I’m not the first person to write about the fact that streaming services, specifically Netflix, will experience a boom in viewership during the COVID-19 outbreak. In fact, I’m probably not even the 501st person.

But I am the first to tell you that this will create a short-term change in how we go about things here at ReelGood.

Cinemas are still open in Australia — most of them, for now. But just this week, Palace decided to close its locations until further notice, posting explanations to prospective customers on the shuttered entrances. Explanations whose wording is only too familiar to us, and will become more so in the coming weeks and months.

But even those that remain open are about to experience a sharp drop-off in content. New movies have stopped releasing in the U.S., so only those that have already been released there but not here — such as Pixar’s latest, Onward — figure to still make their local debuts.

After that, well, they’ll probably need to close — if not for medical reasons, then for business ones.

We here at ReelGood, though, will continue onward indeed.

You may not get a review of Onward itself, but our goal of bringing you reviews of new releases will just shift to a different venue and/or distributor.That’s right, Netflix’s new release schedule figures to continue unabated, as the movies they already had in the pipeline for 2020 still figure to make their debuts on the streaming service, probably at about the same time they were planning to before all this happened.

And we’ll be there to review them.

Now, there are certainly other streaming services that will also have new releases. And not to show you too much how the sausage gets made, but let’s just say that what we review will depend a little bit on which writers are subscribed to which services. In these uncertain financial times, we may not be that interested in shelling out the big bucks for new subscriptions.

But Netflix? Everyone has a Netflix subscription. It’s starting to rival a mobile phone and a TV in terms of its function as a basic necessity.

So starting within the next few days and continuing until, well, whenever, we will begin trying to give you our usual insightful commentary and other free associative bullshit about the new releases coming to the small screen. These afterthoughts, film festival leftovers and other cinematic odds and ends will suddenly take on a central role in our conversations about film. And some of them will be great.

So shelter in place and continue to read ReelGood, as we will be here for you in your time of need.