Bringing this in from Sad Thread.
That's the standard rule for movies. American version cuts the nudity, European version cuts the violence, Japanese version has everything plus 20min of extra tentacle gore.
It's too bad I can't stand Japanese movies :/ When I spot something that looks good on Netflix I check to see if the actors and director are all Japanese names so I can skip it. I just have wasted waay too many 15-minute attempts at watching the unwatchable. I know some people like them and I'm sure it's easier if you grew up watching them, but for me it's a combination of not getting any of the cultural cues they've thrown in and not appreciating the directing / acting style.
And it's not just Japanese movies. I tried to watch this (German?) movie called The Wall and I thought I would get to see some sweet supernatural / magical Wall action, heck no, it's
just about this lady trapped in a valley by an invisible wall she interacts with for like 5 minutes followed by her hunting and farming and losing animals for the next hour.
Then again apparently I'm hopeless when it comes to movies. I hate so many of them! I can't stand to watch a stupid movie. When people in the movie make dumb decisions and flail about helplessly I cringe and get irritated. Bad dialogue, plot holes, pointless villain justification, monster movies not following their own established rules, fight scenes that are simply idiotic, trailer makes it look supernatural but it's totally mundane, hero knocks the villain over and instead of killing him turns away to fiddle with the door so the villain has a chance to get up and attack him again, etc. If your character is not effective, he's defective, and I refuse watch defective characters except when the writer has specifically worked hard to make them defective in a thoughtful and worthwhile way. If everyone's defective just because the writer, director, and actors suck balls, I could be watching something better.
A lot of people may have spent months making this film and an investor may have spent millions on it, but that doesn't mean it's actually worth anything or that anyone should ever waste the 15 minutes to be satisfied that it's bullshit.
Of the movies that appear in theaters, I find 4 out of 5 worthless and unwatchable. The remaining 1 ranges from "I'll wait until it's in the cheap theater" to "I wouldn't mind seeing this on opening week". It has been a long-ass time since I've actually been excited for a movie to come out.
Then again sometimes I watch a movie that turns out to be thoroughly good despite looking crummy.
Why has Netflix not fulfilled its promises? Netflix comes out and it's supposed to be an alternative to the corner video store. The local video store that closed down near my old apartment was awesome, huge selection of foreign films and documentaries, weird stuff, wonderful stuff, new releases, etc.
Netflix doesn't get new releases until after they're out on DVD, unless they suck, in which case they're on there a week after being dumped from the theaters. The Netflix foreign film selection is mostly slow-ass French romances, Japanese gore / softcore snuff, idiotic and -flat out wrong- shoestring documentaries, a few black and white / B movies, and the lower tier of recent movies. They have series but never the most recent episodes, and only about 50% of the series you'd want to watch. And stuff keeps dropping off, likely because the contract ended and they didn't care to renew.
Why can't we have a library of every single movie? I'm sure IP holders would be happy to get in on Netflix if they got a happy little dollar for every few people who saw it. It's not like there's a huge rush of people out there buying new DVDs of The Golden Child or Big Trouble in Little China. I guess it boils down to, why can't we have a good thing?
Maybe that Netflix would have to charge more. I'd be fine with a tiered system where some movies are normal, free with subscription, but for others you can only watch like 10 per month. Although I'd say it should be based on the percentage you watched, so if you saw 15 minutes of an hourlong movie it would only count for 0.25 high-tier movies viewed that month.
If these online video companies killed brick and mortar video stores, but aren't providing the same selection, what are people supposed to do? Buy an original off Ebay? Borrow the movie from someone who has a copy? That's just not good enough.