For the completist...

I was browsing my local video store with AJ, looking for something Halloween-ish (i.e. featuring ghosts, vampires, pumpkins, etc. or just any "scary" or suspenseful movie). I don't really enjoy horror movies, so I was on the lookout for something that could be more correctly classified as a thriller. I walked along the wall devoted to famous directors until I came to the Alfred Hitchcock shelves. Aah, Hitch - the king of the thriller, this is exactly what I was looking for! But as I surveyed the selection, I realized I had already seen all of these films. And as much as I love Hitchcock, I wanted to use my precious rental money for a "new-to-me" movie. (By the way, we ended up with The Monster Squad-kind of lame, honestly; The Parallax View-kind of boring, unfortunately; and Death on the Nile, really good, surprisingly.)

I had a similar experience last month while looking over the schedule for a film series of Billy Wilder's comedies. Wilder is a favorite director of mine, and he is especially adept at comedy, so of course I was excited. However, I had seen all of the films in the series except one, Avanti!. (I finally saw it last night. This film has alluded me for years as it seems to play exclusively in the 3 a.m. timeslot on Turner Classic Movies and I can never seem to stay up that late).

I love old films. Since my appetite for cinema first blossomed when I was a teenager, I have been devouring the classics. And since I tend to be a completist, if I happen to like a certain director or actor I will seek out all their films. So maybe it was inevitable that eventually I would watch all of Billy Wilder's films. But I had always thought about my completism in terms of the chase and discovery, rather than the end of the journey. Now I realize that if I've seen all of Billy Wilder's films, I'll never see a "new" Billy Wilder film again - and that makes me a little sad. While I will always enjoy watching his films again (and again, and again), there's no longer any mystery lying behind the title or that wonderful feeling of what-happens-next.

So, maybe I'll put off watching Buddy, Buddy for a little bit longer...