William Reardon’s Blog

As someone who prefers to buy DVDs, I never had any urge to join Netflix.

Hearing people tell me how great it was, how much they loved Netflix, the excited “me too!” when finding out someone else is a subscriber all just went around me. I’d feel like a unmovable rock or fallen tree in the middle of a flowing river as the conversation shifts to what each person has in their queue (as it inevitably does). While they talked, I’d remain silent, wondering if this is what it was like to hear other people talk about their Tivo. Or what women think of men and the Three Stooges. There’s obviously something there, but what is it? It just isn’t making any sense.

“You don’t have to go the movie theater!” But I like going to movies.

“You can watch movies at home!” I already have HBO & Showtime.

“You don’t have to go to the video store!” I just buy DVDs when they come out on Amazon.

But I finally decided to give it a try. What pushed me over, was seeing they had a $6 plan. (Actually, it’s $5.99 but I have no desire to help their marketing department.) It’s nothing like the plan all my friends have. No endless wave of DVDs. No three movies at a time, so you always have one to watch. No, my plan, the six dollar plan, is much simpler: one movie only at a time and two movies per month. Max.

For me, that’s fine. For six bucks, I’ll try it. So I signed up, created my queue, and about a week ago, my very first movie arrived, Equilibrium. A few of my friends liked it. Loved it, in fact. Raved about the story, the action, the gun fights. “You like the Matrix”, they said. “You’ll love this.” Plus it has Christian Bale. All-in-all, a pretty good bet.

So I watched it last night.

And I hated it.

It was awful.

Imagine a movie merging all the classic books about a futurist dystopia : Brave New World, Fahrenheit 451, 1984.

Have an image?

Okay, you’ve seen the movie.

That’s all there is.

And if you know these books, all suspense completely goes out the window. You really don’t wonder if Christian Bale will have issue with his enforcement of the law, if you’ve read Fahrenheit 451. There’s no suspense in who “Father” is, if you know 1984. And the problem is, the very audience who goes to see this type of movie is the very audience who has read those kinds of books.

Now, it’s not that I have a problem with derivative works. A lot of people claim The Matrix is just Dark City re-done, but it’s without question, one my favorite movies of all times. The difference between the Matrix & Equilibrium, is the Matrix at least brings a few new things to the table.

Equilibrium has a few well-shot gun fights, but doesn’t really add anything new. In a way, it’s like viewing a traced copy or paint-by-numbers version of the Mona Lisa. If they’re going to be that similar, why not go with the real deal?

Now here’s the unexpected part: Despite hating my first movie, I’m now in love with Netflix.

Why?

Because previously, had I wanted to see this movie, I would have bought it. Meaning instead of being out $3, I’d be out $20. So apparently that’s the Netflix hook for me. Not seeing more movies. Not avoiding trips to the video store. It’s buying fewer crappy movies.

Thank you, Netflix.

This entry was posted on Saturday, March 3rd, 2007 at 6:05 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.