So I'm working on expanding a piece I wrote about Howard Hawks' Red River, and it'd been awhile since I worked on the piece or saw the film, so I popped on over to Netflix to stream it. Naturally, the system worked fine, but for some reason it was...wait for it...colorized. Why? To what end? I've actually rented the film FROM Netflix, and since they get things basically right, it was in black and white, but for some reason, that didn't carry over to the online version.

More and more, though, I question the extent to which my Netflix subscription is worth it. It's impossible to tell what version of a film they'll send you, since the cover art presented doesn't always correspond to the disc you receive, and even if it does, that might not be the best transfer to home video the film has received. Being the cinephile that I am, how I see a movie is massively important to me. I don't just want to get a general idea - I want it to be the closest possible to seeing it on a quality print in a movie theater.

And so, obviously, Red River is WAY off base. Looking forward to getting back to Portland, home of Movie Madness, the finest video store in this great land.