Hidden Gems of Netflix's Watch Instantly

I just finished watching Cloverfield Paradox too. It was for me on the same level as Bright. Sort of entertaining if you go with the flow and don't question anything, but as soon as you turn on your brain you realize you're watching meaningless mush that thinks it's saying something.

My main issue with Cloverfield Paradox was:

Spoiler:

When everything goes wrong, it goes wrong- perfectly!- according to script. The script is like let's wait until this key person is alone in this room, and then I'm going to make everything magnetic, or spring a huge water leak, or whatever will maximize the visual impact of their death.

Yeah. Pretty much agree with most of that! Really WEIRD film.

Spoiler:

also I find the whole "suddenly, monsters through time and space because of a space explosion in another dimension" premise to be a total rubbish way of explaining the monster in the first film.

Cloverfield Paradox:

Spoiler:

I do wish they’d let well enough alone rather than try to explain the Cloverfield universe. Let the title signify more a mythos or a theme rather than forcing an interconnected series of parallel universes. Mystery is far better than forced explanation.

I’m okay with worlds of monsters and aliens under the same banner without trying to make it make sense.

That said, I found Paradox fine. Enjoyable if predictable. I loved the cast, but the story was a mess at times. The surprise announcement was spectacular, but boy this needed a bit more time baking in the editor’s room.

After 10 Lane, Cloverfield for me had come to mean surprising quality. B-movie faire with spectaclar results. I liked the original and loved 10 Lane. I’m not sure what the banner means now other than parallel universe, so whatever! That and guess what crazy non-marketing marketing strategy we have for this one!

Cloverfield doesn’t have to be MCU. Shoulda let it bake and made it another quality sleeper hit. That’d be a better definition of Cloverfield than what we got.

Of course, I’m still hoping for a disc release so I can slot it next to my others in the movie cabinet.

I feel like the only mystery Paradox adequately explains is... 'why is this releasing out of the blue on Netflix, unannounced, instead of in theatres?"

Just finished watching Paradox.
It's mind numbingly bad. Mostly because of how silly it is. It has no idea what it wants to be.

The props and space station scenery must have taken at least 3 months to build. Why use a 4 day script?

Another chime in on how bad Cloverfield E was. Like someone else said;

Spoiler:

So the world is running out of energy. What about wind / solar power? Just put down a bunch of wind turbines and done. Movie over.

Also that last shot of the movie made me laugh pretty hard.

thejustinbot wrote:
bepnewt wrote:
thejustinbot wrote:
Hobear wrote:

Wife and I started Travelers and surprisingly it has her interest. She usually bows out of sci-fi or timetravel but so far they do it well.

I've mainlined this show over the past three weeks and have loved it. Just finished season 2 and am now awaiting season 3.

It grew on me and I recently finished season 2, not knowing season 3 wasn't there to watch. Letdown.

There's a slight chance I may have a crush on Mackenzie Porter. Maybe.

-BEP

She certainly is great. She’s probably my second favorite Traveler behind Trevor, but David for my money is far and away the best character on the show.

Stupid good shows keeping us up late and "just one more" syndrome.

I realize that is my problem not the series

Good to know a 3rd is in production!

thejustinbot wrote:

David for my money is far and away the best character on the show.

True Dat.

-BEP

Fredrik_S wrote:
Spoiler:

So the world is running out of energy. What about wind / solar power? Just put down a bunch of wind turbines and done. Movie over.

Spoiler:

If you block all the wind with turbines, then you're putting too much drag on the spin of the planet, which will slow down the Earth's rotation enough that gravity won't work anymore and everyone will float off into space. Duh.

I was really disappointed to find out The Big Short was no longer on Netflix. I just finished Spotlight, which was spectacular, and was looking for something in a similar vein. Couldn't find anything though. Then remembered how terrible Netflix is for general browsing.

Will Paradox get better if you start out with booze and make fun of it as you go instead of taking it seriously? Or is it not quite MST3K-able?

OG_slinger wrote:

I've been bingeing the crap out of La Casa de Papel.

A group of thieves try to steal 2.4 billion Euros from the Royal Mint of Spain.

The mysterious El Profesor recruits eight criminals who in don't know each other to pull it off. In Reservoir Dogs-esque fashion the thieves go by the names of cities to avoid giving away any identifiable information about each other.

