Local Favorites
With the writers strike dragging on into its umpteenth month (I miss you Dirty Sexy Money!), I've turned more and more to my Netflix account to fill my evenings. And if you've ever browsed that website you know that it's a bottomless pit of weird quirks. Take for example, the fact that at the bottom of the home page, you can see a list of movies that are popular in your area. Not necessarily the most rented in New York City, but rather the films that "members in and around New York are currently renting much more than other Netflix members." I suppose the thinking in showing me these movies is that the enormous peer pressure of knowing that Manhattanites all around me are so obsessed with Paul Mazursky that I might cave and rent it too just to get a fleeting taste of the sense of community that post-modern urban living has deprived me of.
Currently, the top five in this category are:
1)Next Stop, Greenwich Village
2)The 39 Steps
3)Crossing Delancey
4)Barbarians at the Gate
5)The Panic in Needle Park
So you have four films set in New York, and one that's been turned into a critically acclaimed Broadway show. Fascinating and, I suppose, it makes some sense for people to be interested in stories set around them. Then again, shouldn't these people be out and actually living in New York City, instead of watching people pretend to on their televisions?
Anyway, this whole concept of certain areas being more interested in particular movies fascinated me. The Netflix site lets you search different areas to find what is the most popular movie in each zip code in their database. Here, now, are the #1 movies in each of the following cities:
Baltimore, MD: Homicide: Season Six
Boise, ID: Out of the Blue: A Film About Life and Football at Boise State
Cedar Rapids, IA: Beer League
Chicago, IL: Expo: Magic of the White City
Cincinnati, OH: Last Man Standing
Dallas, TX: Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds
Denver, CO: Things to Do In Denver When You're Dead
Helena, MO: Montana Sky
Honolulu, HI: Samoan Wedding
Indianapolis, IN: Bambi
Lexington, KY: Jefferson in Paris (#2: Birth of a Nation)
Little Rock, AK: Paradise Lost
Los Angeles, CA: The Last Mogul
Madison, WI: Wisconsin Death Trip
Minneapolis, MN: Al Franken: God Spoke
Nashville, TN: Nashville
Orlando, FL: The Name of the Rose
Park City, UT: Clear and Present Danger
posted by Matt Singer @ 12:21 AM
3 Comments:
I think this is completely hilarious! I'm surprised and not-so-surprised that Denver's pick is "things to do in Denver when you're dead"; it was a tremendous deal when they shot that in 5280 (and what wows it got in the scene outside the blue bird theater on e. Colfax ave!), but that was a long time ago! I would actually think a movie like "about schmidt" would be higher rated since you get a much wider view of the skyline and neighborhoods. But who am I...
The Chicago pick is no surprise either; the book "Devil in the White City" is like Chicago's handbook. I can't tell you how often I see people reading it on the subway. It's bigger than NFT!
Up here in Syracuse, NY, the classic "The Big Sleep", for some unknown reason, is the tops here. I guess maybe because it's cold and we're all hibernating.
This might be a good time to point out that "Beer League" is pretty great. Big ups, Cedar Rapids.
(Oh, and it's set in Jersey, so there's no correlation...)
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