TagMovies and TV
Westworld Episode 9 Review
Bernard learns the truth
Barbie: A Subtle Critique of Transhumanism?
Reviews for the new "Barbie" movie abound. But have most of them missed the point?Since its release in July, Barbie has proved as controversial as it has popular. Its joint release alongside Oppenheimer has had movie theaters across the country teeming with “Barbenheimer” fans, those zealous people who watched both movies on the same day in an unprecedented feat of pink glitz and existential dread. But what is Barbie about? Is it a takedown of the patriarchy, a gentle comedy, or something a bit more subtle and powerful? The reviews have ranged between harsh critique and lavish praise. With the flood of commentary, though, have most people missed a central and yet subtle point? Elayne Allen, writing for Public Discourse, offers an alternative interpretation of the movie which might have bypassed the imaginations of Read More ›
Westworld: Episode 8 Review
Is misery the key to consciousness?
Westworld: Episode 6 Review
Maeve and the audience get some answers
Mission Impossible: Don’t Bother Me With Facts
The Tom Cruise action movie is built on faulty AI assumptions, but it's still entertainingEver watch a movie with a movie-talker? That’s someone who ruins a show by talking out loud over the audio. More than once, my wife has asked me, “What did he just say?” I usually have no idea because I didn’t understand either. But her question talks over the next few lines of the movie so the interval of me not hearing the audio is prolonged. I occasionally watch a movie with a good friend Lou, a former police officer. Lou’s a movie-talker, especially when we watch police movies. He’ll interrupt the movie with nit-picky comments like: “That’s not a real shotgun. A real shotgun would kick back, and the barrel would angle up after each shot. There was no Read More ›
Actors Join Hollywood Strike
With 160,000 actors now on strike, Hollywood will effectively shut down.In a historic moment, over 160,000 TV and movie actors are joining scriptwriters in a Hollywood walkout, per the New York Times. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) initiated a strike in early May, demanding higher pay while expressing concern over the increasing role of artificial intelligence in TV writing. Now, actors are joining in with similar dissent. Brooke Barnes reports, The eyes of the world and, particularly, the eyes of labor are upon us,” Fran Drescher, the president of SAG-AFTRA, said. “What happens to us is important. What’s happening to us is happening across all fields of labor. When employers make Wall Street and greed their priority and they forget about the essential contributors who make the machine run, Read More ›
Maybe Hollywood Had it Coming?
When TV production becomes this mechanical and impersonal, why shouldn't studios opt for AI?The writers’ strike in Hollywood continues. In May, the Writers Guild of America started protesting low wages and the potential threat of artificially generated scripts. Large Language Models (LLMs) have only improved in generating text, raising concerns among writers. However, according to an insightful article from Auguste Meyrat of the Acton Institute, Hollywood has been developing a culture that welcomes AI-generated content with its tendency to pressure writers to fit a formulaic narrative structure instead of encouraging them to pursue real creativity and collaboration. Meyrat writes, All this virtually guarantees the use of AI-generated screenplays. After all, if producing a movie is now effectively the same as producing a widget on an assembly line, the human element can be dispensed Read More ›
The Modern-Day “Frankenstein” Is Coming
"Poor Things," starring Emma Stone, is about a girl brought back to life. Ring a bell?The movie Poor Things, starring Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, and Mark Ruffalo, is the story of an “unorthodox” scientist who brings a girl, Bella Baxter (Stone), back to life. Baxter must learn how to navigate the world given her unwieldy demeanor and the uncoordinated connection between her brain and body. It looks to be a pretty close re-interpretation of Mary Shelley’s classic science fiction novel Frankenstein. Whether it will get even close to investigating Shelley’s key questions and insights remains to be seen, of course. Interestingly, the scientist (Dafoe) has a deformed face that looks like it was stitched together piece by piece, similar to popular renderings of Frankenstein’s monster. You can watch the trailer here:
ChatGPT Isn’t Hollywood’s Only Issue
