Tiny little humans
In This Week's Edition: monsters, computers and the devil remind us humans that we're not nearly as in control as we think we are
THE QUOTE 🎬 💬
“So we’re just going to ignore the bear then?”
hint: the director of the movie say it’s technically a (black) comedy
THINK THOUGHTS 💭
I haven’t talked a ton about “AI” here. That doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s interesting or worthy of discussion. I do and definitely think it is. But there are just so many unknowns and the pace of change is so rapid it’s hard to put a thought out there that’s worthy of others consuming.
But I did think of something after I saw the first videos that were released from OpenAI and their “creatives and filmmaker” collaborators, who used OpenAI’s new text-to-video tool, Sora.
On a technical level, it’s hard not to say damn. It’s impressive. Here’s one of the short films a team created, all by inputting text apparently…
But after watching, the thing I ended up thinking about first was not the big grand possibilities (thought those are worthy of thought), but two key things that I think will rise in importance once the deluge starts to hit (after the broader public, as well as professional filmmakers, have access) - curation and the practical.
The more people that have access to creation tools the better in my opinion. But just because someone has access to something, doesn’t mean they can make anything interesting with it. So you might end up with a lot of “content,” but if 95% is trash, how do you know what to watch?
I think that’s where the importance of curation will increase - as there’s more and more stuff, we’ll need some mechanism to get to the good shit. Maybe that’ll be a platform like YouTube with a good ol’ algorithm, but you can imagine even more people (like me?) sifting through what’s out there, sharing with others. Being able to recommend something of quality, especially when there’s essentially “infinity” to consume, becomes a sort of cultural capital superpower.
The second thing I thought about was the practical. How, in a world full of real looking yet “fake” content, there will be an increased desire for the physical and the tactile. Take Oppenheimer for example. That movie’s use of practical effects was mentioned in nearly every single piece written or recorded about it. Same goes for the Mission: Impossible franchise. But most importantly, it gets talked about by audiences. And you can imagine it plays a part in why people gravitate(d) towards those films.
Obviously VFX are and will be a big deal (see: Godzilla x Kong) as presumably tools like Sora will be, but there’s clearly something about knowing another human made this. With their hands. Even the latest Star Wars show, a franchise which has been pushing harder and harder on the “fake sets” stuff (at least wrt their shows), has gone back to more physical. I don’t think the practical will necessarily increase in amount, just that it’ll increase in value. It’ll still need to be good of course, but when it is, and consumers know it was “done by hand” I think they’ll pay far greater attention. It’s like a bespoke purse vs an off the rack one.
I think the two ideas may even collide, with people focusing on curating what’s human made vs machine made.
It’s all hard to know it’ll all go, but we can check back here in five years and see what I got right. Or hell, at this rate, maybe even five months.
NEWSY BITS 👾
‘Happy Gilmore’ Sequel In Development & A Script Has Been Written, Actor Christopher McDonald Says (full article): that’s two thus far Shooter - Deadline Hollywood
Disney Bundles Hulu into Disney Plus, But Only in the U.S. (full article): Hulu is still a separate app (for now), but it’s now also a “tile” within the Disney + app. - IGN
EXTRA CREDIT MOVIE(S) 📝
Wicked Little Letters - a cheeky looking British romp with some endlessly watchable stars (Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckely) who reviews say are the key reason you may enjoy this story of off color jokes and feminist commentary set in 1920’s England. Playing in Limited Theaters Friday
La Chimera - the story is not one I can easily describe so you’ll just have to believe the wonderful reviews that say it’s a delightfully dreamy comedy about man (Josh O’Connor) searching for… something. Playing in Limited Theaters Friday
The Listener - Tessa Thompson stars in a Steve Buscemi directed movie about a crisis hotline worker whose night gets increasingly more trying. The reviews say even though you’re just watching Thompson talk to other people on the phone, it mostly works due to its focus on empathy. Playing in Limited Theaters Friday
Asphalt City - a competent (enough) looking Sean Penn and Tye Sheridan movie deserves a mention here, but the reviews say the movie’s bleak portrayal of two paramedics battling through a city is likely to be too much and not enough at the same for most people. Playing in Limited Theaters Friday
NOTABLE NEW RELEASES 🎟 & 📺
Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire
Are there humans in this movie? I mean sure, technically. Do they matter? Ummm, I’d say their importance to your attendance decision when compared to the CG-heavy action sequences has the same proportionality as the physical size of said humans when compared to their monster counterparts causing all the mayhem. I.e. tiny.
