Recommendations

Netflix, it seems, has updated their recommendation algorithm, which results in my getting weirdly specific recommendations from them.  I think they're embracing more of a Pandora model, where different aspects of a song are highlighted to form a "You Might Like" playlist.  Hence, I rated Boyz N The Hood highly after watching it for class on Thursday, Netflix tells me they think I would like more "Exciting African-American Crime Movies." (The introductory adjectives are kind of a trip. Exciting?) I've also been recommended "Quirky Mother-Daughter Comedies," "Gritty Drug-Addiction Movies," and "Romantic Independent Immigrant-Life Movies," among others.  There was an article in the Washington Post or somewhere not that long ago talking about people trying to create a new, better algorithm and about how Napoleon Dynamite is the recommendation algorithm's Waterloo (does that count as a pun? If so, it was unintentional). It seems to me, though, that Netflix still hasn't addressed what's most frustrating to me about their recommendations. To them, placing a film in one's queue is expressing interest. To me, that expression has not occurred until I've watched the movie and given it a good rating. They could also really use a "Don't Use This for Recommendations" command like Amazon has, which has saved me from them using my academic reading to generate recommendations.  I don't know - I guess it's just that I have tentative plans to take a trip through Tyler Perry's filmography (so my opinion on him and his work is informed, as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction to trailers) and I'm pretty sure I don't want that informing what Netflix recommends to me thereafter.

Semi-related: I understand why people get down on Gwyneth Paltrow and her newsletter (the lifestyle chasm between "twenty-something graduate student" and "thirty-something Oscar-winning actress who was already pretty rich to begin with" is such that there's probably not much of utility that she can really tell me), but I've never felt a fraction of the disdain that some people seem to work up about her.  She won points with me by featuring the movie rental recommendations of my two favorite directors (among others) in GOOP. I just can't hate you, Gwyneth.