How about a bit of irony and inside baseball to start your day? The minute after this piece ran, my editor asked if I could update a couple of old “best [category] movies to watch on Netflix” lists; most, if not all, of the entries on both are no longer available on the service. The punchline? I updated those same two lists a year ago.
Sounds like a kick in the ass, but honestly, I’m sort of happy, because it proves my point. Streamers aren’t your friends, Netflix most of all, because services like Netflix don’t give a good long damn what you watch, as long as you’re watching. Hulu? Slightly better. They, at least, have a deal with Neon, which means you’re guaranteed to get that studio’s releases on the service in due time; even bad Neon releases tend to at least be worth watching for curiosity’s sake. Prime? About the same as Hulu. I could go on. But I won’t.
Because why? Because I have a whole piece about this and you should read it, over at Cool Material.
A Constant Visual Feast 
Yes. This.
Yes. That! (Also: I owe you a phone call!)
All streaming services subliminally sing the chorus of the theme from FRIENDS. (As long as you pay the monthly charges.) And because you want to believe large corporations are your buddies, you put 100% of your entertainment budget into them.
Then, one day you go to (say) HBO Max to educate your wife (who doesn’t understand the punchline of the ALIEN scene in SPACEBALLS) and find out that Discover decided to trim expenses by dropping their license for all Warners cartoons released after 1950.
NO “ONE FROGGY EVENING FOR YOU!!! Come back, who knows when.
My house looks rather a lot like Michael Caine’s residence in CHILDREN OF MEN, but it means I always have my stuff. Means I never need to quote Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”
I can truthfully say, I agree. Although I don’t own one.