I was just over at Netflix seeing if the review I wrote yesterday posted yet. Of course it did not. And in doing that, I read through the other member reviews there.
Is it just me, or does it seem like they've all been written by basically the same person who keeps finding new and exciting ways to say "boring/too long/overrated/disappointing/I'm not a bigot, but..." And it's just the same freaking crap over and over and over again, peppered very sparingly with the occasional 4-star but still mixed review and the nearly extinct 5-star review.
So I wrote their administrators a little letter, the text to follow:
Hello,
I'm finding a disturbing trend in the Brokeback Mountain member reviews at your site. It's as if all or most of them were written by the same person. You are only posting the negative "It was boring/overhyped/only getting the attention it's gotten because it's gay" etc. reviews and *very* few of the positive ones I know must be out there (not to mention the one I wrote yesterday that's still not posted, but I know it'll take up to 48 hours...)
Do you do any moderating of the reviews in general, or is whatever anyone posts posted automatically with no intervention? I've gotta believe you do *some* moderation, because I've seen enough hateful, bigoted crap about this movie on the IMDb site to last two lifetimes.
My point is, if you're choosing which reviews to post and which ones not to, I think you're shooting yourselves in the foot by not at least making it an even balance of raves and rants. You do want people to rent this movie/join your club, don't you?
Just my $0.02 and then some. For what it's worth.
Barbara Youngling, Netflix Member (who is seriously considering discontinuing that)We shall see if I can any response at all... Meanwhile, I really am considering discontinuing my membership there. The last two movies I got from them have been collecting dust tumbleweeds since my first screener of Brokeback arrived, anyway.