Monday, July 4, 2011

Say What, Netflix?



I stumbled across this the other day and thought it was quite hilarious. So I've had the 1954 movie Creature from the Black Lagoon in my queue for a while (not sure if I'll ever get around to watching it, but beside the point) and this time as I'm going through my movies, I actually stop to read the description, per whoever writes these things for Netflix. It reads as follows:

"A legend in the history of B-movie fare. How many female scientists travel the Amazon bedecked in bikini-wear calculated to charm an anaconda off a branch?"

For shizz, dudes. THAT is the synopsis for Creature from the Black Lagoon. I find several things confusing and funny about this. First, the grammar bitch in me does not like that the first sentence is a fragment. I realize I probably use them a lot in my reviews, but whatever, it's my blog.

Second, I had to read that second sentence a good three times before I got what they were actually trying to say. It's a little poorly structured and loses it's main idea within that very long prepositional phrase starting with "in."

Third, this entire description is less than 30 words long and tells me absolutely nothing about the movie's plot, which is really annoying.

Fourth and perhaps most important, how dirty is that second sentence??? And don't tell me that I've got a dirty mind because some goofball over at the Netflix Description Writing Department definitely snuck this tidbit past the supervisors. "Charm an anaconda off a branch"? Really? If you don't get the hidden meaning in that, then you don't deserve to have it explained to you. For a 50s B-movie about a man-fish-monster-thing, this description is probably quite misleading.

So now I want to know who writes these descriptions for Netflix and how I can get in on that job. It sounds like a cakewalk to me if all you have to do is come up with nonsensical, perverted baloney like this.

2 comments:

  1. I often wonder if some of those copywriters even bother looking at other people's summaries, let alone the movies themselves.

    Netflix isn't the only place you encounter bizarre summaries like that. I've seen them at IMDB, Amazon.com, and on many DVD "shovelware" packages.

    As for how you get a job like that, I wish I knew. I've applied and gotten nowhere. :)

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  2. Ridic. Plus she doesn't even wear a bikini!

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