Rambling at Full Tilt

Don't say you weren't warned by the title.

One of the central ideas you focus on when you study economics, especially in college, is the way that markets distribute goods. The greatest advantage that capitalism has as an economic system is that it is best suited for an efficient distribution of resources. Of course, even the most market fundamentalist of economists will tell you that a free market cannot provision all goods properly, that it is just the best model that exists. The classic examples of market failures typically deal with public goods, but I've always held that art is an example of the type of things that can be underprovided by the market. Which is why I particularly love Netflix.

Netflix as a business model is pretty great, because on top of selling movie rentals they really sell convenience. It is not the best in its class--Blockbuster has the benefit of physical locations to facilitate movement along your queue of films--but it's damn good. But the most interesting thing about Netflix's lower cost model is their ability to stock obscure, little seen films. A lot of the time these obscure art films stay that way because they're shit, but sometimes they are really good. For one of these more esoteric films, it only needs to be rented a handful of times for it to be a good investment for Netflix. The same can be said for those brilliant but cancelled TV shows (Darren Star's Grosse Pointe was a delight to watch on DVD).

I think the trend in newspapers and television of reporting box office numbers for films as evidence of their quality is wrongheaded. The financial success of a film is really only important to the studio, but more troubling is the idea that because a film makes $70 million in a weekend that it is good--that because millions of people like something that you should like it too. Box office reporting causes studios to become obsessed with opening weekend numbers and the truth is to have a big opening weekend you don't need a good movie you need a good poster and marketing campaign. Spending loads of money on marketing blows out the budget of the film--budget that could have been used to improve the quality of the film. Big budget films have to capture huge audiences to recoup their costs, but they have to do it in three days or risk being labelled a flop by the Hollywood Reporter. David Milch, perhaps one of the best television writers (or writers period), notes that the revenue model for films necessitates a big audience and thus a broadening of the story. It cannot sustain nuanced or complex narratives, and instead must be fixed around set pieces--an explosion, a sex scene or some protracted bit of slapstick comedy. In order for films to appeal to such a diverse body, they have to smooth all the edges so that each new film is just an amalgamation of 4 previously successful films. The cable TV revenue model--needing a radically smaller audience to be financially viable--is why the best dramatic and comedic work of the last 10 years is coming from television (The Sopranos, The Wire, Deadwood, Brotherhood, Californication, and now Mad Men). If we want to trace its roots, I feel confident saying that The Larry Sanders Show completely changed the television comedy and created the idea of cable being the vanguard of intelligent television. If you need to know how influential Larry Sanders was, just look at the names of people who got their start or honed their skills there: Judd Apatow, Jon Stewart, Peter Tolan, Ken Kwapis, Todd Holland, Jeremy Piven, Jeffrey Tambor. To complete the effusive praise, the shows that Larry Sanders directly influenced are incredible: The Daily Show, The Office (UK and American), all Judd Apatpow productions, Entourage (Ari Gold is actually the second TV adaptation of the legend that is Ari Emanuel), Arrested Development and 30 Rock. You can rent shows like this that have long since left the air because of the great gods of Netflix. Netflix presents such a fantastic platform for these smaller art pieces to be showcased and make them even more likely to stick around. The innovation that comes from these shows is more likely and stronger because of Netflix.

It would be better if you bought the DVDs though.