The deepfakes are only getting more scarily accurateDeepfakes are a growing threat to acting careers. It’s the other challenge posed by generative AI technologies. In early May, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) began a strike in Hollywood opposing both low wages and the intrusion of generative AI like ChatGPT, which critics purport will be used to replace human writers. The strike illustrates the current threat to the Hollywood writing industry, but the looming deepfake apocalypse calls the role of the actual actors into question, too. Tom Hanks jokingly noted that long after he’s gone, AI-generated versions of him will star in films far into the future. Maybe his remarks weren’t so comical after all. While deepfakes, upon close inspection, can be identified, they appear to be Read More ›
Unfortunate Timing: Titanic Movie to Return to Netflix
The movie was probably already scheduled, but critics are mad at the timing nonethelessThe 1997 blockbuster Titanic starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet is purportedly returning to Netflix on July 1st, mere weeks following the tragedy of the Titan submersible. The Titan, which carried five passengers, imploded from extreme depth pressure, and its remaining debris was discovered very close to the remains of the Titanic. Critics are fuming at the ill-timing of the movie’s return, calling it poor taste and insensitive to the recent catastrophe. Samantha Nungesser reports at New York Post, “No way they saw those dead ppl and thought ‘this is a great opportunity,’” a third person said, while someone else fumed, “PLEASE TELL ME THIS IS A JOKE YOU HAVE TO BE JOKING YOU CANNOT POSSIBLY BE THIS SHAMELESS.” –Samantha Nungesser, ‘Titanic’ Read More ›
Westworld: Episode 2 Review
The whole point of the show is to explore a theory of consciousnessIn episode one, several robots break down. It appears they are accessing memories thanks to an unexpected update, which causes the robots to glitch and seize up, unable to communicate. The updated robots are recalled and the worst of them are decommissioned. In episode two, Dolores wakes up, hearing Bernard’s voice in the middle of the night. She goes outside, and it’s later revealed that she finds a gun buried in the dirt. After we’ve seen Dolores rise from her bed thanks to Bernard’s call, we meet William. He and his future brother-in-law are visiting the park. This is William’s first time in Westworld, and he isn’t excited to be there. He’s humoring his future relative. Episode two continues in Read More ›
Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Part 2
When an otter and a raccoon make you cryLast time, we talked about how the newest addition to the Guardians of the Galaxy movies had a decent script but suffers from tone issues, mostly regarding how the film treats Gamora’s death. The Guardians had just broken into a space station, hoping to find a way to bypass a device that is keeping them from healing Rocket’s wounds which he received from the mysterious Adam Warlock. They break into the station and manage to steal Rocket’s records, but the code that would allow them to bypass Rocket’s kill switch has been removed. However, the records also show the Guardians the face of the man who took the code, and presumably, he has transferred it inside his own hard drive Read More ›
Here Come the AI Companions
The Internet ushered in a wave of virtual living and connectivity. Is this the next inevitable step?The popular social media influencer Caryn Marjorie recently launched “CarynAI,” an artificially intelligent companion that her millions of followers can interact with every day. Marjorie told the Washington Post that she doesn’t have the bandwidth to respond to all the requests she gets from her predominantly male fanbase, however much she wishes to. She furthermore wants to cure them all of their loneliness. She’s on track to make 5 million dollars a month from CarynAI. The bot makes it possible for fans to have a “relationship” with a simulated version of Caryn. Conversations are designed to “wind down” after an hour, but there’s no time limit. One of Caryn’s reps said users are spending hours interacting with CarynAI. The project Read More ›
Guardians of the Galaxy 3 Review, Part 1
It's a decent movie, but the tone doesn't account for all these characters have been throughGuardians of the Galaxy Volume 3 came out in theaters on May 5th, and while the movie is not the best addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, it’s better than most, certainly better than Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. However, there have been complaints about theater turnout, and these complaints are a testament to the damage movies like Multiverse of Madness have done to the Marvel brand. I’d say we have the Mouse to thank for that. The only consolation to this turn of events is that as the box office numbers for Marvel films continue to dwindle, so do the subscriptions to Disney Plus. I’ll take the victories where I can get them. The Movie’s Tone Needs Read More ›
