How to Cut Down Your Netflix List

In the old days, there were 3 channels with three hours of programming each per day, excluding Saturday and Sunday (when no one watched tv).  So between 9 and 18 programs to choose from each day.  But the family watched only sitcoms and variety shows, so the number of choices was limited:   I looked it up: in the fall of 1970, when I was 9 years old, we had 20 programs per season to choose from.

Today we have dozens every week, "new releases" (which may actually be a few years old) on Netflix, Vudu, and Amazon Prime.  And all of them are advertised as "masterpieces."

I have a few ways to cut down on the choices.  Anything that begins "after the death of his wife,""in search of a missing girl," or "a beautiful private investigator" is an automatic nope.

And anything with a trailer that shows boy-girl kissing.

So let's see what's "new this week" on Netflix:

Toon.  Reclusive,socially awkward jingle writer (Joep Vermolen) becomes an internet celebrity and gets girls.  It's in Dutch, but I still don't care. Next!

The Unlisted.  Kids are getting implants that control them, but identical twins Dru and Kai escape from the facility and team up with other outcast kids to.... Starring Vrund and Ved Rao.  Lots of potential for gay subtext: indoctrination into heteronormativity, and so on.  Ok.


After.  Good girl falls for bad boy.   Bad boy is played by an actor with the extraordinary name Hero Finnies Tiffin, but still, Next!

Haunted: real people tell about real paranormal experiences. One involves a gay conversion camp.  Maybe. 

Fractured (what's with the one-word titles?).  After his wife and daughter....Next!

The Hookup Plan.  When Else gets hung up on her ex, her friends hire a male escort, with whom she of course falls in love.  Well, it's in French, male escorts are usualy bisexual, and it stars Marc Ruchmann, so...Ok.

Living with Yourself.  Guy gets a smarter, more muscular doppelganger who railroads his girl. But at least we get to see Paul Rudd in his underwear (with a larger basket than warranted by his actual equipment). Maybe

The Influence. Back in her childhood home to help her sister care for their comatose mother.  3 main characters and lfie threatening illness.... Next!


The Forest of Love.  Two con-men force themselves into the lives of two grief-stricken young women.  Next!

The Lies within.  After her father dies and her husband goes missing.  That's as bad as a dead wife.  She teams up with a disillusioned detective played by LeeMin-Ki.   Next!

From 10 to 2, with a couple of maybes.  Just enough to watch comfortably in five days.

If I can find the time after watching The Good Place, American Horror Story, The Walking Dead, Riverdale, Bob's Burgers, Big Mouth....