Netflix is great, but it does have its problems.  There’s the sometimes sheepish recommendations and the murky process known as throttling.  The worst, however, is searching for a movie that’s unavailable.

I’ve racked up a considerable “saved” queue since I began my membership last summer.  The following list is a mere sample of those unavailable titles that I’m itching to see.  Some of these might just be missing from my local distribution center, while I’m sure others are either out of print or never were in print.  Here’s hoping they make the jump to “very long wait” soon.

Cronos

im in ur mooveez. direktin ur hobits.

I want to write an article called “Guillermo del Toro: Hack or Genius?” but I figure I need to see this (Del Toro’s first feature length film) first.  I never know what to expect with this guy, and Cronos is no exception.  It’s about alchemy and vampires and stuff, so it might be in the vein of Devil’s Backbone and Pan’s Labyrinth, but it also has Ron Perlman and… well, vampires and stuff, so it might be closer to Hellboy and Blade II. At any rate, I’d like to see this before The Hobbit comes out.

Sleuth

It’s a mystery movie that pits Laurence Olivier against Michael Caine.  It’s also recommended by my dad.  Now, other people’s dads might just tell them to see Animal House or Stripes, but my dad’s previous picks have included A Boy and His Dog, Omega Man, and other 70s gems he saw working at a movie theatre in high school, so I can safely assume that this movie’s awesome.  Yes, I know there was a remake with Michael Caine in Olivier’s role and Jude Law in Caine’s, but I have about as much enthusiasm for that as I did for the Alfie remake.  I want the real thing.

Blue Gender: Disc Two

Gah, seriously?  So they have Blue Gender, but they’re missing the second disc?  I saw this anime series when Adult Swim ran the dubbed version a few years back, which is why I’m so pissed that the second disc is missing.  See, in the series’ first half (discs one to three), this was a show about survival, courage, and tremendous gore that could best be described as a cross between Aliens and 28 Days Later. However, in its second half (discs four to six) Blue Gender devolved into yet another bland Neon Genesis Evangelion clone about giant robots and teenage melodrama.  Netflix is never gonna replace just one disc, so it looks like I’ll have to buy the whole set, terrible discs included.

PRO TIP: If you do a Google Images search for "no escape" you're gonna find a whole lot of bondage pics.

No Escape

This delightful piece of mid-90s sci-fi action schlock used to make the rounds on cable TV but has since fallen into obscurity.  That’s a shame too, since it’s got Ray Liotta, Lance Henriksen, and the bad guy from Blank Check. (If you’re wondering, the plot concerns an island prison colony divided into good and evil camps, kind of like Lord of the Flies with grownups.)  Also, as a friend points out, it’s one of the few non-gay porno movies out there to feature an all-male cast.  I guess I can’t complain too much about Netflix not having a movie that I only plan on enjoying semi-ironically, but I still hope a copy comes their way.