Before the iPhone, There Was Tetris
What was the precursor for the widespread tech addiction we see today, particularly in young people?What was the precursor for the widespread tech addiction we see today, particularly in young people? Many say it was the iPhone. Peter Tonguette, however, thinks that the game Tetris started the screentime avalanche. Tonguette reviewed the new Apple TV+ film Tetris, which covers the story of the classic game’s development, acquisition, and subsequent popularity in the early nineties. He writes, One might assume this changeover coincided with the rise of smartphones and social media, but a new movie shows that it happened as early as the summer vacation of 1989. During that fateful interregnum between school years, kids were introduced to something that prefigured the electronic devices of the 21st century: a battery-powered, 8-bit handheld videogame device whose two Read More ›
Hollywood Writers vs. AI
The Writers Guild of America doesn't want AI stealing their jobsI smell something rotten in the heart of Hollywood. So do a lot of screenwriters, actors, and directors. And you probably already have seen the headlines about the Writers Guild of America (WGA) going on strike, largely due to Hollywood studios’ apparent openness to using AI to generate scripts. It feels inevitable looking back, with the introduction and consequent explosion of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, that we would quickly arrive at a place where people like screenwriters are demanding job security. New AI systems have challenged a lot of different sectors, from visual art to journalism, but right now, the WGA strike is at the forefront of the conversation and continues to rage. Maggie Harrison of Futurism reports that a good many Read More ›
Amazon Can’t Quit Cashing Tolkiens
Will Tolkien's original vision get lost in the details, CGI, and cash cow maneuvers?Amazon is now working on a massively multiplayer online (MMO) video game adaptation of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings universe, which will be unrelated to the Prime TV show Rings of Power. Todd Spangler at Variety reports, Last year, Amazon Games cut a deal with Embracer-owned studio Crystal Dynamics for a new multiplatform title in the “Tomb Raider” series . Hartmann praised the Embracer team as “excellent collaborators.” “The world of Middle-earth continues to prove an endlessly fertile ground for creators, and Amazon Games has a passion for building immersive, compelling worlds and publishing games for a global audience,” said Lee Guinchard, CEO of Freemode, Embracer’s division that houses Middle-earth Enterprises. “We’re taking every care to deliver an MMO which will do justice Read More ›
“I Can Perform This Miracle”
The new "Oppenheimer" trailer gives a chilling hint of the atom bomb raceChristopher Nolan, director of The Dark Knight trilogy, Inception, and Interstellar, is breaking ground in the historical film genre with his upcoming film Oppenheimer starring Cillian Murphy, Matt Damon, Florence Pugh, and Emily Blunt. The film, currently slated for release in July, has a chilling new trailer that gives a larger sense of the movie’s scope, and the profound moral dilemma at the heart of the creation of the atomic bomb. J. Robert Oppenheimer was the theoretical physicist largely responsible for the develop of the bomb in World War II. The new trailer emphasizes the United States’ fierce “arms race” with Germany. In the trailer, Oppenheimer says, “We’re in a race against the Nazis. And I know what it means Read More ›
Ghost in the Shell, Part 3
There will always be a ghost in the shellIn the previous review, Major had realized the horrible truth. Ninety-eight people died so she could live in her new body. Horrified by this, she retreats to the ocean just outside the city and floats under the water for some time. When she emerges from the depths, she finds Batou waiting for her on the boat. Major asks if he’s here to kill her, and in his own charming way, Batou says tells her he’s not. After a brief conversation, Major asks Batou to take her back to the city because she needs to know more. Batou agrees and the Major returns to shore only to be arrested by the Hanka cooperation’s men. After this, Hanka’s CEO, Cutter, discuss the Read More ›