Netflix Recommendations....

....kinda, well...suck.

I read somewhere that Netflix had a contest for a million dollars for someone who could improve their recommendations. They need it.

Recently I got this odd genre category: "Cerebral Movies With a Strong Female Lead"

Um, okay, that sounds like the SORT of movie I might like, but...

Based on Your Interest in:

Sex as Comedy (Catherine Breillat)

Filmmaker Catherine Breillat's semiautobiographical tale captures the making of a cinematic sex scene in all its awkwardness. Jeanne (Anne Parillaud), the director, has a clear vision of what she wants, but the actors (Grégoire Colin and Roxane Mesquida) loathe each other and just can't make it work. The situation is further complicated by Jeanne's sexual relationship with the actor, who balks as she tries to exert her directorial authority.

Netflix recommends:

Very Young Girls (Rachel Lloyd)

David Schisgall's startling documentary captures the heartbreaking stories of underage girls -- many as young as 13 -- who've been forced into prostitution in New York, exposing how pimps use isolation, violence and drugs to keep girls dependent. Many of the girls interviewed take part in GEMS, a shelter and mentoring program founded by activist Rachel Lloyd -- once a prostitute herself -- that helps them transition out of "the life."

Netflix "Recommendations"

I hate to pile on Netflix since, on the whole, they do a lot of things right. I would like to note by way of preface, though, that my profile says that I have rated 2874 movies at that site under their urging that if I rate more movies, they can fine tune my recommendations.

So I think it's a little disingenuous of them to parse what was no doubt a paid banner promotion as a recommendation:

"If you enjoyed:

Drawn Together, Season 1
Escape to Grizzly Mountain

We think you'll enjoy:

Futurama: Bender's Big Score."



Hey, thanks for that head's up, guys.

I'm pretty sure if YOU enjoyed The Harlem Globetrotters Visit Gilligan's Island and From Justin 2 Kelly, you will probably like Hanna Barbara Presents: A Lawrence of Arabia Christmas.

I'm running off to update my queue right now.

Netflix Queue Housecleaning--Part II

The following were my additions to my Netflix Queue based on my friends' lists of favorite discoveries in 2007. Wonder how many I'll get to see?

Les Miserables
My Brother's Wedding
Cria Cuervos
Muriel
The Emperor's Naked Army Marches On
Christmas in July
Ten
Le Notti Blanche
The House is Black
Flowers of Shanghai
F for Fake
Monsieur Verdoux
Kiss Me Deadly
Films of Kenneth Anger (Vol. 1)
Knife in the Water
Donkey Skin
The Young Girls of Rochefort

Netflix Queue Housecleaning (Part I)

At a film discussion group I frequent, some members have been posting some great "favorite discovery" lists. These are films that were not new to 2007 but that the members enjoyed as one of their 10 favorite "new to me" films experiences.

I decided to cull through their lists and use it to stock my Netflix queue for the coming year. But first that meant some housecleaning. I decided to go through my queue and remove items that weren't making it up the list. You know how it goes, you see something and say "that might be interesting" so you throw it on the queue. Pretty soon you have over a 100 films in line and you have a queue within a queue, which is stuff you bump to the front.

So, like purging the closet of clothes you don't wear, I decided to go through and delete films that had been on my queue for more than three months and had not managed to go up the queue (were now farther down the list than when they started).

This makes for an interesting alternate history list of the year in viewing that might have been but never was.

Here are the films that got cut.

American Short Stories: Paul's Case
Ten Canoes
American Gothic (TV)
Merchant of Venice--Trevor Nunn
Ball of Fire (Howard Hawks)
Diary of a Lost Girl
Wheel of Time (Werner Herzog)
Woyzeck (Werner Herzog)
Pandora's Box
Reds
4 Little Girls
Jesus of Nazareth
Valley of the Dolls
Winter Sleepers
Stage Fright
The Silence
The Brides of Christ (TV)
Jane Austen in Manhattan
Broken Blossoms
Gabbeh


Here are films that would have been purged if I had scrupulously followed the rules but which I left on because I thought they still might get watched in the coming year (from lowest on queue to highest):

White
Sherlock, Jr.
Sansho the Baliff
The Fallen Idol
Fitzcarraldo
Aguirre: The Wrath of God
King Lear (Kozintzev)
Stolen
The Killers (actually want for the short film by Tarkovsky on it)
Blind Chance (Kieslowski)
Early Summer
Mr. Death: Fred Leuchter, Jr.
My Life to Live (actually this has been "short wait" for like forever)
Moby Dick (only because I'm working on a John Huston blog entry)
Yi Yi