Inexplicable things

You've noticed Netflix's new Top 10 feature, haven't you?

Of course you have. Whenever something new happens with Netflix, you notice it, because you're always on Netflix. Especially right now.

When Netflix finally allowed you the ability to keep trailers from playing automatically when you were scrolling through the titles, boy did you notice it. That was annoying as hell. So of course you'd notice when they started telling you the ten most popular things people are watching -- today, this week, whatever it is -- on Netflix. How else would you know that Tiger King is still king?

To be honest, though, I don't usually scan the list. It's mostly TV shows that, in truth, I don't have that much interest in watching. They might be good, or they might just be something new that Netflix is promoting the shit out of. I've got other TV shows I need to catch up on.

Right now, in Australia, there's only one movie on there, Coffee & Kareem. See above note about promoting the shit out of something. Or, it's a sign of just how desperate people are to watch some new movie, any new movie. And this is the newest Netflix has released.

Wait, that's not right. Coffee & Kareem is not the only movie on that list. There's one other movie on there. What's that right at the end of the list?

Is that the 2003 flop Cat in the Hat?

It is. And for this I have no explanation.

I didn't doctor up the above image. I promise. Sometimes I don't have things to talk about on this blog -- not lately, but sometimes. But I would never stoop to doctoring images just to give myself material.

But it's so damn odd to see this movie there that my doctoring the image would be one of the real explanations you'd have to consider.

Now, I should tell you right away that I just happened to watch Cat in the Hat for the first time back in February, when I was away at a holiday house for the weekend and that was one of the movies they had. I should also tell you that I actually enjoyed it. It was so much better than I expected it to be, and it looked great, thanks in part to future great cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, who was probably already great then except I hadn't heard of him yet.

But just because I enjoyed a movie most people thought was a travesty, a movie that would have been destined for the cinematic scrap heap except that people still reference it as an epic flop, doesn't make me any less surprised to see it embraced by any statistically significant population of people as measured on Netflix, especially 17 years after it was released in theaters.

It's possible it's a new release on Netflix, but that wouldn't even begin to account for this phenomenon.

You might say that it's all the parents desperate to find something for their kids, who are unexpectedly trapped inside all the time now. That might explain it if, you know, Cat in the Hat were the only child-centric movie on Netflix. But the Netflix children's area is just as bursting with content as any other part of the site.

If I were forced at gunpoint to produce some flimsy explanation, I guess I would venture this: There was recently that Green Eggs & Ham show on Netflix, and critics were really fond of it, so I assume a fair number of Netflix subscribers watched it. This would, I guess, be an attempt to find similar material, as Cat in the Hat would be one of Dr. Seuss' other most recognizable titles. But it's not like Cat in the Hat is even the only other Dr. Seuss property available out there, not by a long shot. It does, at the moment, appear to be the only other one available on Netflix.

I did a little googling to see if I could find anything in the news that would explain it, but I gave up pretty quickly upon getting no relevant results. Netflix is notoriously tight-lipped about the way it does things. A listing of the top ten was pretty unlike them in the first place; an explanation for that listing, almost certainly a bridge too far.

Then again, Netflix may be just as flummoxed as I am. They are just reporting their actual statistics, one would assume.

I mean, I'd be surprised if Cat in the Hat were even in the top ten of children's entertainment, but this is all of Netflix. Like, Tiger King is on one end of that list, and Cat in the Hat is on the other. People that desperate for more content about big cats after finishing the adventures of Joe Exotic?

Maybe the simplest explanation is the one that's actually true. In all times -- pandemic or otherwise -- people are interested in content that, in some way, relates to what they are going through. Maybe a movie where kids are cooped up in a house, trying to find ways to entertain themselves and squelch their boredom, is really speaking to people right now.

I sure as hell know it's speaking to me.