Mass drubbings: Netflix's crown starts to slip.
Mass drubbings
After a year of critical drubbings for the corporation, another mauling will barely warrant a second glance. A fortnight ago, heavily promoted Naomi Watts psychological thriller Gypsy arrived to titters and head-shakes.
Not only was the charismatic Watts horribly miscast as a sexually repressed mother and wife – worse yet, the supposedly steamy plot, in which she slow-dallied with Sophie Cookson's quirky rock chick, had all the unbearable tension of a weekend Snakes and Ladders marathon.
HBO wars
As I waded through the series with a super-sized wine glass – drinking utensil of choice for middle class types with a hidden deviancy – I couldn't help recall Netflix chief content officer Ted Sarandos's 2013 assertion that "The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us".
In a 12 months in which Sarandos's company has assailed us with controversially "white-washed" Marvel adaptation Iron Fist, toxically self-satisfied Sophia Amoruso biopic Girlboss and soggy doc The Keepers, his words ring increasingly hollow. HBO will this weekend unveil season seven of Game of Thrones and it feels as if half the planet is on tenterhooks. Which of Netflix's current roster could garner one tenth of that anticipation?
Netflix is just another furnisher of low-brow, take-it-or-leave-it escapism – a one-stop shlock stop no different from American networks such as ABC and NBC or, this side of the pond, Sky or Channel 5. That may be a smart way of shoring up its subscriber base, in the short term at least. But if Netflix is just another font of banality, is it really worth a a hard-earned six quid every month?
Yeah, and let's not forget them releasing one of the worst-written comedy specials I've ever seen, Amy Schumer's Leather Special, which was rated so horribly that they had to both end the 5 star ratings system AND blame internet trolls and bots to explain it.
Schumer keeps ole' Sargon in a job on youtube alright! LOL!! ;)
I thought Netflix had finally won.
And then I saw Westworld.
The first two episodes of Westword bored me to tears. Stopped there. +1 Ed Harris though.
Return to Go! Do not collect $200!!
I hate Netflix
Netflix and chill ... No! ... Just chill :)
The best post.
...and then Stranger Things comes out this fall and everything is right in the universe.
Let us hope so?? :)
Well the last good Netflix Original I saw was Iron Fist. The white wash controversy was a bad joke tbh. I thought about canceling Netflix because I did not watch on it for 2 months and looked through my recommended. I found Flaked by Will Arnett and the new Castlevania anime both excellent series, but to be fair not Netflix Originals.
If HBO would offer a similar service for a similar price in Germany i would take it. Sopranos is my favorite series after all. But the only thing that bugged me about Netflix so far was their change of the rating system to please Amy Schumer.