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. 

Oh yeah - there's a thing called pay-per-view

As I continue homing in on 2010 movies I need to see before my January 25th deadline -- like some kind of heat-seeking missile -- I had a realization over the weekend about a whole channel open to me for acquiring titles, that I'd almost forgotten about.

You can, like, pay for them on your cable bill.

See, I'd forgotten that there was a thing called pay-per-view -- or at least, that's what we used to call it in the old days. Now it's just a part of OnDemand with payments attached, but pay-per-view is still a pretty accurate way to encapsulate what it is you're doing.

I used to entirely steer clear of watching movies in this way. I think that's because in the old days, watching a movie on pay-per-view was the equivalent of paying for a movie in a hotel. It was pretty much straight-up ten bucks to watch movies by clicking on the BUY button on your TV, so it was an indulgence that was strictly forbidden.

In more recent years, the competition for your movie rental buck has gotten a lot more fierce, so only hotels, where you're a captive audience, can still afford to charge that much. (Actually, some hotels charge like $14.99, even for non-porn -- though they offset the extra charge by offering some titles that haven't hit DVD yet.) The pay-per-view on your own TV is down to $4.99 or $5.99, sometimes even cheaper than that. Still, it's not something I do very often. My wife and I occasionally pay for movies like this, but we're talking like once a year.

But as I'm trying to wrap up my rankings for the year, and have some titles I'd still like to get in there, it's a pretty quick and easy way to start watching something immediately -- duh, that's the point -- without waiting for shipping times or even making a trip to the local Redbox.

So I waded into those waters on Friday night when it became clear that my wife was going to hit the hay early. (Do people still say "hit the hay"?) I didn't have anything lined up for the 10 p.m. viewing slot, and my choices for 2010 movies streaming on Netflix were more in the category of "chores" than "fun movies." (Not that the choice I ended up with turned out to be "fun," but more on that in a moment.)

I was surprised by the sheer quantity of movies available, but more than that, it was like a little light bulb went off in my head. It should have been obvious -- I mean, the concept of pay-per-view has existed for something like 20 years -- but apparently it wasn't. "You mean I can have this ... right now?" It was like discovering the capabilities of Netflix streaming for the first time last summer.

So I eagerly clicked through the choices and narrowed it down to four:

Devil
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World
Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole
Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

The next exciting thing I discovered was that titles whose Netflix release date had been hovering out there in the future -- like Devil and Wall Street -- could be had, today. Devil releases on Netflix tomorrow, but I knew there wasn't a great chance I'd have time to get it in the mail before next Tuesday. And Wall Street doesn't even release until next Tuesday, meaning I had resigned myself to leaving it off my rankings.

As it turns out, Wall Street was the only one I didn't end up watching over the weekend, though I ended up watching Scott Pilgrim on Saturday night on BluRay. And glad I did -- it is head and shoulders above the other two in terms of quality. As for the infamous Owls of Ga'Hoole (whose title I am always picking on), it has decent animation, but nothing special, and its story is as bland and forgettable as can be. The less said about Devil the better, except that M. Night Shyamalan's toxic influence is present even when he's not the one sitting in the director's chair. (That job went to a guy named John Erick Dowdle.) At least Owls of Ga'Hoole came in at the bargain rate of only $2.99 -- some kind of new release special. Devil was two dollars more than that, but probably two dollars shittier.

The takeaway is that maybe I should not fear pay-per-view after all. There are no hidden fees -- only the overt ones. Will my cable bill be a bit higher next month? Sure. But who can put a price on being able to watch an otherwise elusive film, without any trips to the store or prior logistics, in a short window of available time to do it?

Now to get a real benefit out of it and actually watch Wall Street as well.

Demographics for dummies

The usual goal, with any film that gets released, is to reach as many different types of viewer as possible. That's the way you make the most money. And that's also why you sometimes see several different TV campaigns that are distinctly different in tone -- one that might push the romantic side of a movie, one that might emphasize its funny parts, one that might make it look like a thriller. It's all just a matter of cleverly editing the available footage.

Considering this, can you remember a weekend that was more packed with new releases that didn't give a damn about appealing to anyone outside their target demographic?

The three major new releases this week -- Eat Pray Love, The Expendables, and Scott Pilgrim vs. the World -- are each basically the prototypical example of the type of movie they are. Eat Pray Love -- adapted from a self-help book, starring Julia Roberts, and featuring dozens of exotic locations -- is squarely aimed at women age 18 to 49. The Expendables -- a testosterone-laden gathering of everyone who's ever starred in an action movie since 1984, and directed by the king of that group, Sylvester Stallone -- is intended purely for the men in that same age range. And Scott Pilgrim vs. the World -- starring teen icon Michael Cera and based on a graphic novel -- is for everyone under 18, of both genders.

So, pretty much everyone will have something to see this weekend. Those over 49 will probably go see Eat Pray Love. Which I'm predicting will be the weekend's box office winner. Hey, it's Julia, after all.

However, it will be interesting to monitor the performances of the other two, as they are each something of a test of the viability of a certain type of movie.

The Expendables is the one I'm most interested in -- not in terms of wanting to see it the most, but in terms of how it will fly with audiences. As I wrote last year when 12 Rounds came out (check out the post here), the "action hero" as such is something that doesn't really exist anymore, like he did in the 1980s -- except in this movie. In fact, this movie is giving some seriously out-of-work actors (Dolph Lundgren, anyone?) another chance at glory -- which may be either a brilliant move or an extremely stupid one. There's a reason guys like Lundgren, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal don't appear in movies you've ever heard of anymore -- the audience simply stopped wanting to see them. At least Stallone didn't go that far down the list to Van Damme and Seagal, and smartly hedged his bets with some guys who have current box office appeal, such as Mickey Rourke, Jason Statham and Jet Li. But even Stallone himself is a total relic these days -- the man is 64 years old -- so it will be really interesting to see if audiences buy a movie in which he is basically the star, and basically playing the 1982 version of himself.

As for Scott Pilgrim, that's the one of these three that I would probably see, but only because I'm still trying to hang on to that 18-year-old version of myself. Actually, I know it could be really good, but I also have my doubts, in part because of my well-documented case of being over Michael Cera. (There's something about the earnest way he's rocking out on the guitar in this poster that just rubs me the wrong way.) But I did discuss the possibility of seeing it a couple weeks ago with a friend, so that may transpire. In terms of being an observer of the film industry, I'm interested to see just how much box office clout Cera actually has. His roles have been steadily increasing in profile in recent years, as he's been breaking out of ensembles and starting to really carry movies himself. This is the first summer release he's had since last year's Year One, in which Jack Black did at least as much if not more of the heavy lifting in terms of trying to bring in audiences. This time out, he has no co-headliner, so it will really serve as some kind of gauge of Cera's ability to sink or swim. Let's hope having Edgar Wright as director can only help.

Eat Pray Love? I will see it on an airplane sometime.