Netflix Friday: More Quick Hits

I've never had much luck when it comes to a system making recommendations about what I might enjoy. It seems that my tastes run so wide that I give their computer systems a mental breakdown.

I know, most of us have diverse interests. But my experience has shown that mine seem to be a bit more diverse than most people's (not other geeks, mind you -- I often fit in well with their tastes, but not always). Here's a sampling of some recent movies and shows I watched on Netflix and you decide if you can think of something to recommend.

LIMITLESS (2011)
I was surprised that I enjoyed this as much as I did. The trailers on TV made it look like Dustin Hoffman was pulling the strings by supplying the drugs he needed to achieve total clarity (the ability to think clearly and correlate everything you've ever read, seen or heard), but that was not the case. Even though the movie seems to have been written by someone who just got out of rehab, it was an interesting premise that was well executed.

WHO'S MINDING THE STORE? (1963)

This is one of Jerry Lewis' earlier films, so he's not a total idiot (think Season One Homer Simpson -- dumb, not not completely gone daffy). This is a simple story: An heiress takes an incognito job in the family store so no one will try to date her for her family's money. She has a romance with Jerry and things go predictably wrong as the mother (Agnes Moorehead -- Endora from Bewitched) throws difficult tasks at him so he'll get fired and the daughter will dump him.

The action is a bit dated, and the ending seems like it was written in about 20 minutes and shot in about the same amount of time, but nevertheless, it was amusing.

OURAN HIGH SCHOOL HOST CLUB
This anime series is one of my favorites. Describing it is actually easy, but the plot summary doesn't do it justice. A poor girl wins a scholarship to a prestigious school for the super rich, and decides she'd rather focus on her studies so she pretends to be a boy. She gets sucked into the Host Club, which is a group of boys who make money by entertaining the rich girls at their school. They don't need the money (they are all super rich, after all), but do it because that's what they do. The thing you need to realize is that the characters are drawn and behave as stereotypes of their personalities -- and exaggerated stereotypes at that. Honey, for example, is the cute innocent boy that girls want to take care of, so he's drawn like a sweet little boy. The twins exude a "forbidden vibe" of homo eroticism, another is dark and mysterious, and so on. Once you wrap your head around that, this show really takes off. Also, it has one of the catchiest theme songs ever!

See you next week!