the Villians' rack, "Seen At The Oxford".  This rack was free-standing on the floor just down from the AFI Greatest 100 rack, the whole lot sandwiched between walls-full of "English Language Drama", "Canadian Drama" (I think), "Independent Drama" (mostly indie Brit-Flicks) and "Foreign Language Drama".  As a side-note I find it somewhat interesting that Made In Dagenham was under Eng Lang Drama and not "Indie Drama", even though the latter would be the first place I would think to look.

I like to think I'm a bit of a cinephile, not scared by cataloging and able to think on my feet but dammit I get lost in there now every time.  Sometimes this is great and leads you to see movies you may not have considered seeing.  Sometimes, like today, if you want to pop in-and-out, well this is getting ridiculous,  What next? "Tarantino/with Uma Thurman" and "Tarantino/without Uma Thurman"?  Perhaps "Liam Neeson/swords" and "Liam Neeson/no swords".  Star Wars could be a sub-genre in the first genre, maybe cross-referenced to SciFi, Family, Staff Picks and AFI Top 100.

So, please consider re-ordering your catalogue in an easy-to-understand format.  You're getting a bit too Rob from High Fidelity ("VD Suggests", not "Comedy" or "Independent Comedy" as you might think) and whilst Rob's OCD-driven, great record recategorisation from High Fidelity ("in the order in which I purchased them"!) is funny in a novel or film, it kinda sucks in the real world!

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