Even still, you do have some great actors (trying to make a buck?) being cycled in and out of this franchise, stuck in their for some exposition and a joke or two - this time the big names are Brian Tyree Henry, Rebecca Hall and Dan Stevens. But if you’re tryin’ to watch, it’s to see The Zilla and Kong fuck up some below earth baddies. Straight up.
And sure, is it weird seeing Godzilla literally sprinting when he’s known far more for his plodding nature? Totally. But the pink glowy scales sure do look cool!
And does Kong’s new mech-hand give me Transformers-esque vibes (to say nothing of the swirling sand) in the worst way possible? Damn right it does. But I bet it’s gonna look pretty gnarly when he punches that evil Kong knockoff right in the kisser.
So yeah, go to watch the city destroying fights, not the earth destroying peons running from the destruction.
Out: Friday
Where: Theaters
Details: 1 hr 55 mins | PG-13 | 🍅: TBD
In the Land of Saints and Sinners
Finbar Murphy. Pretty fun name. Even better when you say it with an Irish accent.
Turns out everything might be better with Irish accents, or at least that’s what I’m to gather from the latest Liam Neeson action movie (see: the much better reviews than any action movie he’s done in a while). I guess it’s just naturally cooler when you think about a retired assassin living out his days undisturbed, when the location is a small Irish town where the pub is the centerpiece of culture.
I mean, it worked for The Banshees of Inisherin? Though that movie was deeply metaphorical and well, just plain deep. You shan’t get that level of emotional profundity from a movie where the real pleasure is seeing a 71 year old Neeson kick the arses off a group of “terrorists” (funny enough, led by Banshees Kerry Condon) who have a wee bit of a bone to pick with our Mr. Murphy.
But that’s just fine. Because who needs all that talking when you can just have a gun do your communicatin’ for you.
Out: Friday
Where: Theaters
Details: 1 hr 46 mins | R | 🍅: 83%
Late Night With the Devil
I found myself wishing, halfway through my screening, that I was watching it on my TV. Not because it doesn’t work in a theater — horror almost always benefits from being seen in a crowd — but because its writer-director duo, the brothers Colin and Cameron Cairnes, make shrewd use of some of the uniquely creepy things about television, especially its intimacy. The TV set is in your house, and you’re sitting six feet away from it, and especially in the wee hours of the night, whatever’s staring back at you can feel eerie, or impertinent. Over time, the late night TV host becomes your best friend, or a figure that haunts your fitful dreams. - from the NY Times review of Late Night With the Devil
This looks like a discovery movie. A sharer. The kind you used to pick up at the video rental store on a whim and then get so blown away you have to show somebody, anybody, what you just watched. You can feel it from the trailer, but it’s also the tone you get when you read reviews. They contain not just praise, but excitement. A sort of “where the hell did that come from?”
It’s funny because a couple other found footage movies had this same sense about them - The Blair With Project and Paranormal Activity.
I’m not saying Late Night is going to blow up to that level and become a cultural phenomenon like those two did, but I bet amongst a certain crowd (of which you might be a member), this tale of a late night host so desperate for ratings he’ll play games with Satan, is gonna be “a thing.”
Who knows, maybe it’s the found footage genre which when done well, lends itself to another level of buy-in. Because when a movie like Late Night plays things out in real time, you can, as the quote above reflects, get absorbed into the world just a tiny bit further. Suspending disbelief a modicum more, allowing that creepy feeling to sink deeper into your bones, becoming entrenched enough that even after the screen turns black you still can’t seem to shake the feeling of dread that was just enveloping you.
Or maybe, just maybe, it’s because the footage they found was real. And the devil is just playing tricks on us all.
Now wouldn’t that be… “fun.”
😈
Out: Now
Where: Theaters
Details: 1 hr 33 mins | R | 🍅: 97%
TRAILERS! ⏯
Kinds of Kindness - all I should need to say is “the next movie from the director of Poor Things.”
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice - I mean, they definitely got the title right. Let’s hope they got everything else right too.
Monkey Man - a second trailer full of quotes from the very good reviews Dev Patel’s directorial debut is getting.
The Fall Guy - you might think it looks a bit try hard, but apparently it nails the tone it’s going for with early reviews being quite positive.
Bad Boys: Ride or Die - and here I thought the last movie was the “one last ride.”