Be Sure to Watch The Wire

It is very violent and quite profane, but The Wire rings out with truth on every level and topic it touches. It would have taken several documentaries to teach us as much as we learn from this series, but the dramatic presentation and validly earthy humor of The Wire makes it all so much more enjoyable and memorable. Be sure to watch the seasons in sequence, so the story arc can be more clearly followed.

A recent flurry of mail DVDs from Netflix will now slow to the trickle of one at a time starting this week. I expect to watch more movies from my streaming queue now, and hold off on activating my library queue. It also might be a good idea to slow the whole viewing process and use some of the time for other pursuits.

So again, here is what I have watched on DVD and streaming since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system explained at the link on the sidebar. Those watched via Netflix instant view, include “Streamed” after the numeric rating.

The Wire [Season 4] – 2006 (3.8). The story arc of this series was planned for a five season run, with each year coming to enough of a conclusion to suffice if the show was not renewed. Season 4 ventures into the stories of four middle high age kids being lured by the drug game and the difficulties the school system has with the woefully neglected and disruptive “corner” kids. The politics continues, embracing the police department and school system and we see several of the adults trying to reach out to troubled kids, with mixed results. With the knowledge we have acquired from the first three seasons, season 4 reaches new heights of achievement.

Rabbit Hole –  2010 (3.1). The playwright wrote a good screen play for this adaptation of his Pulitzer play about a couple struggling with the accidental death of their four year old eight months ago. Nicole Kidman gives a fine performance as the grieving mother and the rest of the cast and the directing are good. But the intelligent story is the star and the script is refreshingly cinematic in spite of its stage origins.

Get on the Bus – 1996 (3.0). A diverse group of African American men ride a chartered bus from Los Angeles to attend the Million Man March in Washington DC in 1995, and along the way discuss and argue about many aspects of the black male experience in America and about their individual attitudes on many race related topics in this spike Lee movie. Intelligently written by Reggie Rock Bythewood, though most of the movie takes place on the bus, the movie has a dynamic feel that avoids claustrophobia. Though it says a lot, it does not seem preachy.

30 for 30: The Two Escobars – 2010 (3.0). This ESPN documentary deftly tells the story of Columbian drug lord Pablo Escobar and Columbian soccer star Andres Escobar, two unrelated men from the same city whose paths crossed when soccer fan Pablo got involved with the sport as another way to launder drug money. Talented Andres was part of the highly paid team that quickly put Columbia as a favorite for the 1994 World Cup. Using interviews and archival footage, this movie manages to entertainingly educate about the Columbian drug cartel, the war on drugs, Columbian culture and the 1994 World Cup elimination of Columbia at the hands of a vastly underdog team USA.

Mao’s Last Dancer – 2010 (3.0). A true story of a Chinese village boy taken from his parents and brothers at age 11 to be trained as a ballet dancer, rising to be a star and coming alone on a cultural exchange to America, where he experiences culture shock, first love and a freedom which raises his dancing to new heights, this Australian film uses a good script, tight direction and competent acting to tell the tale. The ballet scenes are beautifully choreographed and filmed and quickly enough paced to be attractive even to those of us who may be “ballet challenged”.

The Wire – [Season Five] – 2007 (3.0). The final season of the series is a bit of a letdown. The introduction of the newspaper role in the community is good but comes along a bit late, while all the other story lines seem to wrap up a little too fast. Too much time is spent on a far-fetched scheme concocted by one of the police detectives. Though it is part of the winding down story, the scheme does not ring with the truth of the other parts of this series.

Ugetsu – 1953 (2.9) Streamed. Japanese director Kenji Mizoguchi directed this 16^th Century story of two ambitious men and their wives caught up in the turmoil of civil war and how the wartime experiences affect their lives. This movie is nicely paced, with a good feel for the feudal times on a more intimate scale than in many epic films, and this story maintains interest.

