A muddled case for the generic nature of Netflix movies
Something I am generally pretty tired of are complaints about the quality of Netflix movies.
I’m not going to be out here defending them - a lot of them are pretty awful. But, I think what rankles me is how boring most of the articles are, regurgitating the same handful of titles over and over again… The Electric State, Red Notice, The Gray Man, etc etc.
There’s an interesting tension in Phil Hoad’s article on The Guardian site over the weekend. So much of it is his editorialising over the blandness of the supposed Netflix house style of movies, but as he explores the issue and talks with creatives, he’s being told how hands-off Netflix is and how little data is being provided from which to make decisions on.
A producer of an independent movie, who received more than $10m in funding from Netflix, said he was given no notes during shooting, and the company’s executives did not watch the dailies. “They basically wired us the money; my impression was I shouldn’t call them unless there was a house on fire. They have more money than any studio ever maybe, but they couldn’t stay on top of all their films. You can’t scale that quickly.” Many other film-makers I spoke to similarly claimed that Netflix largely gave them a free hand.
This producer believes the lack of rigour and the lack of experienced film executives during the company’s expansion phase hurt its quality control. On the one hand, this phase allowed the creation of left-field or brilliant works like Okja, the erratic art-world satire Velvet Buzzsaw, and Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things. On the other, it allowed reams of landfill titles with generic plots and shooting styles to pile up on the platform.
A pretty cool Netflix film that I think about a lot is a 2021 John David Washington flick called Beckett, which is about a tourist on the run in Greece after he gets caught up in a political conspiracy.
Deep into The Guardian article is the suggestion that it isn’t that the Netflix films are all flat and made by algorithm (though, last week’s The Thursday Murder Club suggests otherwise) - it is that the way Netflix recommends movies to viewers drives more generic results.
It isn’t so much that movies are being made by algorithm as that, by continually surfacing the mass-market or safe choice, the algorithm itself has a flattening, coarsening effect on our overall tastes. It’s intriguing that while the majority of Netflix collaborators interviewed for this piece praised their individual creative experience, most also expressed concern about how algorithms may be homogenising culture on a wider scale. “It is a fear of mine,” said the director of a major Netflix blockbuster. “There’s this constant balance that we’re trying to find with technology. Algorithms can be incredibly useful when you want a suggestion for what to watch. And they can also be madly infuriating and the stifler of originality and creativity. Both can be true.”
Netflix, or at least some of its former employees, are aware of the issue. Smallwood said that her greatest challenge was how to lead viewers into the deeper catalogue and avoid offering them only variations on what they’ve already watched. “We intentionally injected variety into people’s personalised pages,” she said. “As if we’re sprinkling in a few items that are not at the very top of the algorithm’s list.” (The company has recently filed patents for innovations to this effect.) It even experimented with different ways that viewers could express their preferences in order to shape what they’re shown. But “consumers don’t want to have to work hard to find what to watch,” said Smallwood. “They just want the right thing served up to them.”
Broadly, I’m not convinced that the films Netflix makes are all generic or have a specific house style. But, I do think there’s an argument to be made about those recommendation engines. Also, I think it’s important to keep in mind that 90% of everything is generally pretty awful.
So, if Netflix is out there making 100 films a year… well, you do the math.
Quote of the day
Worth a read is this interview at Indiewire with director Jim Jarmusch who is asked about MUBI, the streaming service handling distribution of his movie in some territories. MUBI investor Sequoia has ties to the Israeli defense industry, which has caught the ire of politically-charged film folk.
“I also have a distribution agreement with MUBI in certain territories which I had entered in before my knowledge of this. Having said that, on a personal level, I have to say I am an independent filmmaker and I have taken money from various sources to be able to realize my films. I consider pretty much all corporate money is dirty money, and if you start analyzing each of these film companies and their financing structures, you’re going to find a lot of nasty dirt. It’s all there. We could avoid it and not make films at all, but the films are how I choose to carry things I would like to say. I’m concerned, but one thing I don’t like — and you have not done this — is putting the onus of the explanation of this on us, the artists. It’s not us; it’s MUBI you must address. And not just MUBI, but other companies as well.”
News Desk
Prime Video has canned Motorheads after just one season. Read: Deadline
Yellowstone actor Cole Hauser has revealed that older women fans have gotten pretty handsy with him. Read: TV Insider
Back To The Future is getting an IMAX re-release. Read: Dark Horizons
I’m curious about the venn diagram overlap between font nerds and Woody Allen movie fans, but THR today has a look at the “Woody Allen font,” Windsor Light.
Chris Almeida writes at The New Yorker about the phasing out of bands in US late night talk shows: “It went away. It’ll never come back.”
Trailer Park
Chad Powers debuts On Disney+/Hulu Sept 30.
Portobello debuts on HBO Max in 2026.
Riv4lries debuts on Netflix Oct 1.
At a middle school in Pisa, no one has ever challenged the cool kids - until new girl Terry arrives with bold ideas and the rivalries begin.
French Lover debuts on Netflix Sept 26.
When a jaded actor meets a down-on-her-luck waitress in Paris, their unexpected love story begins - but will it survive the glare of the spotlight?
That’s the newsletter for today.
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