Today is the day to mention tell me how much you like this part of the site.
Hey Chicagoans...Funny Ha-Ha is happening. Again!
Last week I talked about sending "The Sopranos" back to Netflix instead of letting it take over my life and my money. I asked you guys what you have "Notflixed": sent or taken back movies after not watching them for a long time. Your responses are below.
I noticed that I had a few responses for my writer-inners about their movies, along the lines of "That movie DOES suck" or "I heard that movie DOES suck." If you want to post your thoughts about a particular movie that somebody has Notflixed (I.e. "John Smith--you really SHOULD have watched Basic Instinct 2! And here's why..."), feel free. We can call it the Film Forum.
Notflixed!
"Two discs from season one of "Arrested
Development" sat neglected on top of our TV for a good two weeks before
my girlfriend finally mustered the good sense to Notflix them.
The thing was, I'd seen the show, selectively at least. I knew it was, and
would continue to be, funny. But when we watched the pilot episode - first
in our queue for obvious reasons - it just wasn't what I remembered. All I
can figure is that, since the show didn't change any, it was the very idea
of being forced to watch the remaining episodes that took away from the potential
enjoyment to be had. Why? Who knows? But variety, besides being the proverbial
spice of life, is also kind of the whole point of a service like Netflix;
so, we both decided we weren't going to let them or anybody else tell us what
we could and couldn't watch. I mailed off "Arrested Development"
the next day. She emptied the queue and filled it up entirely with "Six
Feet Under" episodes.
We've now made it to season three, non-stop. I guess we showed them..."
"Pirates of the Caribbean held me hostage
for months before I notflixed it. This, after a long string of other supposedly
great movies that I never felt like seeing once the red envelopes had arrived
in my mailbox and taken up camp on
top of my DVD player. Sure, it was nice to have the "extra" $20
each month, but it was better to be rid of their smug glares.
Netflix is fantastic. They deliver on their promise, have speedy service, and good customer relations, but it just isn't for my extremely fickle DVD-watching personality."
"The Big Blue
Jacques (Jean-Marc Barr) and Enzo (Jean Reno) are childhood
friends who grow into fierce rivals in the deadly sport of deep-water diving.
Jacques is more dolphin than man -- but that's not enough to keep insurance
investigator
Johanna (Rosanna Arquette) from falling head over heels for him. But can she
keep him from risking it all to defeat Enzo and set a new world record?
Reason for notflixing: it's 168 minutes long and the music for the opening menu sounds very department storey. And they cut away from the cool dolphin scenes to show a man and woman kissing cheezily.
Length of time notflixed: 3 months
Reason I keep it: It's foreign and therefore good for me. I'm feel like I should get a grasp on movies with "Blue" in the title."
"I have had "Cold Comfort Farm" since March
10th."
"top gun is sitting on the shelf right now.
its gonna go back
unwatched..."
"I find that well-meant recommendations are the ones that tend to be notflixed, or more likely, notqueued. My friend David told me that I'd love Down By Law and it's been hovering at number 10 on my queue for at least six months (with, like, half of the Criterion Collection). What's actually made it to my home in recent weeks? Uh...old episodes of Scrubs and Project Runway. "
Ben Schneider:
"Last year my girlfriend and I modified
our Netflix account to accommodate 2 separate queues (I'm sure Netflix has
a term for this, it escapes me at the moment). In essence, of the 3 movies
we are alotted to have at any given time, she will choose one of those and
I will choose two. This was to
alleviate the increased chances of me putting films in the queue that she
had no interest in watching, or had already seen. Unfortunately, this sometimes
leads to conflicts, such as both of us putting the same film in our queues
('Constant Gardener' - still in her queue, removed from mine, though I would
have liked to have seen it several months ago) or her picking movies that
I have absolutely no interest in watching ('Rize' - currently in our home;
a budding Notflix selection). The grand prize Notflix for us however would
be 2005's 'Mysterious Skin' starring the young "alien" from the
TV sitcom 'Third Rock from the Sun', Joseph Gordon-Levitt as "a young
man who makes a living by selling his body on the streets" and another
actor Brady Corbet, "who's convinced he was once abducted by aliens.
