Breaking the Cycle

Would somebody please tell me why I always add independent films to my Netflix queue?

Because you're an idiot.

Oh, yeah.

By the way, that's a reference to the movie Heathers, Mom.

Anyway, I'm swearing off independent movies forever. If it even mentions Cannes or Sundance, I wash my hands of it. It takes about six months for the bottom of my Netflix queue to percolate to the top, so I never remember why exactly I thought I would like a particular movie. I probably saw a trailer, or read a review by someone like defective yeti that said it was the greatest freakin' movie since Godfather II or something. But it never is. It's always, always, an interminably slow-moving character study of some quirky, greasy-haired, terminally depressed young man and the quirky folk which inhabit his environment. By the end of the movie, our quirky main character is just almost imperceptibly different than he was at the beginning, and I invariably wonder what else I might have accomplished with those two hours that usually turn into four because I watch, doze off, rewind, watch again, doze off again, rewind again.

Well no more! No more Station Agent. No more Lonesome Jim. I mean, I kinda dig Steve Buscemi as an actor, and Jim Jarmusch made Ghost Dog, so I can't fault him entirely. I've already banned any movie that describes itself as "wacky" or "romantic comedy;" from now on, the words "quirky" and "independent" are also out. Just so's you know.