Netflix: Can't Live with It, Can't Live without It

December 3, 8:50 PMNY Movies ExaminerJessica Almon

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Have you ever been in a relationship that just doesn't feel quite balanced? You're doing your part, but the person you're with is so unpredictable, it feels like there are a lot of disappointments?  And wedged periodically amid armies of disappointments are pleasant surprises so spontaneous, so thrilling, you're willing to suffer through an astonishing array of personal hell just to find out what the next one is?   

Welcome to my relationship with Netflix. 

For those of you who do not subscribe, what happens when you do is you create a queue of movies to be shipped to you from Netflix's seemingly infinite library of films. If you're anything like me, you spend hours creating said list the second you sign on, capping at a solid 500 flicks.  As of today, I've been through several hundred films - always adding more to my queue to maintain my virile, 500-film length - and I find that I am constantly subject to the whims of whatever cockamamy mood swings I suffered as I perused the Netflix library that very dark day that I signed up.  Every time I get a DVD in the mail, I find myself saying, "'The Matador'? What in aging Tom Selleck moustache hell possessed me to queue The Frickin' Matador?!" Or, I'll get three obscure foreign films in a row followed by a Louise Brooks movie and I'll think, "What am I, a cinema studies professor reading David Foster Wallace while shouting in German and juggling my seventeen diplomas? Shiza!" 

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, why don't you just remove the riffraff from your queue?  Well, that's easy for you to say, but for me, that's quitting.  I'm no quitter.  Moreover, I'm paranoid that the one time I delete something, it will end up being one of those unexpected gems like The Cockettes or Children of Paradise - a two-disc, black and white French film that I put off for months because of its daunting appearance, which ultimately made me cry and smile for four hours straight. 

I guess my relationship with Netflix is a trade-off like any other, and the hours better spent bashing my head with a hatchet watching Valley of the Dolls, 13 Conversations About One Thing, The Prince & Me 2: The Royal Wedding (don't judge me - I had a hangover), Caché and Dogville were very much worth the joy that came along with Divine Trash, 3 Women, After Hours, Being There and Mona Lisa.