Oh man, Casino Royale has got to be one of the worst films of all time. Talk about a stinking pile of . . . I mean, who wants to watch stupid poker scenes? And why even try to have realistic fight scenes after that opening scene that was completely out of, like, Mario Brothers? Who can jump that high or run that fast? Nobody. And that Bond girl looks like she's about 13.
O/T, but actually, that opening scene WAS for real, and that guy really DID those feats. Others can too, amazingly enough--it's like a kind of martial art. He's Sebastien Foucan, the founder of the sport of Free Running:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_running (YouTube has many other examples. And the sport of Parkour is similar.)
Personally I did enjoy Casino Royale, and I never liked a Bond film before. Which probably means it's NOT in line with the other movies, and understandably won't be liked by their fans. As for which style is closer to the books, I cannot say. As for the Poker scenes... I didn't follow them at all, and they did nothing for me other than being part of the plot. I'm with you there. Guess I'm just not a card player.
I wasn't aware that they had any limiting factors. I've been going through approx 36 DVDs a month with NetFlix (9 per week), and haven't had them slow me down. I have had one movie sent from a distant city, but it was a rather obscure DVD, so didn't expect them to stock it at all of their warehouses.
O/T again... but they do have limits, which are higher for more costly plans. For the $10 a month plan it's about 4 a month--whereas you can get nearly 8 a month by postal times alone. But watch more than say 6 a month for a few months (like I did) and they'll cut you back, using the postal service to delay the turnaround by shipping from more distant cities (clever). Once in a while that's a legitimate inventory issue, but when you suddenly get ALL your movies from across the country (even mainstream ones) as though somebody flipped a switch... you know some actual policy kicked in. So in general, if you watch a movie the day you get it, and send it back the next day--like I do--do NOT make a habit of that! Hang on to at least SOME movies longer, and you should stay clear of their limits. In other words, limit yourself or they will do it for you. And if they do, it will (in my experience) take a couple months of "good behavior"--not sending movies back too soon--before you get off the "blacklist" and magically start getting movies sent from your nearest depot again. (I paid for Netflix without watching hardly ANY movies during a month of travel, and it still wasn't enough to get me off their blacklist until another month had passed.) If you see more than one or two movies come from distant cities (check the return address), slow down your viewing and hang on to movies: you are close to getting on the list! Overbuying a plan with more than you need--which is what they want--prevents you from hitting limits. So for instance, I never need more than one movie at once, and never mind a few days between movies. But I'd have to buy the 2-at-a-time plan anyway, just to get what SHOULD be possible with 1-at-a-time, if movies were truly unlimited except by mail time. But they ARE limited by more than just mail time, as I soon discovered when I started getting ZERO movies a week quite frequently.
Now, a lot of people hit the limits but don't care or notice, and lot of people never DO hit the limits because they seldom send a movie back that quickly, or have bought a plan that sends TOO many movies, causing them to "sit on" quite a few. Anyway... Google "netflix throttling" for more--it's widely documented and there's a lawsuit.
To be fair, I love their selection and don't want them to send me true unlimited movies if it puts them out of business to do so. I just wish they were UP FRONT about the exact limit instead of making you guess and calculate--it adds another level of frustrating uncertainty on top of the mysterious shipping times. And they certainly should not use the term "unlimited" the way they do. Now, in the fine print they were recently required to add about the subject, they cleverly phrase it something like, "giving preference to customers who watch fewer movies." But that's enough of that rant. I canceled my Netflix because of the frustrations, but they DO have their good points, and the great selection WILL bring me back for about 2 months each year to watch hard-to-find stuff. And I'll take Netflix over Blockbuster's copycat service with censored movies (and terrible in-store selection) any day. What I really want is per-title RENTALS from Netflix, pay-as-you-go, so if you watch a lot or don't it doesn't matter--what you pay is always fair to all parties. Limits are then a non-issue--except maybe for some limit on how long you can keep a disc at home before being charged a second time (fair enough). I wrote them and told them I'd be back if they offered that option.
