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52 weeks of netflix: #13 life happens

February 20, 2013 in 52 weeks of netflix, columns

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Sigh.  I had so much hope for this film, unfounded hope, but hope none the less.  Sadly this film fails on all fronts.  It can be summarized in one sentence, at one point Lauren Conrad, from The Hills, makes a cameo and is treated like the Dali Lama, not for comedic effect.  Lauren Conrad’s appearance anywhere should be treated only for comedic effect.

Recap: Let me begin by saying that every plot summary of this film sounds way better than the actual film, I’m going to attempt to recap the plot as realistically as possible.  Kim (Krysten Ritter) lives with her best friend Deena (Kate Bosworth) and another girl Laura (Rachel Bilson), in a big house in Silverlake (more on this later) Los Angeles.  The movie begins with the worst excuse for not using a condom I’ve ever seen, Deena took the last one, but that doesn’t stop Kim from boning some random dude.

You skip ahead one year later, and Kim has given birth to a baby boy, this is 12 months in the future which makes the baby three months, when in reality he’s more like 9 months old.  Kim and the baby’s father have been splitting time, but he has decided to go surfing instead, so he’s out of the picture.  Kim then spends the rest of the film, juggling being a single mom trying to make her dream come true, building a dog mall (an idea so ridiculous that I didn’t believe she was serious until she actually realized it was ridiculous.)   Kim meets a guy but lies to him about having a baby, so that goes poorly, she gets in a childish fight with Deena over a book deal she’s been offered and then moves out.  Blah, Blah, Blah, I might have missed some things in the middle there, but none of it matters.

This is how Netflix described the movie: “Hipsters from the trendy Silverlake neighborhood of Los Angeles contend with adulthood in this woman-powered comedy. When one of them gives birth to a baby, her roomie resolves to not let this new responsibility hamper their lifestyle.”  I think they watched a different movie.  Even if the film wasn’t good, I was hoping that I could spend some time reminiscing about my own time in Silverlake.  There was very little Silverlake to be had, nor would I call the characters hipsters.

I could sit here and pick apart this entire film and explain to you just what made it so awful, but it can all be summarized like this, the film never decides if it’s satire or gritty realism.  Clearly some of the characters are over the top Hollywood stereotypes, while others (attempt) to be realistic interpretations.  In the end you never know what’s funny, and what’s dramatic, especially when the drama is given no weight at all.  In fact, there never seem to be any stakes at all, so when everything works out in the end, there’s no sigh of relief.  You just nod you’re head acknowledging the only possible outcome.

Everything began to make sense to me when I realized that the film was written and directed by Ritter and her friend Kat Coiro, everything about this film reeks of a rookie project.  The acting is mostly fine, and the directing is passible, but it’s the script that literally eats (most) the actors alive, some of them couldn’t have done any better with a good script.

The last point I want to drive home about this film is the baby.  I’ve never seen a movie centered around a baby where the viewer had no emotional investment in it whatsoever.  The baby could easily have driven the emotionally void scenes, but because we don’t care about him we end up feeling nothing.  For whatever reason the writers decided to begin the story after the baby is born, skipping over all the real drama that takes place during pregnancy.  Imagine Juno, Knocked Up, or For Keeps, only taking place after the baby is born.  That’s a really boring movie.

This was easy, not only did Netflix totally miss the target with the film’s description, but I couldn’t find a single connection to New York, I Hate You.  They shared nothing in common, besides both films being low budget indie projects that were ill conceived, and poorly executed.  Netflix does not get the point.

Netflix: 6 wins 6 loses Check back next time when I watch The Best and the Brightest.  My expectations are low.

