The most amazing advance in movie watching is Netflix Watch Instantly (where did they find such a clunky name?). Many of the MovieWithMe hosts have a little black box attached to their TV that finds their wi fi router, logs on to their Netflix account, and displays all the choices from their Watch Instantly queue on their TV screen. The quality is remarkably good. Roku isn’t the only way you can do this. There are lots of others from xBox 360 to LG TVs (go to the Profile or Let’s Meet pages in MovieWithMe and you’ll see a current list).

The problem is getting MORE choices on Watch Instantly. Big Hollywood studios are reluctant. But then, they are always reluctant-that is their middle name. Small distributors are more willing to try their films here, but are very worried about how much Netflix will pay them. You can’t calculate how much to pay for the rights to stream a film if it has never been streamed. So Netflix tries to estimate the value based partially on how many subscribers have already put the title on their wish list (your “saved DVDs queue).

That’s where we all can help. If you have a Netflix subscription (as little as $5.00 and as little as $10.00 if you want Watch Instantly), you can request obscure films you hear or read about. Most are listed even if they are not yet available. And when it comes the time when they are available; you’ve given the filmmakers a little bit more leverage to make a better deal with Netflix. Not exactly charity, but an easy way to help enlarge the offerings on Watch Instantly.