Monday, 08/01/05

I hold Netflix in high regard, and described it yesterday as the salvation of modern movie distribution. That said, the capsule summaries they include on the DVD labels are clearly the work of malevolent stoners or runaway artificial intelligences. They get details large and small wrong so much more often than they get them right (or blow the whole plot, as in the case in several of the Prime Suspect DVDs) that I've trained myself out of reading them until I see the movie.

Here's the blurb from John Sayles' minor work, "Sunshine State":

In this tale about small-town folks battling big-time business, Desiree Perry (Angela Bassett) returns to her hometown of Plantation Island, Fla., to resurrect herself and reconnect with her family. Longtime resident Marly Temple (Edie Falco) runs her family's small motel. When a big developer attempts to build a golf resort, the women team up to save their stretch of seashore.

Not only is that clichéd, it's rubbish: the two women meet once, in the first scene, where Desiree asks where the bathroom is and Marly tells her that it's in the back. Along the way, one of them decides that she should accept the developers' offer, which is probably the right decision (and she brings the right negotiator). If their stretch of seashore winds up being saved, it's due to factors not just beyond their control but that are also completely unknown to both characters. All of this is pretty incidental to the plot.

Maybe Netflix's crack movie describing squad plays a few rounds of Telephone before they write down the summaries. 10:00AM «

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