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52 weeks of netflix: #12 new york, I hate you

January 30, 2013 in 52 weeks of netflix, columns

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I hope you get the joke.  The name of the movie is New York, I Love You, which is a fucking stupid idea for a movie and an even dumber title.  What an awful movie.

recap: Because I’ve somehow trapped myself in these separate story vignette movies, I ended up watching New York, I Hate You.  It’s eleven poorly written, directed, acted and all around conceived vignettes, that at times loosely connect but mostly just try to capture the magic of eleven different neighborhoods in New York?  Or at least that’s what I’m told it was supposed to do.  I’m not going to recap these pointless and stupid stories, but will say that the best of which involved Chris Cooper and Robin Wright.

The conceit of this film is that New York is the best thing about life.  New York is better than all other cities in the world, New York is better than sex, New York is better than finding $20 on the sidewalk, New York is better than breathing.  If you believe this than first of all, let me punch you in the face, and secondly let me tell you that the acting, writing, and directing will still be bad, but the movie will have some redeeming qualities, namely it’s belief that New York is the best thing ever.  I on the other hand do not believe that New York is better than breathing, and found the whole thing to be a big steamy pile of shit.

It starts off poorly with what I’m sure is supposed to be a running gag of Bradley Cooper getting into already occupied Taxi cabs, and then takes a sharp and unending turn south with Hayden Christensen attempting his best high school play “cool guy.”  Except for the Chris Cooper Robin Wright scene, it’s all bad.  The worst part?  For a movie that acts as a love letter to “America’s greatest city” it felt like it was written by people who’d only read about New York and watched episodes of Sex and the City.

I could tell that many of these stories were supposed to relay the distinctiveness of New York, but really you could have changed the setting and for the most part the entire movie would have worked just fine.  The New York of New York I Hate You, is one where no one takes the subway, and when you take a cab, there’s a good bet Bradley Cooper when get in with you.

Oh, and I forgot to mention the accents.  Why oh why, oh why, did any of these actors attempt accents.  They’re all awful, in particular Natalie Portman and Shia LaBeouf who plays a weird hunchback.

There were some similarities to Nine Lives, but really it’s what was different that made this movie so bad.  Yes they were both a series of vignettes, but where Nine Lives separated them neat and evenly with similar structure, New York, I Hate You, adopted this loose free flowing from one story to the next which I found confusing.  Both movies never seemed to decide if these stories should interconnect or be seen as separate entities.  While the vignettes of Nine Lives were written and directed by the same person, New York, I Hate You had a new writer and director for each vignette, including a slough of previous non-directors all of which helping to ensure that the whole film felt unconnected.  Where the acting in Nine Lives was mostly superb, New York, I Hate You is where acting whet to die.

The stories in Nine Lives felt like brief snippets from a larger story, typically the vignettes ended where the real story was about to begin.  This kept me interested and I could feel myself leaning into the scene, despite it’s general lack of story.  New York, I Hate You, was full of gimmick stories.  It didn’t take long to realize that there would be a M. Night Shyamalan style twist.  Despite the fact that there was something to look forward to in each vignette, I found Nine Lives about a million times more interesting.

Initially I thought this was a big budget movie that packed the celebs in like sardines to squeeze all the star power they could from a lifeless turd.  I was literally shocked to discover that this was an indie film with a modest $14 million budget.  It didn’t make its money back, but also never appeared in a ton of theaters.  Typically indie films are passion projects that someone spent years fine tuning, that doesn’t always make them good, but usually they have at least one redeeming quality.

So I hated this movie and by virtue hate almost everyone involved with it.  It was a disgusting failure of a film, so naturally I will not give Netflix the point?  Wrong.  I will give Netflix the point.  In this case I was basically cornered into giving Netflix the point because while there are a million shitty movies that have ensemble casts with multiple story lines that only loosely connect, there are fewer that do it with separate vignettes, and if that’s your thing then this was a good recommendation.

Post Script: if you go back and look at the comment I left at the end of Nine Lives, you will see that I was fully aware of how bad New York, I Hate You was.  I wanted to watch something really bad, but truth be told I had no idea how bad it was.

