As movie theaters face a turbulent future, and ticket prices continue to rise, home movies and television have become the primary choice for family entertainment. But even as someone who considers themselves a cinephile—I watch movies for a living—I didn’t really understand how bad the housing options were… until I gave birth earlier this year, and I can’t go to the cinema nearly as often as I used to.

And it’s all thanks to a little circle of buffering doom. Even Beyonce poked fun at it when she indirectly told Netflix they better not play her NFL Christmas Halftime Show. We stand our disco space western songstress here, and agree: the biggest flaw of streaming is the inconsistency of the connection, and the bad moments where the suspension of disbelief in storytelling can be marked by glitches on any platform.

At the beginning of the year, early in my pregnancy, I was assigned to watch angry at the glorious IMAX Headquarters in LA. To prepare, I thought I’d just turn Max on and watch again Mad Max: Road to anger. And to my surprise and quick shock, what I discovered within minutes of watching the movie was that there was something wrong with the audio in the score. My husband and I have long been designated moviegoers—we were there during the first or second opening hours—and we remember how Mad Max: Fury Road sounded. It is not so. Thinking there must be something wrong with Max’s streaming service’s compression of audio files, we switched to our digital copy. And still it doesn’t sound good. So we dug out our Blu-ray and popped it in, and there it was: the pure sounds of Junkie XL’s clashing drums and guitars pouring out of our soundbar.

I know that as a parent, I have to get used to more entertainment at home than before. I admit, even for re-watches or first-time viewing of classics I prefer to experience them on the big screen at revival houses like New Beverly, American Cinemathque, or Vidiots. If I like it on the big screen, I go to the store or my favorite used video shop to add that title to my collection—just to see if the occasion calls for it.

Now that a future cinephile has joined our family, my husband and I are excited to curate their entertainment as best we can. And that goes for TV shows too. Our house is a Bluey home even before we welcomed our little one; nothing happens Cocomelon, Peppa Pig,or Minions if we can help with this. From childless millennials in love Bluey to new parents is a full journey to ensure that our child experiences the show as it should happen. It’s no surprise that when Disney acquired the Ludo Studio show, it did some editing and banning of the episode, although fortunately it has largely reverted to that.

However, we went and tracked down the first couple of seasons on DVD to avoid any unwanted cleaning, and got the music from the show on vinyl. Like, seriously, why do we have to mute all the international credits before the next episode plays?

Being postpartum at home during the holidays is another learning curve; more often than not, these are common buffering interruptions while on most streaming services. And sure, that might just be my internet connection but that’s not an issue if you have a good Blu-ray player and disc.

You might ask, if I’m so bored watching movies on Max, Disney+, Netflix, etc., why don’t I just watch them from my movie snob collection? It’s funny you should ask, because it’s a not-so-funny story: I moved during the pandemic and someone STOLE our physical media collection—safe in a box of our absolute favorites. That’s right, somewhere in the Valley someone got a film school’s biggest Blu-ray movies and DVDs side by side in a moving truck. Rude.

And how does that play out in my current situation as a parent?

our Teenage Mutants Ninja Turtles pizza box collection? No more. How did we realize? Before watching Mutant chaos we looked at our box. It wasn’t there, so we looked to see which platform had the original films. Most of all? Oh, we’re not subscribed! Same if you want to reach the Sonic movies before watching Sonic the Hedgehog 3. Spending time with a kid at home is a complete mess of trying to figure out which streaming service has what, seeing some titles being pulled, and trying to figure out if tag -do we still have what we want to see?

For example, we are still in the peak festive movie season; if you want to look An American Tail for Hanukkah, tough luck. Amblin animated movies are not available for what you pay for. You can rent or buy Fievel’s adventures on Prime Video, but if like most households you’re paying for multiple platforms that you can no longer share with loved ones, it just adds to the cost. And even if you subscribe to Disney + and want to watch frostedgood luck trying to stream it at the same time as the millions of others hanging out at home during the winter. It continues frosted and I will not let that go.

So unless you own it and hope your PS4 still works, it’s a total problem. It’s a whole problem that I’ll write about in a new column about the importance of physical media and how it can best be viewed at home. Thankfully we got a PS5 for Christmas so the journey starts now and on time BAD released on Blu-ray, hopefully with some answers.

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