I need to trust Netflix’s personalized ratings more; I’ve found some documentaries that had really interesting subject matter, but Netflix only predicts me giving 2-2.5 stars (out of five). Blinded by the captivating synopsis, I disregard the low rating, chalking it up to a low sample size or some other noise.
I have learned my lesson. I knew before that topic alone was not enough to make me love a doc, but I didn’t realize how severely an interesting topic could be destroyed by bad production.
“Waiting for NESARA” was my first mistake. Ex-Mormons in Utah become caught up in quite a conspiracy theory. Awesome, right? Wrong. Most of the film’s scenes are just protracted shots of a lecturer in the original KFC filmed with a shaky Handycam.
Strangely, my other big Netflix regret so far is also about another former Mormon. “Nick Name and the Normals” follows missionary-cum-gay-rocker Kent James a.k.a. “Nick Name.” Damn interesting? Nope—not the film, at least. Unwatchable, the DVD was ejected about 20 minutes into the movie. I wanted to learn about the characters, but I just couldn’t watch a feature-length film produced with Windows Movie Maker.
Am I the only one who has trouble deciding what to rate movies from Netflix? Knowing that my ratings affect my future suggestions always makes for a difficult decision between ★★ and ★★★.
For the unfamiliar, here’s the guide Netflix gives you in the tooltips of its stars—what you see if you hover over them as you’re about to rate a movie:
- ★: Hated It
- ★★: Didn’t Like It
- ★★★: Liked It
- ★★★★: Really Liked It
- ★★★★★: Loved It
Since there’s no “neutral,” I give a lot of ★★★ to movies I didn’t really like. ★★★★★ ratings are reserved for truly great films, so if I end up liking a movie a bit, since I’ve already used ★★★ to mean “meh,” I end up giving it a rating saying I “really like it.” Damn. I probably shouldn’t fret, though; I’m sure Netflix has some great algorithms (and data) to normalize it all …I hope.