Netflix score: 6 wins 5 losses.  Check back next week when I watch a movie that was already in my instant queue (I didn’t put it there) Life Happens.  Here’s hoping for something good.

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52 weeks of netflix #11 nine lives

January 7, 2013 in 52 weeks of netflix

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I knew I was not going to like this movie before it even started, and I was right, I didn’t like it, but I did find it compelling.  Surprisingly compelling, especially when you consider the lack of action in each vignette.  Don’t get me wrong though, I didn’t like this movie.

Recap: Basically the title says all you need to know, it’s about nine separate lives, some of which are VERY loosely connected.  Rather than telling the story like Love Actually or Babel, this is nine separate vignettes, each of which focuses on a new person or persons.  A women’s prison, a funeral, a house warming, a night at the grocery store, a cemetery, etc.  It’s also got a cast of heavy hitting females such as Holly Hunter, Glen Close, Robin Wright Penn, Kathy Baker and so on.  For the most part I’ll skip summarizing each story and instead tell you a little about how it’s put together.

Each vignette is roughly about the same in length, and mostly filmed with a steadicam in one continuous shot, which works well.  The stories are about as simple in content as you can get, the depth of each story is in the context.  When Robin Wright Penn and Jason Isaacs meet in the grocery stor we almost immediately understand that they were once lovers of some kind, not because of what they say but because of what they don’t say.  In the end very little is accomplished in each story, in many cases the end of the vignette is really the beginning of the story.

If you’re looking for a film with a lot of action (even minor action) then you’re going to be sorely disappointed, this is a film about subtleties, in fact when they do make an attempt as some big action it feels forced.  As much as I disliked the film as a whole I did find it’s subtle qualities and compelling storytelling to be interesting.  Unfortunately I think the film peaks in the first two vignettes with some wonderful acting by Elpidia Carrillo as a prison inmate, and then Robin Wright Penn who runs into her former lover Jason Isaacs at the grocery store.

The story telling and editing of the vignettes suggest that each should be seen as a separate entity from the other stories, which is fine, but the whole idea gets lost when you begin to connect them.  Jason Isaacs appears a couple times as the same character, as does Sissy Spacek, which really just doesn’t make sense, either you connect all the characters or you don’t connect them at all.  The individual vignette idea clashes with the traditional concept of what a film is or should be, if you just watched one story, or three, or all nine, you basically get the same experience, which is less fulfilling than a traditional film.

I can’t say I’ve ever seen a film that was as engaging and with as many commendable qualities as Nine Lives had, and still not be a very good movie.  I tried to think if I would ever recommend this film to someone, maybe.  Now, when it comes to whether this was a good recommendation by Netflix after Sherrybaby?  Yes.

The two movies have major differences, and a part of me suspects that it was recommend purely based on the first vignette which takes place in a women’s prison.  The more I thought about it the more similarities I came up with.  These are all stories about women, they deal with the struggles of every day life, there is very little action, there is no neatly packaged conclusion.  Netflix get’s the point, mostly because I can imagine that the target audience for these two films is pretty similar.

Netflix score: 5 wins 5 losses.  Check back next week when I watch New York, I Love You, which I can already tell is going to be brutal.

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52 weeks of netflix #10 sherrybaby

December 13, 2012 in 52 weeks of netflix, columns

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I just wrote the title for this article and realized that I’m only on week 10 of 52.  Holy shit are you serious?  That’s probably the biggest indication of how I felt about this weeks movie.

This film probably isn’t as bad as I thought, there’s nothing that immediately stands out to make this bad, at the same time it just isn’t that good either.  Essentially I knew that if I didn’t write this article right away I’d forget the whole movie.

Recap:  Maggie Gyllenhaal plays the titular character of Sherry who has just recently returned home after spending three years in prison for theft and drug abuse.  She has a young daughter who’s been living with Sherry’s brother and his wife.  Sherry immediately realizes that in those three critical years of development her daughter has become more attached to Sherry’s brother and wife, and hardly knows her.

