The Remote Control
A sagging corduroy couch in a basement apartment in Milwaukee at 9:14 PM, where the Netflix autoplay countdown has reached four seconds and the remote is exactly equidistant between them.
Double and Bust have been scrolling for forty-seven minutes. They've rejected 31 titles. The algorithm has finally surfaced a 2003 Jean-Claude Van Damme film called 'Derailed' with a 12% on Rotten Tomatoes — and Double's hand is already moving. Bust wants to keep scrolling because there was a Norwegian thriller two rows back with a 94% that they accidentally passed, but neither of them can remember the name and the scroll position has been lost to the void.
“It's got Van Damme on a TRAIN, Bust. Every movie with Van Damme on a train is at least a seven out of ten — that's just transportation science.”
“We passed a critically acclaimed film eleven seconds ago and you want to commit two hours to something twelve percent of humans enjoyed. Twelve. That's fewer people than like black licorice.”
They watched Derailed. Van Damme delivered his first line in a whisper so quiet the subtitles just said '[inaudible],' the train derailed seventeen minutes in and the remaining hour and twenty-three minutes took place in a hospital cafeteria. Bust pulled out his phone halfway through and found the Norwegian thriller — it was called 'Headhunters,' it was streaming free, and it had already won four awards since they started watching.
The cafeteria scenes were building to something, you could FEEL it — we just didn't give the cafeteria enough time.
We gave a cafeteria eighty-three minutes. That's longer than most people spend in actual cafeterias.