Midnight In Paris/Another Generation

For those who don’t know me all too well, my favorite film director is Wes Anderson.  His films include The Royal Tenenbaums, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Darjeeling Limited, Rushmore, and several others.  There are many emotional levels to his films and the characters are so detailed that they mirror real people and not fake Hollywood typecasts.

I haven’t seen many Woody Allen films but I know who he is and I know he has major influence in the industry.  I read the premise to Woody Allen’s Midnight In Paris and it immediately struck me as a movie that resembles a Wes Anderson film.  I mean it helps that Owen Wilson is the star of Midnight In Paris, and acts in most of Wes Anderson’s movies as well as helped co-write The Royal Tenenbaums.  So, I had to give Midnight In Paris a chance, especially in the new Independent Film theatre that opened less than 3 miles from my house.  Plus it was Woody Allen’s most successful movie financially (currently has grossed over $107 million worldwide), not bad for an indie film. 

The plot of Midnight In Paris is a story of a struggling writer, Gil (Owen Wilson) who is trying to discover his passion in Paris after he travels there with his fiancée, Inez (Rachel McAdams) and her family.  Gil’s in love with 1920’s Paris and believes the time era was the Golden Age.  After a night with Inez and friends, he’s inspired by the city and aimlessly walks around Paris in the middle of the night and discovers a group of people who don’t speak English and invite him for a night of partying.  Gil soon realizes that during his midnight walks he’s currently taking a trip back in time to the 1920’s.  There Gil meets all his art and literary icons including Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Salvador Dali (great cameo by Adrien Brody), T.S. Elliot, and many more.  He’s falls in love with the Golden Age even more which causes conflict with his fiancée and within himself.  Gil soon realizes that everyone has their idea of the Golden Age and struggles with the idea of a Golden Age.

Ever feel that you were born in the wrong generation?  I always thought since the early days of college that the Golden Age for me is 1960-1979, during the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.  I’m a huge fan of espionage, and I believe that the Cold War influenced so many authors and film makers of today.  James Bond, Jason Bourne, Jack Ryan, Mitch Rapp, John Wells, Sean Drummond are all characters I know very well because of such influenced people by that time period.  Every person has a belief on what is the Golden Age to them, but that term itself is a perpetual notion.  We would go through the early days of existence if we kept looking backwards for the Golden Age.  We look at the past for greatness but forget the troubles and hardships people had to go through.  We face them today ourselves and maybe that’s why we look at the past for influence.  It is easier to remember the positive things of the past and the negative things about the present than it to see the great things of today and the negative events of yesterday. 

Are we living in the Golden Age today?  The people of tomorrow would think so.

What are you thinking Netflix?

A month ago Netflix sent an e-mail to all their subscribers that there was an upcoming strategy to change the price of their services and eliminate the most popular choice for its customers.  Netflix's strategy was to cut out their 1-DVD at home and unlimited "watch instantly" plan and make them 2 separate choices, consequently raising the price by 60% for those who keep the plan they've grown accustomed to paying for. 

I was pretty upset because I was paying just $10 a month for my movie rental plan, and if I wanted to keep the same plan then it would now cost me $16.  Now $6 is not a lot of money, but that is $6 extra on top of what I was paying before. Over the next year my Netflix's membership will cost me $192 (plus taxes), $72 more than what the original $120 (plus taxes of course) membership cost me. No additional content, no additional services, just the same finished product but a 60% hike. What are you thinking Netflix?

A spokesperson replied to this question, "...this split will help us make our services better for subscribers and shareholders for years to come."  In an economy where countless people are unemployed and/or in debt, a 60% hike in membership price doesn't seem beneficial for the subscribers, but it definitely benefits the stockholders.  Netflix has flourished in the last 3 years, gaining over 24 million members total since the company began. It's not hard to imagine the profit they can make on an increase in membership price on 24 million customers (times whatever increase in $ by 24 million). This is the definition of taking advantage of a customer and corporate greed.

An announcement came out on September 1st, that Netflix will lose Starz Entertainment in February 2012.  For Netflix members, Starz provides most of the new watch instantly movies that are available.  With this contract ending between the 2 companies, it will have a negative impact (less new movies and more B rated movies) for those who buy into the watch instantly service Netflix offers. What are you thinking Netflix? How are these changes helping or enhancing the customers services you have to offer? It seems like the monopoly Netflix has had on streaming entertainment is coming to an end and their trying to squeeze every penny out of our pockets before they have to completely change their business.

On the bright side of things, Netflix stocks plummeted 39.46 points today (a whopping 18.91%) in just one day (Sept 15). The company also lost 1 million subscribers in just 1 month since their "plan strategy to enhance the customer and stockholder's services for years to come".  What are you thinking Netflix? Why did you have to mess with a good thing.