This is where the film breaks off into two stories.  The first concerning the logistics of Sherry reacquainting herself with the outside world, living in a halfway house, visiting her parole officer, AA meetings, and finding a job.  The second story concerning the divide between herself and her daughter.

For a film that seemed to be lacking in storytelling to summarize the story actually takes a lot of space so I’ll severely shorten the rest.  It’s clear that Sherry’s pretty fucked up, she uses sex to get what she wants, she desires heroin to escape life’s troubles, her brothers wife has instructed Sherry’s daughter not to refer to Sherry as mom, and then there’s the very strange relationship Sherry has with her father, on many levels.  Sherry’s got a lot to work through, more than the film has time for.

So not only does she have all of the above to overcome, Sherry is trying to become a mother to her daughter, presumably for the first time.  There are a million stories of parents trying to get their kids back, typically we root for those parents and the impending reunion scene.  The problem with Sherrybaby is that she’s really not a very good mother, and completely unprepared to be one.  Not to say that she couldn’t get there, but it’s obvious that Sherry’s daughter is better off with her brother and wife.

As I said before I can’t point to one single thing and say that this is what made the movie bad, the acting, the writing, the directing were all fine, I guess in the end it just wasn’t very impacting.  There was nothing new or original to this story, it didn’t make me see things from a different perspective.  The major flaw in the film it was that I wasn’t sure the point of few of the filmmaker.  Was I supposed to root for Sherry getting her daughter back, or was I supposed to understand that in this case Sherry had to get help, a shit load of help before she could be a mother.

Of the three movies that I’ve watched since taking over for Jaime, deciding if this one was similar enough to Incendiary to warrant a recommendation from Netflix, was the hardest yet.  I thought, and thought about it.  I thought so much that at first I decided that if I had to think this much about it that it probably was not a win for Netflix.  Then I backtracked and thought that they both dealt with a parent (mother in both cases) longing for their child, so maybe it was a win after all.  But then I remembered how horrible Incendiary was and that trying to recommend anything from that film was sure to fail, and so I thought that Netflix lost.

In the end I decided that Netflix should get the point, and here’s why.  The character of Sherry and Michelle Williams character from Incendiary felt similar, both full of problems that cause them to act selfishly.  When they eventually realize that their child is lost they reexamine themselves as people. Both films are somewhat dark and neither wins in the end.  Aside from the content, both Incendiary and Sherrybaby were written and directed by women, which is rare enough that it also merits a recommendation.

Netflix score: 4 wins 5 losses  Check back next week when I watch Nine Lives.

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52 weeks of Netflix #9 incendiary

November 26, 2012 in 52 weeks of netflix, columns

FIrst of all let me acknowledge that after watching Babel four movies were recommended to me, three of them directed by Alejandro González Iñárritu, who also directed Babel.  Finding that the connections were far to obvious I went with the only remaining film, Incendiary.

There are some obvious connections between the two films, specifically dealing with the loss of a child.  In many ways these last two films were like a house of horrors for a new parent.  “Hey here’s a couple of movies about parents dealing with the loss of their child, now imagine the loss of your child.”

Recap: I went into this film thinking that it would be more along the political thriller line.  The box suggested this as did the plot summary.  Both are deceptive and wrong.  The film takes place in London and stars Michelle Williams (you know everyones favorite Brit from Montana, the director clearly hates British actresses since she did the same thing in Bridget Jones’s Diary) and sort of stars Ewan McGregor (more on that later).  If I talked about all the good things in this film it would be a very short article.  There were a lot of things wrong, basically the whole movie.  I’m actually at a loss for where to begin.

