The Six Degrees of DVD Project

The Project:
My DVD & Blu-Ray collection currently contains nearly 300 movies (plus some music DVD's and a bunch of TV shows). My goal: To watch every movie in my collection in such an order that each film shares an actor or director with the film before it... connecting my entire collection in one big 266+ degrees of separation.

For example: If I watch Schindler's List, I could follow it up with Close Encounters of the Third Kind, because both were directed by Stephen Spielberg. I could then follow Close Encounters with What About Bob? since both star Richard Dreyfuss.

The Rules:
1. I must own the movie.
That means no Netflix, rentals, library check-outs, loans from friends, burned discs, or stuff I recorded from TV.

2. Connections must be actor or director only.
No cheating by connecting movies with the producer, writer, key grip, best boy, or caterer.

3. Actors must be recognizable either by name or by character.
I won't cheat by finding some extra who was in the background without any lines in two movies.

4. No documentaries or music DVD's.
Without any actors and with directors that usually haven't transitioned into feature films, it would be nearly impossible to fit my copies of Radiohead's Best Of music video DVD, Led Zeppelin Live DVD, or docs like American Movie and Roger and Me into the list.

5. No TV on DVD.
As much as I love my collections of shows like The Simpsons, The Wire, The Shield, South Park, Weeds, The Muppet Show, and more... this is a project about movies, so those will stay on the shelf.

6. I can watch other stuff.
This project is just for fun. I will be going to the movie theater, getting DVD's from Netflix, and popping in some of my favorites to watch with my friends.

7. The new movie rule.
I'm going to buy more movies. So what to do about this list once something new has been added to the mix? I foresee three scenarios:

• A) I can fit the new movie in between two movies I haven't watched yet. No problem. Just put the new DVD in the list when I get to that point.
  
• B) The new movie will only fit between two I've already watched as part of the project. The plan would be to watch the new DVD before moving forward on the list, and place it in the list where it would have fit if I had owned it at the start of the project.
  
• C) Major frak-up. The new movie will only fit into the project with a major overhaul of the order, screwing up the order of movies I've already watched as part of the project. I'm not sure what I'll do in this situation. Will have to figure it out as we go.

The Beginning:
I'm starting with the 1991 film, The Commitments. I'll post connections and thoughts as I go through each movie. Stay tuned...