The best of Netflix Instant for 2011

Looking back at my viewing logs, it's amazing to me how much I used Netflix to watch old TV shows this year. There are two reasons for it: A) Again, the three surgeries really killed my concentration and steered me to "comfort food." B) My son, now 3, is old enough to understand stuff I don't want him to be exposed to. So that means grownup movies often wait until he goes to sleep. Which is often too late to start a movie.

That said, I know people complain about the selection at Netflix Instant, but I don't usually have a hard time finding something I like to watch. Here were some of my favorite Netflix movies of 2011:

"I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK"

"Jet Li's Fearless"

Woody Allen's "Love and Death"

"A Room with a View"

"Eat Drink Man Woman"

"The Red Balloon"

"Wing Chun"

"Bodyguards and Assassins"

"The Dirty Dozen"

"The Black Stallion"

"A World Without Thieves"

"Salt"

"Patton"

"Drunken Master"

"Harvey"

"The Italian Job" (Michael Caine original)

"The Taking of Pelham One Two Three" (Walter Matthau original)

"The Bride of Frankenstein"

"Let The Right One In"

"The Twilight Samurai"

"Mean Streets"

"Kelly's Heroes"

"The Specials"

"Election" and "Triad Election"

"Hudson Hawk"

Some good TV I watched on Netflix: The entirety of "Mad Men" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," as well as Season One of "Breaking Bad."

And it's worth mentioning a couple of movies I saw on Amazon Video on Demand and Vudu that were pretty good: "13 Assassins," "Rango," and "Ip Man 2."

So it was a very Chinese/Japanese movie year for me, with some World War II sprinkled in. Not too bad.