First of all Ewan McGregor works for a newspaper and drives some ultra fancy car, he doesn’t own the paper, he just writes for it, and actually he doesn’t really do that much writing.  He meets Michelle Williams, who’s character by the way has no name, like Fight Club only not interesting at all.  Williams and McGregor have a very brief and hardly climaxed affair when Williams’ husband and son are killed in a terrorist attack at a soccer match.  It’s supposed to be very reminiscent of 9-11 or 7-7.  This is where the film suffers from multiple personalities.

First Williams is out to seek revenge.  McGregor gives her the name and place of employment of one of the bombers wives(he works for the paper after all).  She tracks her down and stalks from afar, eventually striking up a relationship with his son in order to fill the void left by her own son.  Long story short it culminates in Williams being shot while trying to protect the son.

Then Williams begins to date the head of the anti-terrorist division, who was also her husbands boss.  But all the while McGregor has discovered that this guy knew about the attack but let it happen as not to effect their ongoing investigations.  Blah blah blah, Williams finds out and leaves him.  By the way, everything I’ve said here is ten times more thrilling than the movie.

Lastly, Williams spirals down into madness by hallucinating that her son is alive.  She lives with him in their apartment for god knows how long, feasting on Twinkies and finger painting.  It all culminates in a mental breakdown that leads to her nearly committing suicide.  She doesn’t and corrects her life.  Surprise, she’s pregnant, and in the last scene is giving birth.  We don’t know who the baby belongs to but Ewan McGregor is at the hospital.  Holy shit, this sounds like an okay movie, but trust me guys, it’s not, it’s awful.

My first thought was that this film passed through the hands of a half dozen writers.  It’s basically three films and it never decides which one it wants to be.  The tone changes constantly from thriller, to drama, to absurd at the drop of a hat.  Characters and plot lines come in and out as if each was written by a different person.  Ewan McGregor disappears and reappears more times than Gandalf in The Hobbit.  After the first thirty minutes his character could have died and you hardly would have noticed I was horrified to learn that the film was written by the director Sharon Maguire.  Basically this film killed her career, at least that’s my assumption, because there’s not a single credit post 2008 on her IMDB page.

The film is only 96 minutes but it felt like 96 hours, I found myself pressing pause multiple times just to see how much I had left.

Incendiary was about as similar to Babel as Babel was to The Constant Gardner.  Not terribly similar but enough so that I can see how Netflix made the connection.  However, Netflix does not get a point because I can’t recommend that anyone watch Incendiary, ever, under any circumstance.  How Netflix will be able to recommend anything from this film is beyond me, unless it recommends I stare at my hands for an hour.

The tally is now Netflix 3 wins and 5 losses.  Check back for my next installment to see what I watch next.

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52 weeks of Netflix #8 babel

November 9, 2012 in 52 weeks of netflix

 

And now, one of our more popular columns has returned after many many months away.  Jaime Navarro has been too busy with work and taking care of a baby so I’m relieving her of her Netflix duties and taking over this column myself.  Just in case you’re new here or forgot what this column was about let me refresh your memory.  In this column I will watch a new movie recommended to me by Netflix based on the previous movie I watched.  I’ll do this for 52 weeks, (skipping some weeks) for the 52 weeks of the year.

For week 8 I watched the Oscar nominated Babel, as recommended to me by Netflix from Jaime’s previous viewing of The Constant Gardner.  On the surface these two films seem to have much in common and a similar tone, but if you scratch just below the surface they have very little in common.

Recap:  While attempting to get away from a tragedy back home, Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett, travel to Morocco.  While riding on a tour bus through the country side Blanchett is hit in the clavicle by a bullet.  This set’s off a series of events that dictate the remainder of the film, in four countries.

In Morocco we follow the story of the two boys who actually shot the gun into the bus.  In Japan we follow the story of the daughter of the man who brought the gun to Morocco.  And in American and Mexico we follow the story of Pitt and Blanchett’s children who accompany their nanny to her sons wedding in Mexico.

