How the “Netflix Movie” Turns Cinema into “Visual Muzak”
When Netflix launched around the turn of the millennium, it was received as a godsend by many American cinephiles, especially those who lived nowhere near diversely programmed revival houses or well-curated video stores. A quarter-century later, it’s safe to say that those days have come to an end. Not only does the streaming-only Netflix of the twenty-twenties no longer transmit movies on DVD through the mail (a service its younger users have trouble even imagining), it ranks approximately nowhere as a preferred cinephile destination. That has to do with a selection much diminished since the DVD days — especially as regards movies more than a decade or so old — but also with a brand debased by too many bland, formulaic original productions. Unlike the platform’s various acclaimed multi-episode dramatic series, the “Netflix movie” commands no critical respect. But it can, at least if you trust the company’s own viewership data, command a large audience, if not an especially attentive one. The general semi-engagement of Netflix viewers, as argued in the Nerdstalgic video at the …
