You Are What You Q
I mentioned this briefly, and two of my three Netflix Friends immediately wanted to know if I had analyzed their Queue (that third person is not a real friend, obviously). The answer is that I have not analyzed anyone’s Netflix Queue. I just read an article about it. The article wondered why some people, for example, rate Mean Girls equal to Annie Hall.The author also wrote that he would not recognize his friends by looking at the movies they watch. I’m not so sure this rings true for me, as I seem to watch many of the same movies as my friends, although our ratings vary greatly. (Apprently, having a degree in film from a major university makes you dislike 99% of the movies Hollywood produces. But Fellini, oh … he’s a god).
The article also goes on to say that a person’s queue is a good reflection of their personality. You can tell the OCD ones by the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants ones by the way his or her queue is managed. But perhaps the ultimate commentary about a person is this bit of analysis.
Some lists were tortured records of cultural duty: Dense classics would march solemnly towards the top, only to be demoted (as soon as watching them became a real possibility) and replaced by season three of Felicity, until finally all the most challenging films of the 20th century were pooled at the bottom of the list like dark sediment beneath a froth of romantic comedies. It’s the Netflix version of the divided soul: The end of your list is the person you want to be – Eraserhead, the eight-hour BBC Bleak House, the complete Werner Herzog – while the top is the person you actually are: Wedding Crashers, Scary Movie 4, The Bridges of Madison County.
It certainly rings true for me. (Don’t ask me how long it took until Hannah and Her Sisters finally made it to my mailbox, and only because I got sick-and-tired of looking at it in my [very well organized] queue).
Digital boy sez: (Apprently, having a degree in film from a major university makes you dislike 99% of the movies Hollywood produces. But Fellini, oh … he’s a god).
You’re mistaking a healthy dose of skepticism and scrutiny for determining that everyone who ever took a film class is really into foreign and art film. The whole idea is to be able to talk about narrative visual media in the same way someone would criticize a book, programming, a website, etc… part of that criticism is thoroughly backing up your argument.
The stereotype for film students is to assume that they go out of their way to present themselves as only enjoying obscure movies, but I think that’s a bit unfair. Like anything else that you dig into, new and different approaches (especially when well executed) bring something to the table that recognizably has an effect on what comes after. If film majors are willing to dismiss cute comedies like “Two Weeks’ Notice”, it’s because of the disposable nature of such a movie with plug-and-play pieces centered around a cookie-cutter plot many viewers may enjoy simply because it is so predictable.
Obviously, nobody enjoys being told that whatever they enjoyed viewing will not be held up as a cinematic masterpiece. We tend to feel our taste and intelligence have been insulted by proxy.
At the same time you have, with your comment, thrown the same lob at both the film majors and Fellini. Obviously you do not hold Fellini in high esteem, but you don’t spell out why, or what illusion the film majors are living under by holding Fellini in high esteem.
All this said, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen a Fellini movie.
I actually have nothing against Fellini. Film enthusiast hold him in high regard, so it was an easy cheap shot.