It seems they have unspeakable tragedy in common as both of them discover
they were abused as children." Phew. The description alone is somewhat
draining on my emotional well-being. Not long after the film arrived, I believe
my girlfriend spoke with one of her friends who had seen the film and this
individual gave her a gentle warning that some of the subject matter may be
a little hard to watch (as hinted at in the movie's description: selling body
on streets, alien abduction, child abuse). So 'Mysterious Skin' sat for sometime
atop the stereo speaker next to the television, its outer mailer seal broken,
the inner sleeve removed once (or twice) to read the imprinted
description just to check and make sure that is what the film was actually
about, the DVD never removed from that sleeve to maybe scan 5 or 10 minutes
of the film to see if it might be "OK".
And so it sat.
And sat.
And sat.
'Mysterious Skin' arrived at our home the week after Thanksgiving 2005. It was finally returned to the nearest Netflix facility on May 10, 2006. It was never watched by either of us and only discussed briefly on one or two occasions. Since its departure, it has not been mentioned once."
Tracie Thomas:
"I
let Brokeback Mountain sit around my apartment for 3 weeks. I had heard from
everyone who saw it how tortured the main characters were, and at the time
I was having a really bad time at work, so I could barely stand my own
suffering. My attitude is I can get pain for free every day, I am not paying
money to see it. But, I didn't want to be a cultural idiot, so I made myself
watch about a half hour of the movie, before Heath Ledger's mumbling repression
let me know that I'd rather pull my arm off than sit through that."
Cheryl Powell:
"Am I the only person in the world who has *never* let a Netflix movie sit in my apartment for more than three days? Except when I was out of town. I did send back the first disc of the second season of Deadwood after only watching the first episode, but that's because it didn't hold my attention. "
Christopher Cole:
"The
list is pretty concise, but full of 'flix that I SHOULD be
watching, and just can't. Here are the highlights (complete with commentary):
- Immortal Beloved (Gary Oldman as Beethoven? What's not to
like? Except that I put it right back and mailed it)
- Irreversible (in reality, I watched it on FF, which was even more boring
than if I'd actually watched it in real time)
- Better Than Sex (wanted to see LOTR's Faramir in another role, but didn't)
- 8 Mile (it sat on top of the TV for six weeks)
- 25th Hour (it was the third Edward Norton movie I'd rented in as many movies,
and I couldn't stand looking at him or listening to him anymore...)
- Snatch (Brad Pitt as an unintelligible gypsy bare-knuckles fighter? Capital!
It sat there for three weeks)
- Stealing Harvard (I thought I might enjoy Jason Lee in a
lighthearted comedy, but then I read Tom Green's name on the envelope, and
left it on the TV...)
- Stormy Monday (Sting? Melanie Griffith? Tommy Lee Jones? Sean Bean? What
a cast. Couldn't do it)"
Ann-Marie:
"Two weeks ago I just notflixed Seven Samurai."
Ellen Plourde:
"The movie “Proof”, with Gywneth Paltrow, Jake Gyllenhaal. Sat here for 6 weeks! I watched the first 5 minutes, and then mailed it back. Cut myself some slack! I would rationalize every time I saw it that I ‘HAD” to watch it. Finally tried, and just mailed it back! I felt like I turned a corner. "
Ryan Mattingly:
"Oh God have we had some Notflixes. The most notable
one was "The Shipping News". A great cast, an Annie Proulx-penned
story and good reviews. But we had it for three months. My wife and I pestered
each other to put it in our queue just about every day for a month. Then,
once we had it...I don't know. Every time we were about to watch it we thought,
"Eh--it's probably gonna be depressing" or "I'm not in the
right mood for it"
Unfortunately, we were in the right mood to watch "Visitor Q" instead.
If you have not seen this film, let's just say that lactation, feces and fireworks
play a major--and graphic--part (although it was nicely photographed). While
we choked back bile at old "Visitor Q" we still avoided "Shipping
News".
We broke down one night and watched it. It was truly enjoyable. I'd watch
it again. Yet I can't shake the fact that we pissed away a quarter of a year
over one movie.
And there you have it."