Clockers

Have your movie-watching habits changed since joining the cult, er, subscribing to Netflix? I now watch the clock as much as the movie. Sure, back in the day I'd look at my watch and think "well, Hudson hasn't bought the farm, Newt hasn’t gone for a swim and I know there’s an alien queen in here somewhere. Yes! We've got a good 20-30 solid minutes left here." It was a joyful, relieved feeling. “Whee, there's lots of escapist wonderfulmentness left."

But now, there's an accountant in the back of my head, clattering away on his abacus. He’s Chinese. He calculates whether I'm going to finish this movie tonight, how many movies that makes this month, will I keep my average up? I had to throw a 24-movie month in there just to hover around 10 per. (By "had to" I mean women found me repulsive for a brief, free, falling period.)

I’ve tried to break the habit. I taped over the counter on my DVD player. I taped over the counter on my girlfriend’s DVD player. I find myself doing the math anyway. I try not to look at the running time on the envelope or glance at the clock on the wall. But eventually I do, and then I can't put the math out of my head and I’m not watching the movie. About a year ago I purged about 100 movies from my queue that Netflix predicted I’d rate lower than 3 stars. I’ve only re-added about 40 of them.

And it’s never going to stop. My queue thumbs its’ nose at my mortality. In any given month I add more than 10 movies to my queue. If I stopped adding altogether it would still take me almost two years to see the movies I’ve already saved. I’ll never catch up, not that I really want to I guess. I just want to get current. See also: my DVR backlog, the stack of books on my nightstand, the thank you notes I owe for Christmas presents, the calories I consumed yesterday…ad finitum. Agh.

The Singular is Netflick

My Netflix particulars:
Member since July, 2002
3 at-a-Time (Unlimited) Program
509 movies rented
Average 9.4 movies/month
Average rating of 3.34 stars

A word about my star ratings, I don't like Netflix's definitions:

1: hated
2: didn't like
3: liked
4: really liked
5: loved

Specifically, 3 stars = "liked." That doesn't seem to be the proper middle point between "really liked" and "didn't like." Three stars should mean something like "it'll do," four stars "liked," and five stars "loved." So I think of the stars as letter grades. A three-star movie is a C student. He'll get by, but don't expect much more from him than managing a pizzeria. Nothing wrong with managing a pizzeria. I love a good pie, pizza or otherwise, but it's a workaday accomplishment. Full disclosure: my girlfriend shot down my idea of moving away and opening a pizzeria.

Here’s a small sample of my 5 star movies over the past 4 years:
Match Point, 2005 Who knew Woody Allen had the nuts?
Grizzly Man, 2005 My 1st Herzog. This movie has the metaphysical power of literature. Life and death is right there.
Nine Queens, 2000 A good solid long con. See also House of Games.
Spartan, 2004 Speaking of Mamet, this movie is all tight scripting that requires the audience to keep up. Michael Mann’s done the same thing with his Collateral and Miami Vice screenplays. Try watching them with the subtitles on and you’ll find how much you’d been missing.
Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter ... and Spring, 2004 What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Tender Mercies, 1983
Pelle the Conqueror, 1987

And here are some of my 1 star movies:
Martin & Orloff, 2003 I know it’s heresy to criticize the UCB, but you can find my comment on IMDb, posted as unreal1945. Don’t bother to write, the address is dead.
Grateful Dawg, 2000 Man I hate hippies.
Chicago (2002) Are you kidding? 13 Oscar nominations, 6 wins? Catherine Zeta-Jones? Kill me.
Serendipity (2001) Disliking this movie doesn’t require that I apply any intellectual rigor, or anti-hippie bias. I only mention it because it was my very first Netflick. I can't blame it on catering to my then-girlfriend. I just wanted to spend some time with Kate Beckinsale. An inauspicious beginning.

Welcome to Netflog

Coming soon...I have Netflix. I have blog. We have Netflog. We'll begin with the kinds of things you'd discuss around the Netflix watercooler specifically, range afield from there to talk about movies generally and see where that gets us.

Wm.