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08/04/09
08/04/09
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[www.newyorker.com]
08/04/09
"(Did you want to compare the original The Taking of Pelham One Two Three with this summer's remake? At Netflix, you could have waited five weeks to see the 1974 film.) Other titles, which may have vanished from the stockroom, are called "Unavailable"; the wait time for those could be eternity."
There is no support given for the proposition that you're better off trying to do this at a local store.
08/04/09
I have a question though. You can easily rip DVDs, yet Netflix is legal, so why can't they have a CD rental service? I for one would subscribe to that in a second.
08/04/09
The difference is in the way we use those two. A movie, typically most people only watch it once or maybe twice within a fairly large block of time. One would also have less temptation to rip a movie (illegal, btw) that they liked, but do not intend to watch it every other week, or every month.
Songs on the other hand, we listen to multiple times a day, and often times one tends to listen to them in a rotating manner every week. (Hardly a week has gone by without me listening to Hotel California, or Sultans of Swing in the last 5 years)
Not to mention that ripped songs are 5 megs in size, and its much easier to stash away an album even if you are not going to really listen to it that often, as opposed to a movie file that is 4 gigs in size.
[And if someone watched some movie every single day, or has a music collection so large that you listen to a song only once a year, please do let me know, because that disproves everything.]
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If I lived in a city with a store that had had a huge selection of DVDs to choose from, I'd miss it when it was gone -- just as I miss lots of the eccentric and atmospheric bookstores that Amazon ran into the ground, not to mention the local video stores that Blockbuster drove off in its quest to provide me with the very best in movies from the last 12 months.
But this just in! Books, video games and DVDs are commodities that can be stored and distributed in more efficient ways than the brick-and-mortar storefront can offer. And when I can download virtually any movie (if that day ever comes) without much of a wait at all, I shall think of Mr. Corliss in his natty straw hat and bow tie, driving his Model T down to the general store, to pick up his mail, his Saturday Evening Post and all the latest news on Mr. Coolidge.
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For me, returning a movie to Netflix can take anywhere from 2-4 days, sometimes longer. When Netflix is sending a movie to me it usually takes 1 day. Very rarely 2 days. It's extremely odd to me that returning is so slow when their delivery is so fast, but they certainly aren't 1 day both ways.
I like Netflix, it's great. I wish I could figure out some magic formula so I could be sure I had a movie each Friday rather than some random day at the beginning of the week, but that's how it goes.
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In my experience at least with Netflix you get to put your name on the list instead of trolling the local video store the entire weekend hoping someone dropped off their copy of the new release precisely during the half hour you're actually there.
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I miss Kim's Video
The place was dank and poorly laid out, but it was a couple of blocks away from me and if I was ever in the mood to see fucked-up movies, the clerks were more than ready to scar my psyche.
Thank you Kim's Video for suggesting that I, a fresh-faced 18 year-old new to NYC from suburban Maryland watch Nekromantik.
NOW GET OFF MY LAWN!
08/04/09
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Richard Corliss was simply stating that he feels movie watching should be an experience directed towards finding the exceptional, not just viewing whatever is available.
08/04/09
It was the brick and mortor stores which squished the exceptional, guiding the viewer to mediocrity. Oh, there were the occasional corner stores in urban areas with collections of fantastic oddities and film geeks behind the counter to guide you to the right ones, but that wasn't the typical experience. In the suburbs, even before Blockbuster/Rogers/Hollywood owned everything there were local chain stores that only differentiated themselves by having a porn section. (Although I like that difference, I do!). When DVDs came it made it worse, because they culled their old video selections. Damn, I hated going to Blockbuster, a soul-sucking trip for a film dork.
In more rural areas it was Jimmy's Grocery and Things with a corner dedicated to videos, a bizarre grab bag of mostly crappy old comedies and new releases. Not much "exceptional" there.
And now you have Netflix, where when the guys on the Filmspotting podcast talk about some old classic or foreign film I can instantly click on over and throw it in my queue, opening my world infinitely. You can live anywhere with an address(in the states) and you can have the same experience. Fabulous.
Corliss has romanticized something that does not deserve it, and slandered something that has made movie-watching an exercise in infinite possibilities.
08/04/09
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Generally that's only however long it takes me to get to a Blockbuster or BestBuy or to download the movie via newsgroup as a last resort...not a day or two later. (I'm actually not a fan of movie piracy. I was pissed that the only way I could see The Hurt Locker without traveling to the next state over was downloading it. It was a GREAT movie I'd have gladly paid for.)
Until Netflix's catalog of streaming movies grows more (and somehow ups the quality to true HD levels) I won't be using the service much...though it is actually cheap enough to keep around in the event I use it 2 or 3 times a month.
What they do, they do VERY well, there's no question and no competition really. But like so many other advancements and new takes on old ideas, you can count on certain demographics being less willing to accept it without searching for and pointing out every shortcoming they observe.
08/04/09
There are more ad hominem attacks in here than actual criticisms of Corliss' work.
First of all, Corliss' criticisms touch more on the business model and the process than on the content or particular method. His first argument is that renting a Netflix a few days in advance does take part of the human interaction out of choosing a movie. This point is actually made twice in the article, first citing the idea of going to a brick-and-mortar rental place with, for example, a significant other. It feels like it means a little less if the process of renting and watching a movie is boiled down to popping it in the player and snuggling up with that person. Sure you can discuss the movie afterwards, but in a large way the NetFlix model (and all similar models) have abstracted watching movies to an information/entertainment stream. Surely there is more to it than simply the stream of entertainment. This logically leads towards his later point about sitting in front of a box and being fed entertainment.
