Let's be realistic.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

Some hobbies just seem to attract completists. Here is one man's story about the consequences of obsession. Alan Zweig is a long time record collector, to the point that he has sacrificed other goals to make room for his hobby. The most notable of these compromises is his admission that he feels that the fact that he doesn't have a wife or kids is related to his collecting.I've collected different things all my life, so I felt like I could relate to some degree. The movie made me think about the nature of collecting things. Do we do it to fill a void in our lives? Alan makes some very good, very true points about how the mind of the collector works and where it can take you. He tells one story about getting rid of a particular record that he thought he was ready to part with, but has since regretted nearly every day. This is what you go through when you let your interests have too much influence in your life.Some of the different things I've collected: Star Wars, G.I. Joe, and Transformers action figures (preschool years); comic books (middle school years); records (high school and college); and downloading Mp3's and Disney collector pins (adulthood). I would also put movies in this category, even though I don't collect them in the traditional sense of buying them and keeping a stack of dvds. Watching them and writing IMDb reviews is along the same lines as what I used to do when I would get a new record or comic, digest it, and then fit it into a system of organization.Each time I have been a serious collector, I decided at some point to get rid of the majority of my collection and only keep what was really special. I was then able to move on to other things. Apparently, the hardcore collectors in this doc have never gone through that "flushing out" process. Also, I have never allowed my hobbies to become so all-consuming that they kept me from other goals, such as getting a degree or getting married. So I guess I have not experienced the depth of obsession that some of the collectors in this movie have lived through. But that doesn't mean I haven't been close. Thank goodness I don't have any regrets as deep as what Alan expresses. But I do wish I had used my time better and prepared more for the future. Seeing a little bit of myself in this sad story helps remind me I have to keep focused on what is really important.

Like Harvey Pekar, but wish he was more of a whiny, uninteresting looser? The real Harvey Pekar is in this film for comparison, so you can see for yourself.The subjects being interviewed would have been far more interesting in the hands of an interviewer with some empathy, and who didn't have the same obsession. As it is, he lacks the necessary distance from the subject to provide a decent overview. There is definitely a documentary to be made about this subject, but for the most part this film could be used by someone else as a template for how not to make that documentary.Several points taken away for a breathtakingly cringe-worthy "girlfriend interview" and end titles that sacrifice readability for "style".

Why do people always tell you what they wish a film had been or what they would have done or what there should have been more of or less of? "There should have been more audiophiles". "There should have been less of the filmmaker". "It would have been better if my uncle was in it". etc etc blah blah blah. Me and my friends love this movie and we rent it whenever we can find it. I think the reason some people don't get it is because they want it to be ONLY about record collecting and while it is about that, it's about a lot more too. I'm not a record collector myself, although some of my friends are and I wouldn't have wanted it to be some celebration of record collecting. If you want a movie about audiophiles, make it yourself. Skimming through the reviews on IMDb, it seems like the most vocal reviewers are usually the ones who have the most complaints. And sometimes those complaints are entertaining but it shouldn't give you the wrong impression of this very unique and very cool flick. Oh and by the way, one of my friends told me that reviewer "Ivan Haffenden" is actually in the movie and so his comments should be ignored more than most.

Excellent, excellent film about record collectors from the perspective of a film maker AND record collector. What's so unique about Alan Zweig's documentation, is that he includes his own person in it, sometimes filming a location and himself in a mirror, or speaking directly to the audience about his private and personal thoughts. The other record collectors portrayed in this 110 minutes movie are beyond belief; can you imagine someone seriously claiming to collect EVERY song ever made? Or being able to tell the tracklists of ALL of his ten-thousands of albums by heart? "Vinyl"will blow your mind beyond the subject of sheer record collecting. It's a study on human obsessions in general.