GasLand – 2010 (2.9). This is a very amateurish documentary with excruciatingly poor camera work, but the subject matter of the dangers of gathering underground natural gas by fracturing the bedrock is quite important. The drilling technique involves over 500 chemicals being injected under pressure to create miniature earthquakes and it is being employed in thousands of wells in over 30 US States. Under regulated and poorly monitored, the process may be polluting many underground water sources and it also results in voluminous drilling fluid sludge which is not being properly handled (much of it was placed in reservoirs in Louisiana and subsequently dispersed with hurricane flood waters). The film maker was motivated by concern for drilling proposals on his Pennsylvania home acreage, and he travelled to several States to interview people whose well water now bursts into flames. Also interviewed are a few scientists and a couple regulators. Predictably, the drilling industry declined to be interviewed, though there is some footage of their spokesmen at a Congressional hearing.

Coup de Torchon (Clean Slate) – 1981 (2.9). A pulp novel about the American south is adapted to Senegal on the verge of WWII, in this typically stylish and watchable movie from French director Bertrand Tavernier. The story is about an inept colonial police officer who is tired of being the butt of jokes and decides to take revenge. Also well scripted and acted, shot on location with soft Fuji film and Stedicams, the film is funny in some spots and dramatic in others and has some intelligent perspectives, but I never quite felt like I knew what made the police officer tick. Maybe that was the point. The DVD has a very good interview with the director, and though it has some spoiler aspects, it is worth watching first to enhance the viewing of the movie.

The Way Back – 2010 (2.8). Inspired by a true story, this movie tells a tale of survival as a multinational group of men escape from a Siberian gulag near the end of WWII and trek across Siberia, the Gobi Desert and the Himalayas trying to reach freedom in India. Not as dramatically scripted as it could have been, the film is nevertheless competently done and the scenery (actually Bulgaria and Morroco) is spectacular.

Tokyo Story – 1953 (2.8) Streamed. Japanese master Ozu directed this story of parents traveling from their remote home town to Tokyo to visit three of their adult children, who are not thrilled to see them. However the widow of their deceased son is genuinely pleased by their visit. The youngest daughter remained home and is not happy with the attitude of the older siblings. A bit long and filmed with the signature thigh high fixed camera, this movie is slow paced as it reflects on how adult children drift away from their parents.

The Misfortunates – 2009 (2.7). This Flemish language film set in the Flanders region of Belgium tells about a young teenager growing up in the 1980s in the household of his long suffering grandmother, who has the misfortune of also housing her four adult alcoholic sons. The movie tells the story of the son, now himself unintentionally becoming a father, by a woman he does not love, and how he reflects and writes about that, remembering back to growing up in that grossly dysfunctional family. Though basically well acted and directed, the script manages to create only a small amount of understanding or sympathy for the young boy, but none for him as an adult nor for any of the other characters. This would be a good movie for “Lesser Flanders” to use to discourage tourism.

Of Gods and Men – 2010 (2.6). A French drama of a true story about French Trappist monks in the mountains of Algeria caught up in a struggle between government forces and Islamist radicals, this Cannes winner, though well-acted and filmed, had a disappointing script. There are many things we could have learned about the lives of these monks, including how they related to their vocation, each other, God, the villagers, the Church, the Algerian government, the French Government and the radical Islamists. But each of these was barely touched upon and too much slow time was spent showing the monks in chapel chanting prayers. How each monk approached the decision of whether to stay and face the radicals was interesting, but deserved more script time, and the potentially fascinating dialogue between the monks and the radicals about religion was limited to just a couple lines.

The Lincoln Lawyer – 2011 (2.2). This Netflix member review hits the nail on the head for me: “Saying something is the best Matthew McConaughey movie ever is not saying much, let's face it. I thought this was supposed to be good! Wow, what low bars we have set for film, apparently. This actually had potential, but was lost in cutesy pie glibness and plot holes the size of Jupiter. The mom - just ridiculous. Not a bad movie until the denouement, when everything is explained in 5 minutes - in a less than satisfying way. Why waste talents like Bill Macy or Marissa Tomei in something like this? Must have been a big payday for them - or maybe they, like me, were expecting this to be so much better.” But I would say it was a bad movie even before the denouement. Trivia: there is no profanity at all in this movie (not that profanity would have made it any better).