In a course called "Technology and Society," a required course for fourth-year Engineering and Computer Science students at my liberal arts college, we are required to read and learn about this: the process of abstraction that has been affecting our society, especially since the Industrial Revolution. We have taken things that we wanted and by mechanizing or automating their production, we have removed any cultural meaning or other meaning from them.
A good example that is given is the hearth. For hundreds of years families gathered around the hearth to keep warm in the Winter and at night. Besides simply bringing the people physically together (an effect that should not be ignored), this hearth also gave members of the family responsibilities that kept them reliant on each other. For example, someone would have to collect the wood and to stoke the fire. With the coming of central heating, the process was reduced to a means to heat a building. Heat was simply a commodity to be delivered. Among the negative effects this had was making us less thoughtful about the heat we use. Extrapolating this you can say that by the process of abstraction we have made energy something that we can simply turn on and shut off (with any number of devices), and it takes away the visceral, down-to-earth reality that when we leave devices on we waste energy. The same can be said of garbage collection, meat consumption, and just about anything that can be delivered or has an on/off switch.
What Corliss may be referring to (or, more likely, what I read into the article because of this perspective) is that while Netflix does a tremendously good job at delivering movies, it takes away many of the other aspects of movie watching.
Something that is often neglected on this site is the idea of critical evaluation of technology. It is assumed to be neutral or is approached in a very pragmatic way. It is good if it has features that we like. It is bad if it doesn't have certain features, or if it has them implemented badly. What is lost is the fact that by embracing a certain technology we actually limit ourselves in what we can or will do, and there are unintended effects of our use of technology. These are not just technological, economic, or physical, but also include social, relational, developmental, and spritual aspects.
OK, I'm not sure where I'm going from here, so right now I'lll just shut up and let anyone who sees this or cares respond.
08/04/09
When it comes to tech changing society, it's all about who does what with it. I use my phone a little more liberally in public than most, but I don't use it while driving or walk around the mall chatting up a storm and annoying people. I usually check wikipedia or google as opposed to going to the library and checking out a book there.
What it comes down to is whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. I think some things are unnecessary. In your hearth example, I see it as something that is outdated and unnecessary, and I'm fine with that. I think the increase of fast food restaurants in society keeps the family dinner from being as prevelant as it used to be and that sucks, so I can relate. It's a case by case basis, and my opinion, yours and joe shmoe's are all likely to be completely different.
As far as all of this pertaining to Netflix, I think Corliss is putting a bit too much of a Chicken Little twist on Netflix. It's not stopping me from going to theaters because ticket costs do that just fine. It's not stopping me from going to Blockbuster because I hate them. It makes my life easier, but there is no real societal change for most people. I think you have a brilliant mind, but I don't see the tech vs. society corellation here. Maybe I'm missing something....
08/04/09
"so Bob, this weekend I went to the video store to rent a movie..."
"oh yeah, Jim? what did you get?"
"doesn't matter, point is that I spent an hour in the store looking for one, and then I found one."
"fascinating, Jim, tell me more!"
08/04/09
Why not attack loud children in the movie theatres, stale popcorn, ticket prices, generally bad to mediocre Hollywood offerings?
Is it because that brand of Rooneyesque whining has become trite?
08/04/09
You have a good point, it's too bad the writer of the original article couldn't have put it better like you did.
The problem is, going to the 'video store' and renting a movie died years ago, and it wasn't Netflix's fault. It was Blockbusters.
I understand his desire for a cool indy movie rental place. Those places were usually quite awesome, just like the local record store (yes, I'm old)
However with the generation of mega-this and mega-that stores the only way to find the cool gems & crazy stuff anymore is very, very hard. Blockbuster killed most of the local places outside of the giant cities where being unique and esoteric brought people far and wide to you as the mentioned store he talked about. However when Blockbuster hit my small home town of Lawrence, KS the locally owned places vanished quickly. Unable to compete with the quantity of films (100 copies of the latest big release) or the pricing things went downhill pretty fast.
Netflix only hurt and killed Blockbuster. I've been using them since about 2003 or so myself. I don't find the 'going to the video' store experience to be all that exciting and the late fees/return policies were painful. Some days, I get to watch the movies when I get them, other times, they sit on my shelf for a few weeks. Sometimes longer than I care to admit. But it works for me.
08/04/09
"In my experience", is not a suitable way to counter an argument except for maybe the ones that take place in an elementary school yard during recess. Dan, you're stating opinions based on experience, not a fact proved with evidence.
This is just emotionally driven nonsense, not based on facts and evidence.
08/04/09
I dig netflix, but Corliss is right, their Watch Now is seriously lacking. They have a decent selection of titles, but the catalogs of pay-to-watch films that iTunes and Amazon offer is far "fresher" than what Netflix offers. I can rent Watchmen from Netflix, or I can pay $4 to watch it instantly from Amazon. Why can't I watch it instantly from Netflix (insert license bs here)
You could touch on how Netflix has designed a STB and has made their Watch Now API's available for 3rd party developers to integrate into their devices, including the 360, and PS3.
Dan, I get your anger, I don't like it when people outright dismiss technology, like the digital vs film battle.
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