Emily Blunt Says Algorithms ‘Frustrate Me’ and ‘I Hate That F—ing Word’: ‘How Can We Let It Determine What Will Be Successful’ or Not?

10 comments

1. > “Some new things frustrate me: algorithms, for example,” Blunt said. “I hate that f—ing word, excuse the expletive! How can it be associated with art and content? How can we let it determine what will be successful and what will not?”

   > “Let me explain with an example,” she continued. “I was in a three-hour film about a physicist, which had the the impact it had – the algorithms probably wouldn’t have grasped it. My hope is that ‘Oppenheimer’ and similar projects are not considered anomalies, that we stop translating creative experience into diagrams.”

2. I’m with her. I hate the algo. Just show me what I follow because I follow it for a reason…

3. I wish America had an Emily Blunt

4. It’s Al Gore’s rhythm. Take it up with him.

5. But Oppenheimer is an anomaly because Christopher Nolan has such a fantastic reputation with audiences and studios. He really hasn’t made a bad film and he’s rarely lost money. Audiences will take a chance on anything he does like they won’t with most directors.

   If you want to know the real problem with Hollywood it’s studios making crummy films. So people don’t just see a studio name and trust them. Except Ghibli, Marvel (for a time) and A24.

6. The big thing about art that algorithms don’t get is that movies are bigger than the idea, it’s about the execution. Fury Road by all rights would have been a dumb futuristic biker movie, but in the right hands, it was turned into a classic. Conversely, a great idea can have bad execution. Fuck the algorithm

7. Well, because they work maybe? Yeah I think that’s why.

   Algos are used because they work Em’s

8. Trusting algorithms is like card counting.  It might feel like a safer bet but it’s still a gamble.

9. An algorithm isn’t too different from test screenings.

10. Agreed, Em. It’s a broken fuckin system. All of them.