This is one of those six degrees of separation movies that I more often then not hate.  They’ve been done well in the past, but generally they feel like three or four previously rejected scripts glued together and cast with a series of big name stars.  In this film the biggest names are Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett and Gael Garcia Bernal.  But surprisingly it’s the supporting cast who delivers the best performances.  Rinko Kikuchi and Adriana Barraza were both nominated for best supporting actress.

The real strength of the film is it’s acting, because while the direction and writing are good, the story is contrived and boring.  None of these stories really stand on their own and never really seem to go anywhere.  It’s basically a series of unfortunate events as everyone just gets in deeper and deeper shit.  Often movies like this receive more credit than is due because audiences eat up of the six degrees of separation idea.

The Constant Gardner was all about story, a mystery at heart, you keep watching to see the story unfold.  It’s not exactly light and fluffy either, but you still feel as if you are getting somewhere as the plot of the film advances.

So why did Netflix recommend Babel to me?  Content wise these films are very different, but they both involved international travel, Africa and the UK in The Constant Gardner, and the US, Mexico, Morocco, and Japan in Babel.  It gives both films a similar feel, but I hardly think that it could be assumed that because you liked one that you would also like the other.

Because I hate Soccer and their ridiculous ties I’ve decided to give Netflix the point.  It’s a razor thing margin and could have gone either way, but when you consider how wrong Netflix was with Mr. Foe, Babel and The Constant Gardner are practically the same film.

The tally is now Netflix 3 wins and 4 losses.  Check back again to see what I watch next.

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52 weeks of netflix #7 the constant gardener

February 10, 2012 in 52 weeks of netflix, columns

Hello and welcome back to week 7 of 52 weeks of Netflix. This week I got to watch an Academy Award winning film – The Constant Gardener. How it relates to a weird ass movie like Mr. Foe, is beyond me.

I’m having a hard time drawing any similarities between these two films beyond the darker subject matter. The problem is the darker subject matter has nothing to do with each other; one is about a strange kid with a severe mommy complex, and another about an illegal pharmaceutical operation that leads to two very unjustifiable deaths.

Quick recap: Within the first ten minutes of the film you learn that good natured diplomat, Justin Quayle’s (played by Ralph Fiennes) wife Tessa Quayle (played by Rachel Weisz who won the Academy Award for this role), is killed.

The next 45 minutes of the movie is a flashback where you learn the history of the couple, their relationship, and follow their lives leading up to her death.

The movie is a puzzle. Information is giving cryptically through overheard conversations and secret letters, nothing but fragmented information. Tessa is a mystery not just to the audience but to her own husband. When the movie jumps back to present time, Justin is confronted with how little he knew not just about his wife, but the work she consumed herself with. It becomes obvious very quickly that bigger forces were responsible for her death, and he makes it his mission to solver her murder.

The movie ends with the reasons behind her murder being revealed, and justice not necessarily being served.

It was such a treat to watch a well-made, well-written, and well-acted script. It’s a movie I have been meaning to watch since it came out in 2005. In fact my husband and I rented it and accrued late fee’s in order to give ourselves more time to watch it, and still it went unseen.

However, this doesn’t change the fact that I can’t for the life of me figure out why they would recommend this film to Mr. Foe viewers. It seemed like a bit of stretch when they recommended it, but I had never seen it before, and I wanted to give Netflix the benefit of the doubt. WRONG!

This movie is so far from Mr. Foe it’s laughable. Not just in content but also in quality. These audiences do not co-mingle, unless you’re testing Netflix’s recommendation ability.

I’m giving Netflix a big fat loss for the week. A double loss if I could, because I can’t find one connection between the two films, except the actors are all British. If that’s Netflix criteria god help us for the next 45 weeks!

Stay tuned to see what Netflix makes me watch next!

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52 weeks of netflix #6 mister foe

January 11, 2012 in 52 weeks of netflix, columns

Hello and welcome back, after an extended break, to week 6 of 52 Weeks of Netflix. This week I watched a movie that centers on a boy with a serious Oedipus complex! Mister Foe, or as they titled it in Britain Hallam Foe, is based on a book with the same title, by British author Peter Jinks.

