Being a film buff isn’t easy, so we people that watch many movies tend to be more or less organized about our watching habits – or at least act like it. We create list after list of movies we ‘have to watch’ and at the same time know that we will never truly reach the bottom. Which isn’t a bad thing. But sometimes, it’s nice to just watch something completely by chance – just let an algorithm of some sort decide your movie of the day. For example, do a random search at Netflix and watch the movie that pops up. Since I have to be organized about it at least a little, I will do a search for each color of the rainbow at Netflix every month. And in the end, maybe Kermit will write a song about it.
It’s the color that makes most autists cringe. It doesn’t have a melodic name. Nor does it look pretty on a pale, caucasian woman like me. I’m talking about yellow, of course. Needless to say, yellow is not a popular word to be used in film titles – except for nature documentaries. While excellent and popular ‘yellow’ films do exist – Yellow Submarine, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon or That Girl in Yellow Boots – the only feature film I found on Netflix was the poorly received Yellow Rock (which probably referred to the national park at any rate). So for this installment of Netflix Rainbow, I had to go with a National Geographic TV movie.
Secret Yellowstone is a 45m made-for-TV documentary on the national park Yellowstone. It’s nothing out of the ordinary voice-over narrated science and nature film with some poorly animated CGI in it. Surely, for someone who doesn’t know much about Yellowstone – like me – there was some interesting information inthis film and it supplies you with enough background knowledge to dive further into this topic. However, it’s a very ordinary film.
People that already know something about the park will probably not find out anything new in the 45 minutes they’d spend watching this films. Topics and conflicts are briefly mentioned but never get enough screen time to prove for a satisfying watch. A tv show or full-length documentary is what this little more than a scratch on the surface of the park should have been. As far as I could tell from this little film, Yellowstone is a pretty interesting place – and gigantic as well. There are so many angles to this place, that filmmakers should either choose one or two and explore them thoroughly, or at least give the end product many single segments more time.
In the end, this film will not be able to catch the viewer’s attention for even the brief running time – simply because it is so jumpy and unfinished. It’s bound to exist as background noise.
