contrapositive

AN OPEN LETTER Dear New York Area NetFlix Subscribers:

So a whole bunch of you wanted to see LOST IN TRANSLATION. It's understandable. I'm not sure I should've had to wait three months to get my copy. But that's something I should probably take up with the Powers That Be.

Still, my experience with that DVD got me thinking. And with backlogs still cropping up for discs like STONE READER and LA STRADA, I've started to get suspicious.

So let me just ask: Have you been loading highbrow, artsy flicks onto your queue and then, once the DVDs arrive, letting them sit for weeks on your shelf?

Admit it--you have.

I know, I know. You're hip. You're culturally literate. You're a "student of the cinema." And yet when it comes time to curl up with Jean Renoir's RULES OF THE GAME, you procrastinate like a college sophomore the week before finals.

You'll get to it this weekend. Sure you will.

But maybe it's time to face up to the fact that you're just not up to staring down two hours of subtitles. Level with yourself and give the rest of us a break.

You're never going to watch it. So just send it back in already.

UPDATE: More commentary on the "Very Long Wait" phenomenon and other NetFlix queue hazards can be found here.

And if you're obsessive enough to want to know how NetFlix decides who gets what when, take a look at the eerily comprehensive-seeming experiment performed by this guy.