Today I had a couple of friends over for a few mid-afternoon drinks and a bit of gaming and one of them had brought me a  lovely little surprise. He’d brought me a copy of “Moon” on Blu Ray, a film I’ve much admired since first seeing it last year and one that I’ve wanted to see again since then. The surprise was only mired slightly by the fact that the copy of “Moon” was mine. And he’d still not bloody watched it.

This got me thinking about the minefield that is lending out films to friends. How many times have you lent a film out only to have that person either not give it you back for ages or not even bother watching it? Or  lose it? Or even sell it?

I lend out my DVDs to friends because it gives us something else to talk about and maybe even find some more similarities that will make us even better friends, but having a pretty big collection of films it’s pretty hard to keep track of what I own and what I don’t. Whenever someone lends me a film I try to watch it that night and get it back to them the next day, purely because I know it’s a pain in the arse and can be very awkward to have to ask for your stuff back. How many of you have been in the same situation? Or are you a movie hoarder? Here are some films I’ve had kept from me or lost over the years:

Moon

Like I said at the start of the article, this is the film that got me thinking about all of this. I got the film on Blu Ray very cheaply from eBay in about June of last year and watched it straight away. After watching and falling in love with it I simply had to lend this out to my best friend Paul, knowing full well he’d love it as much as I did. After much nagging from both myself and Duncan Jones (I shit you not, check my favourite tweets, @discuss_cinema) after six months he finally brought it back, but he hadn’t sodding watched it. What was the point in that? I gave it to him to watch, not to keep it secret, keep it safe. I asked if he wanted to watch it this afternoon, partly because I wanted to but mostly because it was now back within a stone’s throw of my DVD case. Predictably he said no but he’d definitely watch it this week and get it back to me. I think I’ve got more chance of getting a blow job from the Pope.

Old Boy

The pain I’ve had with Park Chan-Wook’s “Old Boy” is two fold. Bought as part of a HMV Two for £20 offer in 2004 when I was in my second year of a HND at Stockport College. There was a lad called Scott who was in the first year who really didn’t get on with anyone and we became good friends. I gave him the DVD about three months before I was due to leave the course and he told me how he always watched films as soon as someone gave them to him, so there was no cause for concern. Next thing I knew I’d left the course and he still hadn’t watched it, but we were good friends at this point so I had all my faith in him. The next time I saw him was about six months ago when he was out with this wife and two kids. Needless to say he didn’t have it with him. I bought “Old Boy” again a few years ago and it get’s it’s bi-annual watch, but no-one else has had it. Until now. A girl at work was telling us how she watched it with her boyfriend and thought it was awesome, so we had a good chat about it. One of the lads I work with then got involved and he’d never seen it; he was well chuffed the next day when I dropped it on his desk. After a week I’d asked, purely out of interest, if he’d watched it and he hadn’t. A month on the line of enquiry is no longer out of interest. Normally I wouldn’t care but he’s leaving at the end of May. For New Zealand.

Ran

One of my girlfriend’s friends, an English teacher, was around for a couple of drinks about a month ago and we were talking literature. He was telling us how when he was a teenager he used to read a Shakespeare play a day and his favourite was “King Lear”, so I went on to tell him about Akira Kurosawa’s “Ran”. True, it’s not a direct adaptation but it’s pretty damn close. He was really grateful for it as he’s not exactly flush at the minute and needs an excuse to stay in, so a three hour film about feudal Japan should be right up his street. He came over again the other night and I asked, again out of interest, if he’d watched it. He forgot he had it. Teachers, eh?

Bubba Ho-Tep

I’d just seen Evil Dead 2 and was desperately trying to calm my Bruce Campbell fetish when “Bubba Ho-Tep” came out. Fucking genius, Campbell plays a 70 year old Elvis trapped in a nursing home with a black JFK and a mummy, how couldn’t I get this on import? I was telling a lad at college about it and he was having a Bruce Campbell night with his brother and asked, very politely, if he could borrow it. I was anxious as it was a Region 1 import and I’d paid a fair wedge for it, but he was a friend. A week came and went before I asked how the night went. His house had been robbed. It was long gone. I’ve never replaced it, but one day…

Well, there you have it, some of the films I’ve both loved and lost. I know they’ll be plenty more in the future but one things for sure, I’m not keeping a fucking spreadsheet!