By the end of the first episode the gang stormed the mint, took 67 people hostage (including a visiting group of students) stole millions of Euros, got into a police shootout, and ended up surrounded by the police and security forces in a hostage standoff. And that's when the real heist began.

What makes the show great is that the criminals don't really know each other so the viewer gets to see how they react to each other--and the hostages--as the days unfold and the pressure mounts. Additionally there's great play between El Profesor and the woman who is the police's chief hostage negotiator.

If you like heists then this one's for you. It brings in touches from all the great crime films--some Reservoir Dogs, a bit of Die Hard, a little Oceans 11, a touch of The Great Train Robbery, some Thief, etc.

If you're not in sales, you ought to be.
That was a perfect pitch.

Jonman wrote:
Fredrik_S wrote:
Spoiler:

So the world is running out of energy. What about wind / solar power? Just put down a bunch of wind turbines and done. Movie over.

Spoiler:

If you block all the wind with turbines, then you're putting too much drag on the spin of the planet, which will slow down the Earth's rotation enough that gravity won't work anymore and everyone will float off into space. Duh.

Or we could

Spoiler:

run out of wind! :D

So Cloverfield paradox

Spoiler:

is basically half life portal storm the movie.

I enjoyed it.

Chaz wrote:

I was really disappointed to find out The Big Short was no longer on Netflix. I just finished Spotlight, which was spectacular, and was looking for something in a similar vein. Couldn't find anything though. Then remembered how terrible Netflix is for general browsing.

I wouldn't call those movies all that similar, myself.

How Netflix and Paramount Pictures took a crappy movie and turned it into gold

The Cloverfield Paradox isn’t a very good movie, but that fact doesn’t really matter to any of the companies involved in its production or distribution.

This is the sort of movie that would have lost money at the box office after a standard, and expensive, run of trailers and promotion. A standard theatrical release would have been poisoned by poor reviews and worth of mouth, but the current situation allowed everyone to walk out of the film a winner.

Well, except the audience. And even that is arguable.

It has been reported that the film’s budget was around $40 million, and it seems as if everyone knew it was in trouble for some time.
But Netflix provided another way out. The Hollywood Reporter is now saying that Netflix paid around $50 million for The Cloverfield Paradox, which means that the movie became instantly profitable for Paramount. The studio no longer has to worry about ticket sales or post-release promotion. They just sign a few papers and suddenly a flop becomes a film that made back its budget and then some. After that it becomes Netflix’s problem.

Haha. What Pyx just posted could also be applied to Bright.

Netflix needs to get some acquisitions people who aren't abject morons.

Good god that movie. (Watched it last night. Forced myself to watch all the way through, even.)

I mean, there's suspension of disbelief and there's aggressively ignoring fundamental scientific principles that grade school children should know. Even beyond that, I knew the rest of the movie would be a bumpy ride when the head genius scientist dude said something like "what we know about quantum entanglement means that we will return to our reality."

So how did Netflix and Paramount turn it into gold. I see how Paramount made out ok on the deal but it seems like it was a bad deal for Netflix as it isn't going to lead to more subscriptions or good publicity for their original content.

pizzaddict wrote:

So how did Netflix and Paramount turn it into gold. I see how Paramount made out ok on the deal but it seems like it was a bad deal for Netflix as it isn't going to lead to more subscriptions or good publicity for their original content.

Just a guess, but given that Netflix keeps doing this (Cloverfield, Bright, every goddamn Adam Sandler movie) the financials must be working out for them. I think they operate in a really weird state of accounting.

kazooka wrote:
pizzaddict wrote:

So how did Netflix and Paramount turn it into gold. I see how Paramount made out ok on the deal but it seems like it was a bad deal for Netflix as it isn't going to lead to more subscriptions or good publicity for their original content.

Just a guess, but given that Netflix keeps doing this (Cloverfield, Bright, every goddamn Adam Sandler movie) the financials must be working out for them. I think they operate in a really weird state of accounting.

Different people like different things. Netflix has movies and tv shows for everybody. I happen to like Bright and most of Adam Sandler movies. True I couldn't get through his last netflix movie but someone liked it and no matter how bad I thought it was there are still more movies and tv shows that I like on netflix than I can watch. It doesn't matter if they release a thousand horrible movies and tv shows because they also have a thousand good movies and tv shows.

OG_slinger wrote:

I've been bingeing the crap out of La Casa de Papel.

A group of thieves try to steal 2.4 billion Euros from the Royal Mint of Spain.

