Back on My Netflix Bullshit
Not too long ago I half-heartedly resolved to finally concede that I was probably never going to get around to watching or returning the Netflix DVDs I’d had lying around my house for months and finally cancel the “DVD by Mail” option of my Netflix subscription.
Then I decided to make my all-important ninth book a 600 page treatise on the complete history of American movies about movie-making spun off of the Fractured Mirror column that I have been writing for TCM Backlot and Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place for seven years now.
To help me in my bid to watch and write about three hundred movies about the film-making process I turned again to my old pals over at Netflix.
i’m watching a lot of terrible movies with Hollywood in the title
I looked up a section of the site called something like “Show Business Comedies” and basically put everything that looked like it fit the criteria in my queue. Let me tell you something, brother: a LOT of movies fit into the category of “Movies about movies.”
There are way more than 300, I will be the first to concede, particularly when you factor in documentaries about movies about adult films. So a certain amount of what makes it into the book comes down to chance. And some of it is random. And some of it is determined by Netflix.
By basically binging the entire show-business comedy section, I’m allowing Netflix to act as a makeshift curator throwing me a year-long film festival of American movies about the film industry.
I’m essentially saying yes to everything. If I get it in the mail and it fits the theme of the book, I’m watching it. I don’t care how cheap it is. I don’t care how bad it looks.
If you have been following my journey researching and writing The Fractured Mirror on Kickstarter/Backerkit or this site’s Patreon, which I highly recommend as a dispassionate third party, you have perhaps noticed that many of the movies that I have been covering for the book are decidedly lacking in both budget and star-power, or, even worse, they do have stars in them, albeit in the form of Gary Busey and Tom Sizemore.
Why am I watching and writing about so many stinkers that nobody has even heard of, let alone cares about? Is it because I not so secretly crave failure and rejection and writing about a bunch of stuff no one cares about is a good way to write a book that no one will care about? I guess, sort of, but there’s no need to be that mean, voice inside my head. But the big reason I’m writing up so many inconsequential oddities and obscurities is because I’m letting Netflix’s odd categories and algorithms dictate what I write about next to a certain extent
As a result, I’ve written up a bunch of movies I never would have even heard about otherwise but that are more than suitable for a pithy 200 word blurb. That’s the nice thing about writing a sprawling magnum opus like The Fractured Mirror. The blurbs are as long or as short as I need them to be and in the case of the stinkers and mediocrities Netflix has been hipping me to, I seldom need more than 200 words to dismiss them.
I’m trying to mix things up a little by writing up major movies about movies for this site like Nope, Southland Tales and American Movie but I do love worthless garbage that nobody cares about. That’s one of my seventeen or eighteen Achilles heels, one of the 20 or so massive personal and professional shortcomings keeping me from being wealthy and successful.
I’m back on my Netflix bullshit. I’ve gotten back into the cozy little ritual of watching a movie and then sending it back and then watching with child-like delight as another movie is sent to my home and I can begin the ritual all over again.
It feels a little silly and a little willfully obscure, even for me, but it’s helping keep me productive, motivated and on-track so I’m going to continue my Netflix streak until research for the book is done and then maybe a little bit longer out of habit and nostalgia.
Pre-order The Fractured Mirror, the Happy Place’s next book, a 600 page magnum opus about American films about American films, illustrated by the great Felipe Sobreiro over at https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
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