THE MAGIC BOX

There is a new magical box in my living room. It’s called a ROKU box, and it rivals the amazing world of TiVo and the DVR from five years ago. It works with your Netflix, and in about a half hour, if you have high speed internet, you can be watching movies and TV shows from your Netflix queue. It took me ten minutes to physically set it up. Here’s the catch: I don’t really want to see everything on my Netflix queue.

That is the poorly kept secret of my movie watching habits. Of course I’ve had my suspicions. Every time I move a movie further down the list and something more craptastic nearer the top, I feel like I’m not “working” the list right.

Some of the movies are on that list because I’m supposed to want to see those movies. And I’m willing to want to see those movies… or I’m willing to become willing. How’s that for some Oprahbabble? I added them to my list because nosey LA film nosersons told me that I was sure to enjoy them because they are classics – well-done in their genre. I suspect those people of having a nose problem, and I suspect me of not liking a lot of different genres.

Netflix hasn’t digitized all of the movies or shows in the world, so not everything is available. The things that are available “instantly” come up as they will from your Netflix list. So, movies I’ve been avoiding for years have just come up on my television to haunt me. There are some television series that are readily available, and there are several documentaries that I’ve been meaning to see, including “Broadway: the American Musical.” But every single movie available from my list so far is a classic and, worse yet, a drama.

I have never seen, and, I’ve been assured, I’m never going to like, “A Clockwork Orange.” But it’s on the “classic, you should see list” from some jackass that I barely know. So, one day – a far away, halcyon day, not yet chosen – I was planning on watching it on fast forward.

ROKU doesn’t do fast forward very well. I don’t understand the technology, and it doesn’t feel like buffering, but it’s probably buffering. So there no easy way to skip something horrifying at 30-frames-a-second. So I end up trapped in real-time with a tension-filled drama that is well written and well acted. This is the stuff of nightmares for me.

Bette Davis is an amazing actress, but her characters always make terrible life choices. I already know people in my real life who are making terrible life choices. It’s not easy for me to watch someone pretend to do it, especially if they do it well. But I’m told these movies are good for me. So I continue to try.

And I so love the magical box that brings movies and TV to my house in an instant. So how can I regret that I now have instant access to “The Omega Man”, “Westworld” and “Vertigo” in HD (where available)? I can’t. But I can scroll past them to watch an episode of “News Radio.”

Jackie Kashian