Svetlana and I are pretty obsessed with Netflix. I take the slightly more OCD route though by rating all my movies (between 1 and 5 stars) and rearranging my queue on an hourly basis. I will often berate her for giving odd ratings: "5 stars out of 5 for The Descent? Really?" She doesn't care. I also send a lot of "notes" to friends, a Netflix feature that allows you to suggest movies to your friends via an up to 200 character mini review. Svetlana wishes I would channel all my Netflix energy into BYT. So at her request every once in a while I'll post some of my mini-reviews from the past 4+ years, ten or so at a time. Feel free to give me shit like I give her shit:
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
No self respecting geek would care about these unoriginal films. They're only exciting to people who *didn't* spend their teenage years playing Dungeons and Dragons and reading comics.
2 Stars
Duplicity
The secondary characters played by Giamatti and Wilkinson are far more interesting than the leads, but this is still a fun take on corporate espionage. Julia Roberts is old.
4 Stars
A Nightmare on Elm Street
Worth revisiting, and avail to watch instantly. Much of it is terrible and doesn't make any sense, but the basic premise is inventive and there are some truly creepy and imaginative moments.
3 Stars
Thirst
Totally gross, but awesome Chan-wook Park take on the vampire film. Starts off a little slow, but stick it out for the second and third acts. Korean people are so weird.
4 Stars
Conan the Destroyer
Even worse than the first with a smaller budget and cash-in PG rating. Sluggish pacing, annoying "comic relief", repetitive action, a bunch of crappy rubber monsters and a 14 yr old sex symbol (ew)
1 Star
Red Sonja
Schwarzenegger and Bergman are oddly cast as different characters in this horrific pseudo-sequel with Brigitte Nielsen's debut performance as the boring, unsexy, unfunny, homophobic lead. Avoid.
1 Stars
A Serious Man
Every second of this movie simply oozes with the Coen bros masterful touch. I want to have a million of their babies. Gloriously depressing and hilarious at the same time. Rent it NOW.
5 Stars
Cold Souls
Unabashed Kaufman rip off, but approaching it like a B-side lends to a relatively enjoyable experience, although it def loses steam by the end. Non-essential.
3 Stars
M. Butterfly
The final two preposterous scenes sink the film, which strained to hold my attention to begin with. The true story that inspired it seems far more interesting than what is presented here.
2 Stars
Family Guy: Something, Something, Something, Dark Side
Not nearly as clever as the first one. Obviously written by manatees.
2 Stars
Wanna be my Netflix friend? Click here:
http://www.netflix.com/BeMyFriend/PmzrQcDhoaLYHM0oKBu0
Check out One Second Movie Reviews Part 19 here:
http://www.brightestyoungthings.com/movies/one-second-movie-reviews-part-19/
Wanna know what's going to be avail to steam on Netflix? Check these guys out:
http://www.streamingsoon.com/
Also check out this cool article on nytimes.com that Svet found where you can click on DC and then scroll through movies to see what neighborhoods rented them:
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/01/10/nyregion/20100110-netflix-map.html?hp
God loves a cheerful giver.
I have a whole back-log of reviews like this.
Just got done with "The Lonely Guy" on Netflix Instant about 20 minutes ago. Lesser know Steve Martin. Not great, but has it's genuine laughs -- better than anything he's done after "Bowfinger." 3 stars
Next up on Instant -- Cool Hand Luke
They are remaking Nightmare on Elm Street - same company that did the Friday the 13th remake.
My childhood was built on Conan the Destroyer and Red Sonya. Add in Beastmaster and Krull the Conqueror on TBS and you pretty much summed up ages 6 - 10.
I can't believe you gave such terrible reviews on these badass fantasy movies. AND you claimed to rep D&D!
It's *Kull* the Conqueror, Krull is that movie with the giant ninja star and cyclops (it's avail on netflix instant BTW). Anyway, yeah, they were great when you were 6-10, try revisiting them now, not so much. They are terrible movies. I'm fine with rating terrible movies higher as long as they're still entertaining or unintentionally funny (see the Road House review), but the Conan movies are tedious.
I, too, grew up on these Conan and spin-off flicks and, of course, liked them as a 14 year old boy. I recently tried to watch Conan again and it sucked. I didn't bother with Red Sonja or the others after that experience so I will agree with Cale on this one.
Still disagree with him on Enemy Mine though.
Have never read nor viewed any Harry Potter movies and never will. That kid makes my fists want to violently react with his face.
No, you're right, Enemy Mine is totally worth watching. Either for nostalgia or cause it's so amazingly bad.
I tried to read the first Harry Potter and got bored, but for some reason keep watching these lame movies. It drives me crazy how there are all these impractical magic scenes where they are showing off some bit of special effects and are saying "look! it's magical!! see!?? MAGIC!!" and they play this little oh look magic music and all the characters are like la dee da it's magic! and gaze in wonderment even though they live in a world where apparently magic just mugs for the camera non stop and nobody could actually get any work done cause there is magic everywhere and then there is that one where they compete for the wizard trophy or something and they keep putting their life in danger and it's supposed to be suspenseful but the whole time you're just like this is a voluntary competition, if you're about to get killed it's your own fault you just should have walked away. And it just looks silly when they're waving those little sticks around.