Need something brilliant to read this weekend? Here are six of our favourite pieces from the past seven days
How did Netflix end up churning out cookie-cutter generic product? To what extent are algorithms and data driving film production – and, if they aren’t, where are all the so-called algorithm movies coming from, asked Phil Hoad.
“By midday, Jessica has dealt with five calls from highly distressed young women in their 20s, all close to tears or crying at the start of the conversations. She absorbs their alarm calmly, prompting them with questions, making sympathetic noises into her headset as she digests the situation. “Are these images sexual in nature?” she asks the last woman she speaks to before lunch. “Do you want to tell me a bit about what happened?” She begins compiling a tidy set of bullet points in ballpoint pen. “It’s all right. Take your time.”
Intimate image abuse is a crisis in the UK. Amelia Gentleman met staff from this specialist service, demand for which has grown fortyfold since it opened in 2015.
From village cricket matches to surreptitious shots of North Korea, Martin Parr took us through his life and career via 20 of his strange, “boring”, brilliant photographs, including a shot from the opening of the first McDonald’s in Moscow: “This was the only time I have been allowed to photograph in McDonald’s. I’ve often taken pictures without permission; being thrown out by a faintly embarrassed duty manager gives a certain satisfaction.”
