I don’t own a television. I’m not saying that in a superior way, the way vegetarians inform you that they won’t eat flesh. I don’t have a television because a) I prefer to read, b) I think they detract from a room’s design, and c) I’m too cheap to pay for cable.
But that doesn’t mean I won’t watch television. Admittedly, it’s probably amounts to only two hyper-calculated hours per week, but still – I’m not living in a total cultural void. Alan serves as my enabler. HE believes in television, so he records Mad Men shows we both enjoy, and I venture his way once a week to watch them.
And when the shows we watch are off-season, we check out a new series (most recently Breaking Bad) using his Netflix account. Kindly, he has lent me his password so that I can occasionally access something without him. I rarely do it (did I mention: I like to READ), but periodically I do hop in there and make his queue a bit more, um, interesting. I think he appreciates it.
Here is what I added last night:
- Reach for Me: When his new hospice roommate — 25-year-old Kevin — moves in, the quiet life of senior citizen Alvin turns upside down. (Don’t you think Alan will LOVE that?)
- Politics of Love: Politics makes strange bedfellows, but never stranger than when a sexy, savvy, African-American Republican reluctantly falls for his counterpart: a beautiful Indian-American Democratic campaign volunteer. (Timely. It IS election season, after all. And before you try to claim this must be sci-fi because there are no African American Republicans, let me remind you: Michael Steele.)
- Don’t Go Breaking My Heart: Recently widowed mother of two Suzanne catches the eye of her dentist, who secretly hypnotizes her during an appointment to make her fall for him. (Because nothing says SEXY like a medical professional taking advantage of you while you’re in the chair for a procedure. THAT is the stuff dreams – and lawsuits – are made of.)
- The Human Centipede 2:A disturbed loner is so obsessed with the shocking horror film The Human Centipede that he decides to replicate the movie’s grisly experiment. In this metasequel, the stakes are raised as 12 unlucky souls endure surgical hell. (Actually, I think Alan might have added this one himself. Nevermind.)
- The Minis: Worried he can’t afford his son’s tuition, Roger — a little person — tries to get his friends to enter a basketball tournament with a big prize. (I would like to meet the screenwriter who thought, “Ah ha! Little person, big prize!” And then punch him in the face.)
The best part of meddling with Alan’s queue isn’t even watching him sift through the items that populate it. It’s seeing the “intelligent” recommendations at populate as a result. The formula I just created with these movies looks something this:
Hospice + racial/political switcheroo + widowed date-rape + human centipedes + Dennis Rodman =
Netflix's "Recommended for Alan" pick.
Actually, that sounds about right. I guess technology IS smarter than we are.
pithypants 