Keyword: Ramona

The Netflix algorithm is a funny thing sometimes.

At some point this week, without any particular inspiration that I remember, I decided it was time to watch Scott Pilgrim vs. the World for the second time. I had really liked the film when I first saw it -- it just closed out my top ten of that year -- but I'd remembered feeling sort of exhausted by its repetitive seven-act structure. When I saw it at #418 (92%) on my Flickchart -- oh yes, that was the inspiration -- I decided to revisit it to see whether that ranking is a tad too generous.

I checked Netflix to see if it was streaming there, and was glad to see that it was. 

Then I scanned to see the other results that come up as similar films when you search for Scott Pilgrim. I couldn't help notice a movie called Oh, Romana!, whose poster looks like this:

The reason this is funny is that the movie almost certainly has nothing to do with Scott Pilgirm. Except this: Both have a character named Ramona.

I certainly wouldn't have caught it except that Ramona Flowers, the character in Scott Pilgrim who has the seven evil exes Scott must fight, has become a bit of a breakout cultural icon. I've heard people mention loving her in a number of different contexts. It's probably the ever-changing hair color. Or actress Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Or the fact that she goes her own way. 

Oh, Ramona! has nothing to do with her. It's a 2019 romantic comedy from Romania. So does that make it a romantic Romanian Ramona? Here is its premise as written on Wikipedia:

"Oh, Ramona! follows the main character Andrei from his point of view while he steps into adulthood and dealing with romance. Andrei has a crush on the "hottest girl in school", Ramona. Later on another girl Andrei meets on a vacation, Anemona, is charmed by his sincerity and dorkiness and he ends up being torn between the two girls he loves. To be able to choose, Andrei has to introspect his life."

Written by a Romanian with English as his/her second language, I'd say. No judgment. 

From the poster it looks like it's trying to evoke something like American Pie, a very different type of coming of age movie from Scott Pilgrim, if we can even call that coming of age. At 22, Scott should have already come of age ... though he does start the movie dating a high schooler. 

So the only reason the movie seems to have come up is that they both have a character named Ramona.

Now, I can understand if it were the other way around. The point of a search term is to be able to help someone find something whose title they can't exactly remember. If a prospective viewer were searching for Scott Pilgrim and couldn't remember the exact title -- maybe they thought it was Ramona Flowers vs. the World? -- you'd want Scott Pilgrim to come up in a search by the word "Ramona."

But when the searcher already knows the name of the movie, producing Oh, Ramona! as a search result is basically just deception. It's basically saying "We are blatantly looking for any reason for you to click on something, and hope that you are in love not only with Ramona Flowers, but with her actual first name."

Then again, I suppose you could make the argument that Cristina Jacob, the writer-director of Oh, Ramona!, specifically chose that name for her character as an allusion/homage to Scott Pilgrim, which may well have been a cinematic touchstone for her. Or, more cynically, perhaps she thought her viewers would make the same mistake Netflix imagined they might make, clicking on this movie for its apparent similarity to something they already love.

I'd watch to see if the homage extended further than the title -- thereby actually sort of justifying the "similar films" designation by Netflix -- except that that's exactly what they want me to do. 

As for my actual second viewing of Scott Pilgrim on Friday night, I liked it about the same amount as I remember liking it previously, and felt similarly exhausted by the structure. Then again, I was sort of just exhausted anyway. It was Friday night and I'd run nearly six miles earlier in the day. So it was inevitable that I took a number of short "naps" as I finished the film's final 30 minutes. 

One thing I will say, though, is that although I enjoy Ramona Flowers as much as the next guy -- or girl -- the young star I was most delighted to see here was Anna Kendrick. (There are quite a lot, you remember, including Brie Larson, Aubrey Plaza, Chris Evans and Mae Whitman). Not because I thought she looked so much younger, but because she's responsible for my single favorite line delivery in the whole movie.

I love this movie's balance between presenting the fantastical and capturing a genuine reaction to it. People's minds aren't exactly blown by the fact that characters seem to appear from nowhere and can fly through the sky as they fight, but certain eccentric things stretch their capacity for comprehension. Take the moment when Matthew Patel arrives at the battle of the bands as Ramona's first evil ex. It's not the moment he arrives that prompts the great Kendrick reaction, but it's when he extends his villain taunt of Scott to a kind of Bollywood dance that Kendrick drops the following:

"What?"