The mysterious El Profesor recruits eight criminals who in don't know each other to pull it off. In Reservoir Dogs-esque fashion the thieves go by the names of cities to avoid giving away any identifiable information about each other.

By the end of the first episode the gang stormed the mint, took 67 people hostage (including a visiting group of students) stole millions of Euros, got into a police shootout, and ended up surrounded by the police and security forces in a hostage standoff. And that's when the real heist began.

What makes the show great is that the criminals don't really know each other so the viewer gets to see how they react to each other--and the hostages--as the days unfold and the pressure mounts. Additionally there's great play between El Profesor and the woman who is the police's chief hostage negotiator.

If you like heists then this one's for you. It brings in touches from all the great crime films--some Reservoir Dogs, a bit of Die Hard, a little Oceans 11, a touch of The Great Train Robbery, some Thief, etc.

I added this to my list after your rec. They have since renamed it "Money Heist", I assume so that English language audiences won't immediately pass it over. Surely some variation on "House of Paper" hadn't yet been trademarked.

kazooka wrote:
pizzaddict wrote:

So how did Netflix and Paramount turn it into gold. I see how Paramount made out ok on the deal but it seems like it was a bad deal for Netflix as it isn't going to lead to more subscriptions or good publicity for their original content.

Just a guess, but given that Netflix keeps doing this (Cloverfield, Bright, every goddamn Adam Sandler movie) the financials must be working out for them. I think they operate in a really weird state of accounting.

Netflix just wants stuff, ideally stuff no one else has. As Jeff Cannata of /Film points out, they created a moment when it was important to have a Netflix account. And from that perspective...it's better for Netflix if the movie is a wreck.

pizzaddict wrote:

So how did Netflix and Paramount turn it into gold. I see how Paramount made out ok on the deal but it seems like it was a bad deal for Netflix as it isn't going to lead to more subscriptions or good publicity for their original content.

Who is going to watch it right after the Superbowl? The timing seems designed to make sure people *don't* watch it. People are just going to see the ad, get Netflix's name in their brain and see that they've got an exclusive movie that one would expect to land in theaters. This was an ad for Netflix itself, meant to convince people that they're a primary source for new stuff to watch and not just the Internet version of Blockbuster Video. By hiding it in a movie trailer they're hoping to get that message to people when their guard is down.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:

Netflix just wants stuff, ideally stuff no one else has. As Jeff Cannata of /Film points out, they created a moment when it was important to have a Netflix account. And from that perspective...it's better for Netflix if the movie is a wreck.

I guess this is the logic behind Netflix "turn to gold" argument.
As long as they know how to binge feed you what you (specifically) want, they can turn mediocre content that costs 50mil into a quick subscription booster.

$50mil / $13.99 / 42 months average suscription = 83,115.85 viewers.

Averaging each viewer to a subscription of 43 months, the movie becomes "profitable" to Netflix after 83K users.

Playing with those numbers, lets asume watching a bad movie such as Paradox only reinforces your interest in Netflix for 6 more months.

$13.99 * 6mo * X = $50,000,000 USD
X = 595,663.57 viewers, aka, 0.5% of the total 118m Netflix subscribers.

Anything above 0.5% of the viewer base, Netflix "makes a profit".

Hobbes2099 wrote:

As long as they know how to binge feed you what you (specifically) want, they can turn mediocre content that costs 50mil into a quick subscription booster.

$50mil / $13.99 / 42 months average suscription = 83,115.85 viewers.

Averaging each viewer to a subscription of 43 months, the movie becomes "profitable" to Netflix after 83K users.

Playing with those numbers, lets asume watching a bad movie such as Paradox only reinforces your interest in Netflix for 6 more months.

$13.99 * 6mo * X = $50,000,000 USD
X = 595,663.57 viewers, aka, 0.5% of the total 118m Netflix subscribers.

Anything above 0.5% of the viewer base, Netflix "makes a profit".

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/2VSu87I.jpg)

quote, edit, etc, etc

This makes me so happy. I miss The Soup!

Well, I guess I'm not watching Altered Carbon any time soon. Apparently you can't download it for offline viewing. Which is weird, because I thought their thing was that all Netflix Originals would be able to do that. Oh well.

Chaz wrote:

Well, I guess I'm not watching Altered Carbon any time soon. Apparently you can't download it for offline viewing. Which is weird, because I thought their thing was that all Netflix Originals would be able to do that. Oh well.

Em I just downloaded it to my phone.