Like most sites that feature user reviews for products, Netflix filters out the riffraff by showing the "reviews voted most helpful" on the main page for the product. The result in this case is that usually at least one of the three featured reviews (not including the three most recent reviews shown below them) tells you what people who like the movie like about it, or offers some historical perspective, and is therefore very helpful in deciding whether or not I should rent it.

But something seems to be going haywire today. On several movie pages I've looked at today, the featured reviews seem to be among the least helpful. The first time this happened it was really quite annoying, because the first review gave away the ending of the movie! And the review had no business being on that page, because it had received 2 votes of "helpful" to 109 "not helpful"s. So to give you fair warning, if you haven't seen the movie Layer Cake, and you're at all interested in it, don't read the user reviews! I have to imagine a lot of people are going to have the movie ruined, because an article just appeared in the Times about the movie's phenomenal success on DVD, which is outpacing its theater earnings ninefold.

At first I couldn't find a similar problem on the pages for other movies, but after some more browsing it seems to be spreading, and the results have been more amusing than in that first case. I'd always been impressed with how cogent and knowledgeable the user reviews seemed to be, and now I'm getting to see the other half. The stupid half. Examples:

Another featured review of Layer Cake:

"I could not sit through this movie. My Boyfriend watched it and said it made not sense."
0 out of 22 people found this review helpful.

A featured review of Funny Games:

"Movie not in english!! ruined my weekend...couldn't watch..who wants to have to read the movie???i got a headache after 5 minutes & took it out!"
2 out of 59 people found this review helpful.
(Note: the reviewer rated the movie 5 stars out of 5.)

From a featured review of Requiem for a Dream:

"Don't be decieved by the good acting and film score by Kronos."

From a featured review of Manhattan:

"This Movie is entirely in Black and White. I wish I knew this before I watched it. I had just finished Schindler's List and was not in the mood for another B&W movie. Probably the main reason I gave it such a low rating."

A featured review of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid:

"I really like seeing these 2 together, but there was something missing in this movie. I can't really put my finger on it, but something was missing."

Well, in the middle of collecting these, I just started seeing "Netflix Site Error" when trying to access any page on the site. Guess they found this.