When good cities rent bad
Somebody's trying to kill my booty!Hey, Tampa; what the heck are you renting?
Netflix, my favorite e-business, has a feature on its website called Local Favorites. It allows you to find out what movies people in a specific area are renting more often than other areas. For example, I learned that New York City is doing everything it can to perpetuate the cliche of its high-falootinness - their list is populated with a ton of foreign films and an 8-disc PBS documentary about, well, New York (which I have admittedly seen and enjoyed). Washington D.C. is striving to learn more about itself: it has The War Room and two seasons of The West Wing on its list. New Orleans is apparently trying to make itself feel better by comparison with films such as Million Dollar Baby, Born Into Brothels and Hotel Rwanda.
But of course my main concern was what my neighbors are watching. I'm concerned.
There's very little rhyme or reason to it. Direct-to-video is apparently a big draw in this area, with such doozies as Blast! (trivia: it's Shaggy's acting debut), Dirty Shield (Netlifx reviewr kf says "This is what happens if you give 3 buzzed Junior High guys a camcorder."), and Death to the Supermodels (IMDb featured quote: "My booty's been poisoned. Somebody's trying to kill my booty!").
We get a twofer of comic book adaptations in Blade (Snipes+Kristofferson=gold) and The Punisher (that it was mostly filmed in the area doesn't make the tagline - The Punishment Begins April 16, 2004 - any less self-fulfilling).
Toss in a Cirque du Soleil video (a live-only experience, I'd imagine) and a grossly overrated Oscar winner (yeah, I know - that link could lead to most any recent Best Picture winner), and you've got a list that's making me not want to leave the house, save maybe to move.
Maybe one day I'll produce my list of movies rented on Netflix and give everyone a chance to tear into my taste in movies. I promise you Shaggy's not in any of them.
Posted by Joel at 12/10/2005 11:36:00 PM
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