Losing Interest?

I thought about calling our friends at Netflix to ask a couple questions and to give some heartfelt advice. The questions would be about changes made by Netflix when I dropped the mail DVD option. “Why have you taken away the complete filmographies I used to be able to access?” and “Why are you only showing a few movie recommendations for me and telling me that I need to rate more movies to get more recommendations, even though I have rated over 2,600 movies?”.

The advice would be to put back the full filmographies and recommendations because, without those functions, I am finding that the Netflix site has significantly less attraction and I am less inclined to watch instant view movies than I was when I was still receiving DVDs. I don’t need Netflix for my archival ratings, since I have those on a spreadsheet in the better decimal accuracy, and I don’t need the Netflix recommendation algorithm because I can use the IMDb ratings, adjusted by my own formula, to better effect. Bottom line, I am beginning to wonder if Netflix instant view is worth the price.

But maybe a reality check is in order. Maybe I have been getting burned out on movie watching for a while and Netflix just made it easier to cut back. For a change of pace, since Netflix instant view has many of the older movies, I decided to go back and watch a few I had rated 4 stars at Netflix based on memory [like Peggy Sue and Unmarried Woman]. While I still thought they were good, I downgraded them to 3 stars.

Here is what I have watched since I posted my last list. [The ratings I give are on my own number system which is explained at the link on the sidebar].

Peggy Sue Got Married – 1986 (3.2). Time travel 25 years back to high school may give the heroine a chance to choose a different course for her life, rather than marrying her high school sweetheart who ended up breaking her heart. Nice nostalgia from Francis Coppola. Nicolas Cage is a hoot as Kathleen Turner’s Dion wannabe boyfriend.

Welcome – 2009 (3.0). The write-ups for this French movie are a bit misleading. Yes, it is about a young Kurd who comes to France on his way to his sweetheart whose family has moved to London, and who runs into legal and practicability obstacles in trying to get across the Channel, so he decides to swim, with training from a French coach. But no, the film does not take place largely at sea, with the swimmer valiantly stroking on while the coach in the boat shouts encouragement. The title is ironic, because the movie shows how unwelcome the Kurds are in France. The story is actually more about the coach, who is going through a divorce from a woman who is an activist for immigrants, and how he is trying to deal with that breakup and reevaluate his own life, just at a time when the young Kurd shows up and impresses with his resolve. Well written, directed and acted with quality production values, this movie featured likeable characters in situations that felt authentic.

An Unmarried Woman – 1978 (3.0). I remember seeing this in the theater in 1978 and being impressed with script’s modern treatment of a woman going through a divorce and moving on with her life, and with the excellent acting of Jill Clayburgh. Seeing it again after more than 30 years, it still has its merits, but is also dated. The modernity of the viewpoint now seems a bit quaint and the overpowering musical score is annoying. But Jill’s performance is still quite impressive, going from a very capable working wife and mother to a distraught betrayed wife and then a nervous inexperienced woman trying to move on with her life, becoming a little too self-assured followed by an ingénue reversion with a new lover and finally capably standing on her own ready to face life confidently. Filmed on real locations and street in NYC, the passersby lens an air of documentary vitality.

Black Robe – 1991 (2.9). Jesuit missionaries in 1634 Quebec interfacing with Algonquin, Iroquois and Huron people is the background for this movie, filmed almost entirely outdoors in late autumn and early winter. A new priest sets out on 1500 mile canoe trip through Iroquois country to the Huron, accompanied by an extended Algonquin family and a young Frenchman. The Algonquin people try to figure what the Black Robe is really about and whether he is a demon, while he examines his own vocation and the difficulty of instilling Christian beliefs into people who already have their own sense of what life is about. The strength of this film is in showing the beauty of nature and the harsh reality of that place, time and mission.

Page Eight – 2011 (2.8). This PBS Masterpiece Contemporary movie stars Bill Nighy as an old British MI-5 agent confronting with the prospect of becoming a whistleblower and then having to face the expected retaliatory consequences. The star studded cast seems wasted on what turns out to be a rather tepid drama, but the overall style of the production and quality of the acting still make it worth watching.

The War of 1812 – 2011 (2.8).  This PBS documentary used reenactments, maps, a few portraits and interviews with scholars to explain how the War of 1812 came about, was fought and concluded and the effect it had. Though informative and including a few personal stories, the overall effect was not as memorable as the similar films made by Ken Burns. Granted there are no archival films and photos available to tell these older stories, the use of reenactments is tricky, sometimes adding dramatic impact but too often appearing just hokey. Here the reenactments were marginal.

North Face – 2008 (2.8). This German movie is based on a true story of two competing duos of climbers, one German and one Austrian, trying to conquer the last unclimbed mountain fce in the Alps in 1936. A childhood girl friend of the Germans now works for a newspaper and gets her first job in the field travelling with a veteran reporter to cover the climbing attempt. The climbing scenes are tremendous, with all the drama coming from the climb itself, supplemented minimally by the subplot of possible romantic interest of the woman for one of the climbers and her disdain for the veteran reporter’s treatment of the climbing dangers as good story material without regard for the safety of the climbers.

The Other Side of Sunday – 1996 (2.8). This Norwegian Oscar nominated drama [Netflix labels as a comedy also] tells about the 1960ish coming of age of a teenage daughter of a small town married priest with a sickly wife. The girl struggles with her emerging sexuality as she also resists getting confirmed for fear of living her life as what she calls a “church hag”. Unable to fully relate to the other teenagers, she warms up to a repressed woman who is the church organist and who is attracted to the priest. Though it has its moments, the overall effect is a bit off putting and it is hard to fully warm up to the girl even though one can sympathize with her situation and admire her determination.

Eight Men Out – 1988 (2.8). This dramatization of the 1919 Chicago Black sox scandal seems to be fairly straight forward at first but then starts to feel increasingly like a stylized presentation from some sort of pulp magazine. Maybe that was the intention, but I found it disappointing. Despite apparently fairly high production values, scenes of playoff and World Series ball games were woefully deficient in creating any feeling of actually being present at these events. There was no cast of thousands of extras and the sounds and many of the close ups indicated sound stage and sand lot rather than real major league stands and ball fields. The actual baseball playing showed a minimal amount of time spent teaching the actors to look like professional ball players. But this true story and the period feel are enough to make the movie still watchable.

SherryBaby – 2006 (2.7). Maggie Gyllenhaal exposes herself literally and figuratively and appears in every scene in this movie written and directed by a female mentee of her mother. The story is aboout a sexually promiscuous parolee trying to stay drug free, get a  job and establish a relationship with her young daughter who has been in the care of the parolee’s brother and wife. The script spends too much time showing the promiscuity and does not offer any explanation for the behavior until near the end. If the explanation had been given earlier and the rest of the movie devoted to confronting it, the film would have been much better.

Warrior of Light – 2001 (2.7). This German made documentary about an artistic upper crust Brazilian woman who developed her own program for helping street kids in Rio, is a little too disjointed and spends too much time listening to the woman expound rather than showing more of the lives of the children on the street, but it may be worth watching to see the woman practice a dedicated hands on type of love for these unfortunate but exotically appealing children.