website: netflix
I was browsing through our Netflix queue today. And (as you often do) I noticed movies I never remembered putting on my queue. For instance, there was this movie called Blackwoods and it was rated 1 star.
What is that and why would I put a 1-star movie on my queue? I scroll over to reveal that it is a Uwe Boll movie. Mystery solved, Uwe Boll’s unwatchable-but-can’t-turn-away train wrecks are a masochistic cinema experience that my husband and I sometimes participate in. But then I notice that the movie itself isn’t a 1 star movie, but a 2.4 star movie. Netflix has offered its “best guess” that we will rate it 1 star and is bold enough in its assumption that it decides to display its guess instead of the average customer.
I’m not entirely sure how I feel about it. I started scanning the listings to see if there were other movies Netflix thinks I would like or dislike more than the masses. Turns out I’m going to love Motorama. Another weird assumption. I mean, Tom and I thought After Hours was weird (maybe a little too weird to be good) and I have always had a special place in my heart for the ridiculous Vampire’s Kiss featuring Nicolas Cage trying to suck the blood of pigeons with plastic vampire teeth.
I wouldn’t say that either of us LOVE those movies, but they are certainly interesting enough for us to want to view them. And at the same time, while we loath Uwe Boll and his critic-punching pompous German-loophole ways, we want to be the first to know when that horrible man puts out another horrible piece of trash.
So while it is interesting that Netflix has called attention to some out of the normal movie going activity we participate in, it has no way to grasp the subtlety of our movie watching tastes. But, how could it? How could Netflix know that we love The Butterfly Effect for being purely retarded, but at the same time highly watchable, and yet would probably never be interested in another Ashton Kutcher vehicle? How could Netflix know that we can’t stand Garden State (sorry Roxy) because of Zach Braff’s pushy voice-of-your-generation “these songs will change your life” soundtrack and so-quirky-she’s-cute Natalie Portman performance, but that most of the time we like character driven indies and Natalie Portman? How could Netflix know that we’d rather watch movies that are so bad that they are good (The Core), rather than movies that are mediocre (Running with Scissors)?
It can’t, which is why the straight forward rating system is innately flawed. I was actually pretty upset when the AV Club decided to move to one, as I found their reviews more meaningful without the letter grade. And now that they rely on the rating more often, I have a hard time telling if the new Lindsay Lohan vehicle is something I should pay money to see (while sneaking wine into the theater), rent, or avoid. Will any rating scale ever indicate the subtle difference between the sliding scale of “so bad its good”, “so bad it hurts”, “oh god… its trying to be self-aware of its badness”, and “so bad it is unwatchable, boring, and I had to turn it off”?
technorati tags: netflix queue, uwe boll, bad movies
You must be logged in to post a comment.
RECENT WINES
August 1st, 2007 at 10:27 pm
That’s really interesting. I never noticed that feature on my Netflix account. I’ll have to see what they think I will like or not. Trying to figure out what movies specific people are going to enjoy is not an exact science by any means. In fact it can be a bit of a crap shoot. It’s hard enough to figure out entire demographics to market a film to, let alone specific viewers. You know something about marketing and demographics now, Marta! Anyway, it can be really surprising how you can think a person is really going to like a film and then they hate it or the other way around, and often this is a person who you know really well! So to think that a computer can have any way of calculating your opinion on a movie is pretty ridiculous, and to put it above the average viewer opinion is even more bizarre. You don’t have to apologize for the Garden State comment, the fact is a movie like that is really going to hit home with certain people and miss the mark completely with others. People are sooooo incredibly different and complex, it makes the task of movie making pretty difficult. That’s why the movies that do the best financially are things like “Broad” comedies, they reach the broadest audience possible, but aren’t very unique or memorable. Wow, I practically wrote my own blog here, sorry. Good topic though… very discussable!
March 31st, 2008 at 5:41 pm
I’m not on the fence about this. Netflix’s rating system is a ridiculous concept on its face. You’ve pretty much nailed down why. They take a few hundred ratings (max) with an infinite number of variables and try to extract information that just isn’t there. It’s a mathematical absurdity.
What’s crazy about this is that it’s totally unnecessary. We already know how to use average rating systems and add our own preferences to come to a decision. I know, for instance, that I don’t like mediocre movies in most genres, but I’ll see a “two star” movie if it has Pierce Brosnan in it (unless it’s a James Bond), and I’ll see a two star James Bond movie (unless it has Pierce Brosnan in it) - but Netflix can’t possibly figure this out even assuming that I’ve rated a couple of James Bond movies or a couple of Pierce Brosnan movies. And telling me that a 1 star movie is a three star movie, or a 2.5 star movie is 4 stars isn’t helping me make a decision.