Condensing my Netflix Queue: And So Can You!

How long is your Netflix queue?  Really, how long is it?  Look at what's coming up next in the mail, or what is supposed to be your next movie to stream?  Have you given that movie any thought in the last month?  If you have, good for you.  If you looked at what's next, and thought "Well, I don't really want to see that," or "Who the hell am I going to watch that movie with?", or "Have any of my friends seen this movie and can I talk about it with anyone?"  If not, it's time to UNCLUTTER your Netflix queue.

Okay, let's start with a few suggestions of how to properly clean up your Queue:

1. Do you share your Netflix Queue with more than 1 person who watches about as many movies as you do?  If so, you might need to do this with them.  Spend some time and figure out if you REALLY NEED to see that documentary about oil drilling or the one about which kinds of foods are killing Americans (I'm not surprised there isn't an instructional video on how to make a food-umentary with all the other spawns of Super Size Me out there).  But seriously, go through each movie together and find the ones that you added to your queue when you were drunk or you just HAD TO SEE based on recommendations from the Netflix algorithm.  
2. Find any and all TV Shows that you've seen on the Netflix front screen for the last year or so, and put those toward the bottom.  Netflix is able to get the contracts to most TV shows since the licensing deals are easier to acquire.  The licensing process for movies takes a while to get because movie studios are a bitch to work with (I'm just assuming from the point of view of Netflix).
3. Follow InstantWatcher on Twitter (if you have a Twitter).  This website is devoted to showing what's moving and what's soon to be expired on Netflix.  They show what's coming soon, how many days are left on each movies contract, and whether or not people are watching these movies currently.  It's a great website.  I don't know why Netflix hasn't overtaken such a website, but it's beyond me why Netflix does anything that it does.  But InstantWatcher can show you lists of NYT's critics picks, Rotten Tomatoes Fresh movies, as well as many other movies.
4. Have a personal policy in place for WHY you would want to see a movie.  For comedies, it's obvious that you would want to see a movie that makes you laugh.  You can apply that to any genre really (horror-you want to be scared, documentary -you want to learn, etc.)  But for other genre's of movies, you should have a reason why seeing this movie is worth your time.  Now I've seen my fair share of Indie movies, but they rarely come up in conversation.  I do talk with a couple of people who are avid movie-watchers like myself, but the discussions of certain movies don't extend beyond that point.  So, if you have a movie in your queue that you don't think your friends will ever talk with you about, it might not be a movie worth your time at the moment.  For instance, let's take a movie like Safety Not Guaranteed.  It's an Indie movie that has some rising stars like Aubrey Plaza, Jake Johnson, and Mark Duplass.  I enjoyed watching it, but none of my immediate friends have seen it, or probably will see it.  Indie movies might not be the movies that your friends talk about, but you like everyone that stars in the movie.  Having a policy like, I'll see this movie because I like the stars in it, or I won't see this movie because my friends won't ever see it thus it's pointless as a discussion topic.  Now, I saw this movie, but I knew that a couple of my friends would have seen it.  Thus, I didn't think it was a waste of my time.  

Now, there are some people out there who are cinephiles or completists who want to watch every kind of movie based on who the director is or who is the starring character.  By putting a personal policy in place for my own tastes, I've cut my Netflix queue down from 160 to 30.  I cut out BBC shows that are no longer on TV that I could watch later, all high-and-mighty documentaries that are just a vehicle for promoting a ridiculous cause, shows that I've already seen every episode of, movies that are too long, and movies from the 1960's or older that carry no significant importance in today's world.  Inversely, I've managed to not bother with movies that are of a bigger vehicle e.g. I haven't seen Thor or Captain America because I saw The Avengers in theaters, thus making it useless to see both and try to connect the two.

I hope these tips help out with uncluttering your streaming life and improve your social capabilities.  

Day 21: One of my Favorite TV Shows...

I love Breaking Bad.  I love The Wire.  I love SNL.  I love Mad Men.  Out of all of those, I think The Wire and Breaking Bad are just transcendent.  They are so much better than the rest of TV that it's not even funny.  Breaking Bad is just incredible.

Back during the writer's strike, TV was pretty much on it's knees begging for ways to get more money to it's writers.  I don't think there was a single show on TV that wasn't rerunning.  Mad Men had just debuted.  It was the only show on TV that was pumping out new episodes of quality TV, while TBS and TNT were churning out reruns of Family Guy, Law & Order, and House of Payne.

Now during those wretched days of rerun TV, I said "Screw it!" and went on to AMC since they were making something new and were also replaying my favorite Patrick Swayze movie like it was going out of style.  I figured it couldn't be that much worse since it was known as "the show that the guy from the Sopranos made".  I was blown away by Mad Men.  I didn't see Breaking Bad until after Mad Men Season 1 was completed.  All I knew was everything you would see in this trailer:

"Oh Great!  The Dad from Malcolm in the Middle is on a new show.  I'm never watching that!" was probably my first thought.  Then I had to wait for my friend Bill to confirm that it was awesome.  He saw a couple episodes and said it was so cool and that I would be missing out if I missed it.  So, I waited for which ever episode was on TV at the time and thought I could just jump in and see an episode.  Holy Shit, was I wrong.  The episode I saw, I stopped what I was doing and ran to the computer to see if anything I was seeing was possible.  The scene I first saw was the one below:

I ran to my laptop and found out that this shit was real!  This could be happening!  This was so mind-blowing, that it changed my TV watching schedule instantly.  I went to the library and got season 1 on disc and finished it in a day.  I went back for season 2 and finished that in another day.  I found out that Season 3 was just coming up and that I could catch up on every episode via Amazon Instant.  I did that and it's been the best medicine for bad TV since God knows when.  Everything about this show is terrific.  One of the first things on screen in the beginning of season 1 is this image:

Look at this image and tell me you aren't interested in what the hell is going on.

Aaron Paul, who plays Jesse Pinkman, has transformed from a simple know-nothing character actor to a multi-Emmy winning actor with amazing talent.  He was originally supposed to die in an earlier season, but because the way the producer's ran the show, he stayed on and it's made him a career.

Anna Gunn, who plays Skyler White, has gone from being a pregnant housewife who does laundry and makes eggs for her family, has put out a stellar performance as the housewife to a cancer patient who makes drugs.  Every turn and twist that this group of character's goes through makes you empathize with their decision making and gives you that feeling that rooting for the bad guy is the new thing to do.

It took a while for fans to pick up on this show being some of the best TV out there, but when people starting to wonder why Bryan Cranston was raking at the Emmy's, they tuned it and were hooked, just as I was.  I can't wait for the continuation of this season, since it seems like the final chapter, but it will be one of the greatest moments in television history, and the most watched.

Look what I found!

So I was looking at the recent video from the Transformers episode where Optimus Prime comes back to life and found a Youtube clip to a TV show that I had a toy from when I was little.  Had no idea what exactly the TV show was until I watched the video.

I used to own the Brown shark and used to pretend that he was a wrestler than couldn't be pinned.  I know. Childhood and the Internet are such great things.

I also subscribed to the Youtube channel I found this since they have a ton of videos from old cartoons that aren't even on Netflix yet.  It's great to get sucked into.