Netflix decided to go the dysfunctional family route connection this week. Love Come Down, my last Netflix movie was about a family that was haunted by its past, this week’s recommendation is also about a family haunted by its past but way more fucked up.

Quick Plot Recap: Hallam Foe is a young man whose mother killed herself just a few short years ago. Haunted by her death he retreats to a fantasy world that includes spying on people from afar and dressing up in his dead mother’s clothes.

His wealthy father, soon after his mother’s suicide, remarries a beautiful younger woman named Verti. Hallam is positive that Verti murdered his mother, and is openly hostile to her. She wants young Hallam out of the house and when her request is ignored she does the only sensible thing left to do; she seduces young Hallam so that after they have sex he is forced to leave.

Hallam moves to Edinbourough where he spots a woman named Kate on the street. Kate bears a striking resemblance to his mother. He follows her to work, at an upscale hotel, and gets a low level kitchen job. He stalks her immediately, including breaking into her home and smelling her vibrator!

Hallam and Kate soon start a weird love affair that is sure to make your skin crawl. However Kate learns about Hallams extracurricular stalking. Yet being a little fucked up in the head herself she gives him the chance to explain the situation and they soon start sleeping together again.

The climax of the film is Hallam attempting to murder Verti the same way he thinks she murdered his mother, only to learn that- oh shit people do really drown when gagged and tied up. He rescues Verti, revives her and things in his world get a little less weird.

I did not like this movie. Rotten Tomatoes described it as “whimsy with a bite”. I would just say fucked up and disturbing.

If you liked Love Come Down I could see how you might, possibly, maybe, dig this movie based on the darker subject matter and not-so Leave it to Beaver home lives. It’s better written and filmed than any of the movies I’ve seen so far, but I just couldn’t get past the content.

I’m not awarding Netflix a point this week because I think the subject matter is just too dark, and requires the watcher to take too big of a jump. It’s as if I ordered a glass of water and they brought me my own pitcher. Way more than I, or any viewer, bargained for.

This film got mixed reviews on Netflix but pretty good IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes reviews, so I’d be interested in hearing what others thought. Am I missing the mark?

Also tune in for my next article and see what Netflix recommends for me next!

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52 weeks of netflix #5 love come down

November 18, 2011 in 52 weeks of netflix, columns

Week 5: Love Come Down

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Hello and welcome back to week 5 of 52 weeks of Netflix! My relationship continues to be tumultuous with Netflix instant streaming, but alas I was recommended a movie I could actually watch! It’s a random one…Love Come Down.

Netflix made some real asinine recommendations for me this week. It decided that if I watched St. Elmo ’s Fire then I must obviously enjoy drug centered films! Actually Netflix, I really hate movies about drugs, and Demi Moore’s pathetic two second coke addiction was so 80’s its crazy pants.

This week really turned out to be a test in not cheating! Who would know? Who would check? Does anyone even read this to begin with! I didn’t because I love you all too much.

Instead I decided to pick the movie that had the lowest Netflix recommendation score, Love Come Down, and hoped that since Netflix thought I wouldn’t like it, the opposite would be true!

Quick Recap: Two half-brothers, one black, one white, share the same mother but have different fathers. The film follows both brothers as they struggle with how to deal with the trauma of their mother killing their father when they were kids.

The black brother turns to drugs for relief, the white brother to violence. Through a series of flash backs you learn what really happened between their mother and father and the big twist at the end…SPOILER ALERT…is that the white brother actually killed his step- father. Mom offers herself up to save her son as the one who committed murder, and they’ve been trying to cope ever since.