Or maybe it should be:

"Wut?"

It's so brilliant not only because of Kendrick's delivery, but because of what it implies. Like, "I've accepted everything that's happened thus far, but this particular weird thing is so weird that it leaves only a single word of gobsmacked disbelief at my disposal."

That single word alone is worth my watching seven distended evil ex battles. 

Netflix spoiler stills

I'm sure you've noticed that when a movie is loading on Netflix, a still from that movie accompanies the red progress circle spinning in the middle of the screen. It's a snapshot chosen, one would assume, to encapsulate what this movie is about and get you in the right frame of mind for watching it.

They are almost never a typical production still, the kind you'd get with a press packet. No, they seem to be a bit more random and quirky than that.

Someone is choosing these stills. Whoever it is, I want that job, because he or she sucks at it.

Twice now I have watched a movie on Netflix that had some key part of the plot spoiled by the still they chose to represent the movie. Twice is enough to write something about it here.

I think you'd agree that a still like this should be chosen carefully, so as not to give away anything crucial. At the very least it should follow the logic of those DVD menu screens that run through a looping ten-second montage of events from the movie, which usually don't tell you anything you wouldn't otherwise want to know. (Usually.)

Re-Animator was the offender the other night. When Re-Animator is loading up, Netflix shows you this (SPOILER ALERT):

Very strong on giving you a sense of what the movie is about. Not so strong on keeping elements of the plot a secret.

This still is from the last 20 or 30 minutes of the film. Without it, you might not know that this particular character gets decapitated during the course of the film's events. You might not care that you know, but you know, and Netflix didn't give you the chance to opt out of that knowledge.

Now, even though this is the occurrence that inspired me to write this post, it may be a particularly poor example in the sense that the poster above actually gives away this information. It's a drawing of the character and not a picture, so you might not put two and two together like a picture would help you do, but still, the poster is making no effort to keep the fate of this character a secret. So be it.

This, then, is a better example, and I suppose in the spirit of the very thing I am talking about here, it requires a SPOILER WARNING as well. So, read no further if you want nothing spoiled about the documentary Unhung Hero.

Here is what Netflix offers you while Unhung Hero is spinning up:

This is almost literally the last shot of the movie. It shows our protagonist, Patrick Moote, with his arm draped around the shoulder of a woman he met earlier in a shop selling sex toys. On a side note, him having a date with this girl is one of several parts of this movie I suspect might have been staged, to give it a serendipitously positive ending. But the movie worked quite well for me overall, so I'm forgiving it those (potential) sins.

The reasons why this is a poor still to choose from Unhung Hero are twofold:

1) It doesn't indicate anything meaningful about a guy grappling with the fact that he may have a smaller than average penis;

2) It reveals that things work out okay for him, even though the whole movie is about an emotional journey kicked off when his girlfriend publicly rejected his marriage proposal on a sporting event jumbotron -- blaming his small penis for why she didn't want to marry him.

The fact that my internet kept dropping when I watched Unhung Hero, meaning I had to load it up at multiple junctures of the movie, made the still even more problematic. We meet the girl pictured here early on in the movie, when Patrick surreptitiously tries to record his conversation with her at the sex toy shop, something her boss isn't having any of. At the time, we have no idea that she's going to re-enter the narrative, and in fact, she ends up pissed off at him because he gets her in trouble.

So reluanching this movie and seeing this still multiple times tells us in no uncertain terms that she will reappear, that she will become a potential romantic partner for him, and that if someone with her button-nosed cuteness is into him, then the size of his penis must not matter after all. The look of unambiguous contentment on Moote's face leaves no doubt about his triumph over his own fears of inadequacy. And the movie does derive much of its drama from the question of how things will turn out for Patrick, so this is problematic indeed.

My conclusion is that whoever does actually do this at Netflix does not take the task very seriously. That's a shame, because I think it would be a super fun endeavor for any true cinephile to undertake -- to review the movie for that one perfect image that captures its themes, tone and content, without spoiling anything.

Just give me that chance, Netflix. You don't even have to pay me if you don't want to. Just knowing I'm doing a service for other unsuspecting cinephiles would be payment enough.