Film Retrospective
Posted at 3:00 pm on Wednesday, August 8, 2007, in Film Retrospective.
There are a lot more movies out there than you have previously thought.
I have always thought that film critics are useless (“two thumbs up” … your ass). No one can tell you if you will like this film or that film, much less offer a unique enough perspective to warrant being paid to publish their reviews. That being said, I proudly offer my retrospectives on films I have seen through the Netflix service.
Please do not take too much concern with the ratings I have assigned to each film. Sometimes I have a bad day, or I get tired and never finish a movie, and the film’s rating sometimes takes unjust punishment as a result. And just like politics, and wine, a person’s point-of-view changes with time; usually for the worse, but sometimes for the better. In any sense, please see the films for yourself through Netflix.
The order of the films reviewed may seem chaotic. That is because it is. It is in the order that I have seen (or, in some cases, re-seen) the movies with Netflix.* Hopefully, through the luck of rainy winters in the San Francisco bay area and the power of Greyskull, I will re-watch a lot of classic movies through Netflix, including UHF, Dumb and Dumber, and Opportunity Knocks. That way, I can review them as if they were newly-released; the way it should be.
I have always wondered why people link to Amazon.com for every reference to films (and books, etc.) when it is much more useful to the end-user to have a link to Netflix. That is what I do. For you.
I have long thought that good television is just as artistic as film, so I may end up including television reviews, as well. But there is just so much crap on television. At least with Netflix, you can only get one or two pieces of crap (read: DVDs) a week.
* Note: I will be back-posting movies I have already seen through Netflix in order to catch up before I start posting new viewings. As of today, my Netflix account says that I have seen and returned 99 movies, so this may take some time. But it’ll be fun.
No related posts.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:38 am
For what little it’s worth, I disagree on your basic precept that film critics are useless–at least, not completely. (Logically, you must agree with me, or else you consider your upcoming reviews on Netflix useless, too.)
You’re right in that no one can guarantee whether or not you’ll like a film, but a good critic will, over time, let you understand enough of his or her likes and dislikes to form an opinion of that critic and whether you can trust his or her reviews. For example, when you referred to the movies “UHF,” “Dumb and Dumber,” and “Opportunity Knocks” as classics, you revealed a different view of the term “classics” than mine.
One last comment: I think many people post movie reviews at Amazon because they sell so many DVD’s and they own the IMDB, too.
August 9th, 2007 at 7:42 am
(I didn’t know that Amazon.com owned IMDB.) I was suggesting that a link to Netflix to rent the movie is more appropriate than a link to Amazon to buy the movie. Meaning, for the reader to think, “oh, you liked the movie, maybe I should buy it,” that is nonsense.
August 9th, 2007 at 9:15 am
I now understand what you menat about Amazon and I agree. Amazon must think its reviewers are persuasive enough to influence others to buy the movies.