Netflix Roulette Rules

A number of my posts are named "Netflix Roulette." What these posts are are reviews of movies generated randomly from the pool of movies currently on Netflix's instant watch service. I'm currently randomizing my movies from the horror section, but there may come a time when I switch to another area of film, or when I switch to another streaming service like Hulu, Crackle, Fandor, or MUBI. For now, Netflix suffices. The way this works: I've set up two random number generators on an Excel spreadsheet. One of them generates the page number and a slot number. Netflix currently has 21 pages of horror movies for streaming with 40 movies to a page. These numbers vary, depending on the whims of Netflix. My random number generator formulae are therefore: "=RANDBETWEEN(1,21)" and "=RANDBETWEEN(1,40)". I invite anyone who wants to play along to borrow the concept and the formulae to do with as you see fit, and let me know where to read your results.

The benefit of this for me is that it puts me back in touch with the back shelves of the video store, where unloved mathoms languish waiting for viewers. Many of these movies will deserve their obscurity. Some will not. Some will even be famous movies. As a rule, I'm shying a way from movies I've written about in the past. If one such movie comes up, I usually generate a new movie.