A Shine of Rainbows – 2009 (2.0). Maybe the book was OK but a lousy script, dull acting and shoddy direction make this tale of an orphan boy brought to an Irish island by a loving prospective mother who is married to a cold fish a boring bunch of blarney.

A Major Move from Netflix – and My Personal Response

Last week Netflix continued its push toward streaming video with a major move. Effective the first of September, there will now be a separate charge for streaming in addition to the charge for DVDs in the mail. A customer can elect to get movies by mail, by stream or both. The change was announced by a bare bones e-mail to customers, many of whom took to the Internet to express immediate outrage and threats to cancel.

Netflix is a smart company.  Streaming video has been the obvious future for some time and Netflix got the jump on everyone else by giving it away for free to its mail customers, even those who subscribe at the one DVD at a time level. That extremely good deal is now going to go up 60%, while those who get more than one at a time will see lesser increases. 

Bifurcating streaming subscriptions from mail ones will enable Netflix to drive a harder bargain in negotiating payment for streaming rights, because Netflix will be able to show that not all its members will be streaming movies, and Netflix should only have to pay for the ones who have paid Netflix for streaming rights. The movie by mail business has very high overhead compared to the steaming business, so Netflix is probably not that concerned about mail customers cancelling. It is highly unlikely a customer who has been accessing the Netflix extensive collection by mail will be switching to a Redbox kiosk instead. Some may cut back on the number of mail DVDs and plan to stream more to compensate. The streaming collection should grow as more Netflix resources are freed up from the mail business and applied to the steam side. If fewer people sign on for streaming, then Netflix should be able to buy content cheaper, and if more people sign on, then Netflix will have more revenue for purchasing.  

Here is how this has played out for me. I found streaming on my computer to be unsatisfactory. But as I saw the streaming collection grow, I got more interested and eventually invested in the equipment to stream to my home theater in the living room. After all, I was getting the streaming for free, so why not spend for the equipment. That is how smart Netflix was, because they knew people like me would not both pay for the streaming and buy the equipment. But now that I have the set up, I am likely to pay for the stream to use it, which is what I have decided to do.

I have been complaining for some time that my Netflix mail queue was not very exciting. Other than fairly new movies, most of what is in my mail queue I can also get from my public library, like I used to do up until a year or so ago. I have a much larger streaming queue, because that collection includes lots of documentaries and foreign films that appeal to me. I was streaming more and still getting my three DVD mail quota, but when I couldn’t get The Wire Season Two from Netflix, I got it from the library along with the final three seasons. I had been thinking of cutting back to two in the mail, but now I have decided to go back to just one at a time by mail, stream lots more and get some from the library again.

Bottom line is a win for both Netflix and me. They save on the overhead of mailing to me and I save on my overall payment to Netflix. I will be paying less than I was and watching as many or more movies. The one I get by mail will probably be a newer movie which I will watch and return quickly so I can try to get six or eight a month. I won’t have three mailed DVDs sitting around nagging me to watch. I’ll try to stream more than I was and use the library more for DVD sets, like a season of a TV series. 

More Netflix Modifications

Netflix did not seem to be able to send me Season Two of The Wire, so I have been receiving an odd mix of Netflix back up movies in the meantime. Seems strange they cannot send me The Wire disks from some other part of the country. I wonder if they are starting to let their disk stock shrink by attrition as they steer the customers into more streaming. They don’t even warn that it The Wire a “long wait”. I got on the hold list for seasons two through five at the King County Library (now ranked number one in circulation in the country), and they have been fulfilling my requests surprisingly fast.

Another Netflix problem is that the member reviews feature is not working all the time now. A Google search about the problem turned up an interesting blog posting by “The Professor”, one of the top reviewers at Netflix. He confirms that Netflix is not restocking its old DVD supply. I think The Professor is right, and that Netflix is purposely hastening its transition from a mail provider of tens of thousands of diverse movies on DVD to an internet streaming company with a much smaller inventory. Labor and other overhead savings will be enormous and movie viewers with more exotic taste will be stuck with whatever they can get from Netflix until some other company comes along with a better deal.