I thought this movie was really beautifully filmed. The script is written poetically and overall it looked and sounded good. The big problem is that it moves so slow that the big climax/reveal at the end is anticlimactic. The flash backs are too far apart and no momentum gets built up where you believe this kid would actually murder his step-dad. The boy seems sort of deranged, and I actually felt bad for the dad when he got killed and thought the son deserved to go to jail. I know this is not what I was supposed to feel, and I don’t think I’m the only one who had this observation, evident by its really low Rotten Tomato score.

In terms of recommendation based on my last movie Netflix totally dropped the ball this week on many levels. First, Demi Moore’s after school special drug habit in St. Elmo’s fire is not the reason people watch that movie, and so ONLY recommending drug movies is absurd. Fear and Loathing, St. Elmo’s is not. Netflix get your shit together.

On another level, the audience for these two films couldn’t be more different. Love Come Down was produced specifically through Black Starz, and while I don’t think you have to be black to enjoy the film, I’m not sure that same audience wants to watch a film about a bunch of upper class mid-western white kids who just graduated from college. Just a guess!

I will give Netflix points for recommending to me a better movie than St. Elmo’s Fire with Love Come Down, yet a thin connection of drug abuse sub plots does not win you points my friend. And so Netflix, you lose this one. You were lazy and I don’t appreciate it. I’m expecting more from you!

Join me for week 6 where I’ll watch another film that hopefully Netflix instant streaming doesn’t take it off before I can watch it. We’ll see if they bring their “A” game. I’m watching you Netflix…

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52 weeks of netflix #4 st. elmo’s fire

November 4, 2011 in 52 weeks of netflix, columns

Week 4: St. Elmo’s Fire

Netflix Score: 2/1

Hello and welcome back to week 4 of my 52 weeks of Netflix! I have, in the past, been accused of being self-centered, and this may be another example, but I’m pretty sure someone from Netflix is reading my blog, and then taking down my next week recommendation from instant streaming before I get the chance to watch it!

Why Netflix? Not confident in your choices?

So instead of watching Hotel New Hampshire, which I was looking forward to because of its kick ass Sweet Valley High movie poster- I got to watch St. Elmo’s Fire. This 80’s classic had, before this week, escaped my viewing pleasure, mostly because the fashion of that era drives me nuts and I hate seeing pretty people look ugly.

Quick Plot Recap: seven best friends and recent college graduates find themselves thrust into a world of adulthood. They’re not expected to just act more adult, but be adults on steroids. These 22 year old graduates immediately get real careers, spoil their credit/lose their jobs, talk marriage, and deal with having children. No back packing through Europe for these bitches!

The film follows their individual lives, now that their living in the “real world”, and the group dynamics. Typical story plots ensue: everyone sleeps with everyone else or wants to, Demi Moore has a superficial drug crisis, and the bonds of friendship are tested. I want to call out some of the more ridiculous plot points of this film such as: Emilio Estavez being a crazed stalker, Rob Lowe’s whole character, the story behind the name of the movie that makes no sense,  Demi Moore’s two second drug habit to cocaine, and the fucking leave-it-to-beaver moment at the end with the Ally Sheedy, Andrew McCarthy and Judd Nelson all agreeing to let things go even though she fucked both of them and they supposedly are in love with her! Thank you for letting me get that out, it has nothing to do with Netflix- I just had to put those thoughts to paper.

Netflix definitely got more linear with its recommendation this week. The connection between St. Elmo’s Fire and About Last Night are pretty clear: Brat-Pack actors, similar plot lines, beautiful twenty-something’s having some sex. Netflix is totally honing in on my guilty pleasure for watching complex emotions distilled down to paint-by-numbers situations, and for that I applaud them!

While I think St. Elmo’s Fire is a lesser movie than About Last Night, I think if you liked one you might like to watch the other. So Netflix wins this week with another like-minded movie pick.

I’m changing it up a bit, in an effort to not have my movie removed by the Netflix powers that be, and keeping my next week film pick a secret!

Stay tuned…

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