The Criterion Collection

I've been collecting Criterion titles since 1998. I was 18 years old and had just started working. Each week I would reward myself with a new Criterion title. I wish I could remember which was my first, possibly The Seventh Seal... Walkabout, Sid and Nancy, and Wages of Fear were all early purchases. Although it wasn't first in my collection, my love of film really started with Brazil. Like seeing Full Metal Jacket at a much too young age, there are some things that you just never forget. While I don't actually remember watching Brazil for the first time, I distinctly remember, years earlier, seeing the trailer for it on some random rented VHS and was totally enthralled by the visuals and knew that this was special, something I needed to experience. It really opened me up to the possibility of movies being more than just movies. Suddenly they had become art, my only real passion, and I had an entire new medium to explore and to study.