It is easy to be angry with Netflix, but The Professor is right that the company deserves credit. Right now there are lots of interesting foreign and independent movies available by Netflix streaming. New movies might also remain a Netflix mail niche for a while (I just received a DVD of Barney’s Version from Netflix on the day after it was released). But for older movies, it may be time to consider using the library again, and now I think I know how to control my library hold queue so I don’t get too many at a time.

Looking back over June, I see that I got 14 in the mail from Netflix and I streamed 9. My average ratings for them were pretty similar, 2.87 for the mail and 2.74 for the streams. Streaming ratings may average a little lower because they include watching some marginal possibilities that are not “mail worthy”. Following the philosophically positive approach of The Professor, if Netflix continues to stream foreign and independent movies, then maybe some folks who would not request them by mail will give them a stream try and be pleasantly surprised, and they might become more diverse film buffs.

Another way Netflix ups the ratings is by not showing or allowing a separate rating for each season of a TV series (though in fairness, neither does the IMDB). This makes a higher rating more likely, such as for a series that had a good debut and then went downhill after the first couple seasons. If the ratings showed a decline after season two, then Netflix members might not watch subsequent seasons. It is all about encouraging people to keep watching (and paying).

Though two seasons of The Wire top this current list, its graphic was used on the last list, so the runner up is being shown this time.

So again, here is what I have watched on DVD and streaming since I posted my last list. The ratings I give are on my own number system explained at the link on the sidebar. Those watched via Netflix instant view, include “Streamed” after the numeric rating.

The Wire [Season Three] – 2005 (3.5). The detail is still working on catching the higher up drug pushers, but now we are shown more on the politics of the war on drugs, within the police department and in the city government. An interesting experiment involves a limited drug tolerance policy, while rival drug pushers forge a joint venture to maximize profits. But as the police detail closes in, disharmony and revenge cause turmoil for the pushers. This story arc continues on a more interesting line than season two.

The Wire [Season Two] – 2004 (3.3). The police detail is reconstituted by a Major who has a vendetta against a longshoreman’s union official, who he suspects is hijacking cargo. This leads to connections with smuggling drugs, prostitutes and other merchandize. The union people and smugglers are new, while most of the police and drug dealers remain the same. The freshness of the first season is diminished and a bit of deja vu sets in, though the overall quality is still there.

Bertie & Elizabeth – 2002 (3.3). Typically good acting is on display in this straightforward Masterpiece Theater telling of the romance and married life of the parents of Queen Elizabeth II. The stuttering of The King’s Speech is touched upon and the uplifting heroism of the royal couple during the blitz of London is portrayed. The abdicator older brother and his American seducer are devastatingly portrayed, making George VI and his Queen all the more appealing.

The Rainmaker – 1997 (3.2). Francis Ford Coppola adapted the Grisham novel and directed this nicely done movie about a new lawyer in Memphis who is mentored by a bar exam serial flunkee and falls for a young battered wife while taking on a corrupt health insurance company on behalf of a terminally ill insured who was wrongfully denied coverage. Matt Damon was quite appealing in a more down to earth role and Claire Danes impressed me again even before I recognized her. Danny DeVito was even under control. I wish Coppola would do more films.

Beyond Silence – 1996 (3.2). This German Oscar nominee manages to deftly handle some potentially heavy material about a musically talented girl growing up with deaf parents who are unable to encourage her musical pursuits. The father’s sister is a musician and steps in to prod the girl, much to the consternation of the deaf father who never has gotten along with his sister. The movie seems to find the right balance of light and heavy, happy and sad, while showing a quite appealing young lady who knows that her childhood was challenging, but also enriching. Director Caroline Link also made Nowhere in Africa, which I gave 4 stars, and I see she has a third movie from 2008, which is not yet available at Netflix.

That’s What I Am – 2011 (3.0) Streamed. Reminiscent of The Wonder Years, set in junior high in the 1960s, this family movie, produced by the production arm of World Wrestling Entertainment, intelligently presents issues of going steady, bullying, geeks, poor parenting, good teaching and homosexuality. Not a bad accomplishment, especially by being entertaining rather than preachy.

