Ever steal a peek at your parents’ Netflix queue? How did that turn out for you? Here’s why I’m asking: I got my parents (retired, in their 60s, and braving another Happy Valley winter) a subscription for Christmas. Last night, my mother told me that my father had submitted his first requests: Deliverance and Sliver.
How is Sliver (pictured), starring Sharon Stone and Billy Baldwin, No. 2 on anyone’s list, let alone my father’s? "I think he likes Sharon Stone," my mother* said, as if the news she’d just delivered hadn’t been as scarring as the time she’d let my father cut out and mail me a Sylvester Stallone interview that he’d read in Playboy. (We share a love of all things Sly.) I spent the rest of the night thinking about it: Has my dad been dying to see Sliver since 1993? Did he catch the second half of the movie on cable one night, years ago, and always wonder how it began? Is it weird that I myself have searched (ill-fatedly) for Sliver on YouTube? Should I add it to my Netflix queue?
While I process how alike my father and I have become, share insights in to your parents’ Netflix queue (or rental history) — and what it means for you.
* Her first request: Sex and the City: The Movie.
More on your parents:
Bonding with dad through entertainment
Bonding with mom through entertainment
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When my parents got Netflix, the first thing they did was spend the summer getting the first five seasons of “24″ to get caught up with the new season. I love my parents.
My father just got an account, and the first thing on his quene was the entire Sopranos series. Which is awesome. My dad actually enjoys good, current television. I would watch it with him, but then we feel awkward during Tony Soprano sex scenes. No one should have to watch that man make love while a parent is in the room.
That’s actually kind of amusing, because I manage my dad’s Netflix entirely. He doesn’t have a computer, so I set the whole thing up for him. He calls and tells me what movies he wants me to put on there, or else I’ll see one I know he will like and put it on for him. So our queues are virtually identical, at times.
Somehow I doubt my folks Netflix queue will ever become mine, or vice versa. I don’t see them developing a love for Daniel Craig movies, BBC sci-fi or GLBT flicks. And I don’t see me losing that love.
This does remind me of the time I found Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers amongst the grown up movies my Dad kept stashed under his bed. Suprisingly, I’d have been less disturbed if I’d just found straight up porn flicks!
Last night my Mom called and asked if I wanted to borrow “Tropic Thunder” or “The House Bunny” before she returned them to NetFlix.
Yeah, for some reason I liked Sliver too. I still own a copy on VHS.
My parents don’t get Netflix, but I do see what movies they rent and buy. While my mom barely watches any movies, my dad will watch just about anything once. He’ll even watch Hilary Duff movies. And his rating scale? Anything above an “It was ok…” is good movie to my dad.
Also, he use to watch TV in our old basement, but since we moved he now views everything in the family room. Now I see all his wonderful movie choices from TV which of course includes Cyborg 2 starring Angelina Jolie. I kinda wish he’d watch stuff in our basement again…
Sounds like your folks are going through theyre second adolecence..I can relate I caught mine smoking a joint last summer! lol
My mom’s Netflix list has some good stuff on it (current releases such as Burn After Reading), some obscure stuff(something with ‘leprechan’ in the title, but not the horror movie), and some stuff that curiously already have her ratings on them. I asked her if she was renting them again because they were good and she said, “No, I just can’t remember if I saw them already.” THAT makes me scared for my future.
My mom and I talk about our Netflix movies quite a bit, and we have a lot of the same stuff in our queues. My mom is the one who instilled in me and my sisters a love of movies.
We just got netflix and my dad became obsessed with queue-ing the worst horror movies ever invented. Braineaters? Seriously, dad?
(Doesn’t help that my mom is beyond squeamish. Poor lady…)
My mother recently got a Netflix subscription, and has been adding a random assortment, such as Penelope and some Tarantino. My father complained that he “never gets to pick a movie.” She let him pick one movie and he got the privilege revoked after queuing up the new X-Files movie.
Mandi, maybe your dad is a fan of Ira Levin, enjoyed the book, and wanted to see the movie. The novel was pretty good, as I recall (it must have been, as when I was recently cleaning out my stash of books I discovered that I had two copies of it. Then again, they were both freebies from the library, so maybe not enough people were checking it out.) Then again, I read it years ago and remember very little beyond the basic plot. And it may be just me, but having Deliverance at #1 on a movie queue is more disturbing.
My parents don’t have Netflix–my mom just DVRs Hallmark Channel movies and watches them when the satellite goes out. My husband and I don’t subscribe to Netflix, either; we don’t even have the time to watch the DVDs that I buy or check out from the library, so subscribing to Netflix would be a waste.
My father, since cable days, will watch anything if he ‘heard about it’. Not if it was good or bad, or genre, or who’s in it. He also won’t listen to me about why this is not a good movie for him. So he will rent Porky’s, or Cyborg2, or Sliver, or Meet the Spartans. Then he will complain about the state of movies today. Of course, a diamond shows up in the garbage, like An Inconveinent Truth, or No Country… This an blaring the ‘Hitler’ Channel, is what gets my goat with my Dad
This piece made me laugh – I talked to my mom yesterday and they had just received their lastest NetFlix movies – Pinapple Express.