A recent article on Yahoo Finance attempts to explain “why movies on Netflix just don’t matter anymore.”
As the article points out, Netflix is now becoming more popular for its original shows, namely House of Cards and Orange is the New Black, while its selection of streaming movies is sadly limited. The article goes on to allude to the “decreasing importance of film in pop culture.”
One thing that this analysis leaves out is that some people don’t seek out Hollywood blockbusters on Netflix. The site, for all its limitations, can be a good source for finding smaller, lesser known indie films. Granted, some of these are direct-to-video, low budget (and in many cases low quality) flicks.
There are, however, also quite a few good ones that deserve more attention than they receive. Just to name a few recent examples, while the average person may not have seen or heard of The Institute or Crystal Fairy & the Magical Cactus, some Netflix customers subscribe to the service mainly for the pleasure of finding such hidden gems.
There are also plenty of in-between films -not quite mainstream yet not obscure or art house. To give an example of such a recent release, check out Mr. Nobody, which was released in 2009 but only recently became available on Netflix Streaming.
It’s a little sad to see people equating movies with mainstream movies.