Marriage Italian Style – 1964 (2.9) Streamed. The main reason I streamed this was to see young Sophia Loren again, but what I found was a movie that I could appreciate for much more than her beauty alone. The story is about a poor Neapolitan girl thrust out on her own at 16 and ending up in a brothel, where she falls in love with a wealthy unmarried client and eventually gets him to set her up as his mistress. He comes to depend on her to help run his retail businesses, even though she is illiterate, and to help care for his ornery mother in her last years, but he steadfastly resists her attempts to get him to marry her. This is more of a drama, with its humor arising naturally, and Sophia showed her acting range.

16 to Life – 2009 (2.8) Streamed. This low budget indie coming of age movie, shot in rural Iowa on the Mississippi, is nice looking, well-paced and presents some interesting characters in a low key way. Written and directed by first time writer and director Becky Smith, born and raised in small town Iowa, it centers on one day in the life of locals working in a hamburger stand and dealing with love and sex related issues involving other locals and some upscale visitors to nearby vacation homes. Netflix only has this in streaming format.

High Tide – 1987 (2.8) Streamed. Judy Davis does her usual good job of acting in this Aussie movie about a young woman whose husband died and who then abandoned her young daughter to be raised by the paternal grandmother. Leading an aimless life she then stumbles upon the young teenager and grandmother and fumbles about trying to decide whether she can handle getting involved. The actresses playing the daughter and grandmother do well also. Netflix only has this in streaming format.

Barney’s Version – 2010 (2.7). The novel may have been acclaimed but this Canadian movie adaptation is disappointing, with an uneven and uninteresting script. A bit overlong, the film nevertheless fails to take the time to help us understand any of the characters. There are a few laughs up front, as the movie borders on buffoonery, but then as the hero marries the woman of his dreams (his third marriage) the humor disappears, but the drama never develops because the story jumps along without allowing for any character development beyond aging. Paul Giamatti does good with the little he is given, Minnie Driver’s talents are wasted and Rosamund Pike’s supposedly dream girl part is actually blandly written. I guess the story is supposed to be all from the hero’s subjective point of view, but that is not made very clear, and even so, it does not make the movie any better.

New in Town – 2009 (2.7) Streamed. Yet another version of the big city corporate downsizer sent to the small town to eliminate jobs at the local factory and then being charmed by the community and romanced by a member of the opposition, this movie offers nothing new while doing a so-so job of re-telling. Though portraying New Ulm Minnesota as the factory town of wholesome virtues, the movie was actually filmed in Manitoba.

The Velveteen Rabbit – 2007 (2.7) Streamed. This version of the classic combined live action and animation, but did not truly follow the source story line. The 8-10 age bracket recommended by Netflix is about right, but the gentle theme of needing to love may be prone to going over the heads of some kids. Though fairly well done, it seems like such a classic should have come across better. Part of the problem was not telling the correct story and part was the way the telling was done. The truer 30 minute animated version from 1985 is not available from Netflix, but is available through some libraries.

Gods and Monsters – 1998 (2.7). The script for this movie about the final weeks of the life of director James Whale won the Oscar for adaptation, but I thought it was weak, barely holding interest until well into the movie. Whale directed Frankenstein and several other films and was openly gay. His sexuality and experiences as a trench officer and prisoner of war in WWI brought out a macabre sense of humor which was reflected in his movies, but the film, using a relationship with a young heterosexual gardener as a vehicle, did not do that effective a job of helping us understand Whale.

Rebel without a Cause – 1955 (2.7). Watch this one only for historical reasons, to see James Dean in one of the three main movies he made, and Sal Mineo in an Oscar nominated role, and to see the first movie told from the point of view of post WWII teenagers. Otherwise the film is dated and now seems a bit stilted, in spite of what for its time was considered fresh and real.

How to Train Your Dragon – 2010 (2.4). Dreamworks quality animation is always impressive, even without watching in 3-D. The theme of this story is about a sensitive Viking boy learning to make peace with the dragons that have menaced his people for 300 years, but too much screen time is filled with violent dragons for my taste. Kids for whom it is truly age appropriate will probably enjoy the violence more than the sensitivity. Kids too young will probably see it also and really be scared.