Queuing Up

The Netflix queue presents a constant conundrum. Either I don’t look at it for three months, and we end up with totally random stuff that sits around for weeks because neither of us feel like watching it, or I micromanage it, updating it daily and adding more movies than I could ever hope to watch in the next year or so.*

I’ve noticed that on our Netflix queue, there are several distinct categories:

1. Movies that Lord Kissington adds that I would never watch in a million years. These are usually ultraviolent and/or star Bruce Campbell. Despite being told many times that Bruce Campbell is “awesome,” I still have no idea who he is. (I also refuse to watch anything with Billy Bob Thornton. I’m sure he’s a fine actor, but he scares the bejesus out of me, especially with his creepy new face**.)

2. Movies that I’ve added that Lord Kissington would never watch in a million years. Recent additions in this category include 13 Going on 30, What a Girl Wants, and Just Like Heaven. None of these would I have paid to see in a theater, but I’m all about them on Netflix.

3. Movies that we both actually want to see. This might be the smallest category. It usually includes recent releases that we missed in the theater and stuff with Tony Leung. I heart Tony Leung.

4. Movies that one of us put on the list and the other one will watch if they don’t have anything else to do.

5. Movies that neither of us remember putting on the list. This doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it usually leads to an argument over who put this stupid movie on the list. I have a sneaking suspicion it’s usually me.

6. Movies that seem totally random but were added to the queue because they feature any of a number of (usually obscure) actors I find seriously bangable. Some of these could fall into category 2, but not all of them. LK doesn’t seem to mind this category and recently encouraged me to move some of these higher up on the queue so “you can watch them before you get bored with these guys, so we don’t have a repeat of the Sam Rockwell situation.”*** He’s a very understanding husband.

*I’m not as bad as my friend June, who actually maxed out her Netflix queue. Who knew the limit was 500? And how can one actually watch 500 movies? By never leaving the house again?
**If this face was the result of plastic surgery, he should sue his surgeon. If it’s just a symptom of the manorexia, eat a cheeseburger or 8 already.
***Fall 2005 saw a brief fascination with Sam Rockwell where I added many of
his earlier films to the list. They were so far down that they didn’t show up for almost a year, at which point, I was totally like, “Why the hell did I want to watch this?” LK thinks I’m fickle. He’s probably right.

Randomness

1. Can someone please explain to me why, even though I quit smoking over 5 years ago, and DC bars are now smoke free, I woke up Sunday feeling like someone had sandpapered the inside of my throat. It’s just not fair, people.

2. I spent most of Sunday in bed. Every 3 or 4 months, my stomach rebels against my daily treatment of it. It holds up a white flag, screams “no mas,” and subjects me to excruciating pain for no apparent reason. The only way to deal with this is to spend the day in bed, groaning and eating bland food. I crawled out of bed and attempted to eat breakfast, which left me writing in pain on the couch. I soon returned to my bed, equipped with lots of magazines and DVDs. Sadly, The Princess Diaries was not nearly as entertaining as I had hoped*, although it did elicit the same response from both Lord Kissington and me: “Damn, Julie Andrews still looks pretty good.” (I have to put in a disclaimer, lest Lord Kissington want guest post privileges to rebut me: He wasn’t actually watching it, he just happened to wander into the room when Miss Andrews was on screen.)

3. Lord Kissington has excitedly informed me that next year, Lost won’t be coming on until the second half of the season, which will give me “plenty of time to watch season 3 on DVD!” I stopped watching after the first couple of episodes last fall, which would mean I have about 17 or 18 to watch (although I do know some major plot points from wandering in and out of the room while he was watching). Is it even worth going back? The few episodes I watched made me want to throw things at the TV.

4. This morning, I trotted out of the house with freshly shaven, extra-moisturized legs. When I arrived at work, I looked down to find them covered with mud splatters (almost up to my knee on the right leg). Had I inadvertently walked through a field on my commute? Not likely in my neighborhood. How did I not notice all this mud splashing on me? Apparently, the moisturizer really helped the mud cling. Very attractive.

5. I almost took a header off a bar stool on Saturday night, having caught my heel on a rung, but I somehow managed to not end up face first on the floor. It wasn’t particularly graceful, but it wasn’t completely embarrassing either. I should add that I was sober.

6. Did anyone else hate Spiderman III as much as I did? All I could think at the end of it was “that’s 10 bucks and 2.5 hours of my life I’ll never get back.” Hint to the filmmakers: introducing a new character as a potential romantic foil doesn’t really work when the new character appears to be mentally challenged. (An out-of-control beam is heading for the window you’re standing in front of, so you, of course, walk toward the window?) Also, any movie that messes up James Franco’s pretty, pretty face is just wrong. So wrong.

*An ongoing issue with having such a long Netflix queue is that all those movies I put on there in a flush of enthusiasm 18 months ago no longer seem quite so watchable now. After watching this one, I moved The Princess Diaries 2 (which was next on the list) far far down (I couldn’t quite bring myself to delete it; it probably has something to do with my love for Julie Andrews). When it shows up in another two years, maybe I’ll be more in the mood for it.

Why I Apparently Need to Update the Netflix Queue Sometime This Century

Back when we first signed up for Netflix, I got very excited about it. I checked the queue constantly and added a ton of movies to it. At first, we watched the movies all the time and moved through the queue pretty quickly. But then we began to lose interest. The movies sat around longer and longer. You know how it is: you’re in the mood for something lightweight, and Netflix sends you a documentary about the Holocaust. And it’s your fault, because you put the damn documentary on there 6 months ago when you were feeling bad about always watching such stupid movies all the time and trying to be more intellectual. Now it’s gotten to the point that I don’t even remember the movies I added.

The other day, Lord Kissington held up a red Netflix envelope and said, “Are you ever going to watch this?”
“What is it?”
“[Insert name of pretentious-sounding movie]”
“Hmmh, I’ve never heard of it. Did you put it on the list?”
“No, you did.”
"Are you sure about that? Seriously, I’ve never heard of it.”

He read the description to me. It involved sensitive young people growing up in a war-torn environment or something like that. It didn’t ring any bells.

“Are you sure you didn’t put this on the list? It doesn’t sound like something I would pick. I mean, it’s not a teen comedy or something starring a hot British guy.” I asked.
“No, it’s definitely one of yours.”
“Maybe I had some sort of blackout last year and added a bunch of movies I can’t remember?” (Let’s be honest here—the pre-wedding stress could have easily put me into a fugue state in which I updated the queue yet have no memory of it.)

This is not the first time this has happened. So, I finally decided to update the queue. Again, many of the titles were unrecognizable to me, despite the fact that Lord Kissington claims they were all my choices. A couple of them appeared to be a remnant of my short-lived but intense fascination with Sam Rockwell (fall 2005). The rest are a mystery. I was able to clear out the queue, which is awesome because now the next two films to arrive are much more to my liking: Bring It On and The Princess Diaries. I definitely remember adding those ones.