xyzzy
@xyzzy@lemm.ee
- Comment on ‘Elden Ring’ Movie in the Works From ’Civil War’ Director Alex Garland, A24 5 days ago:
150 minutes of parrying, dodge rolling, and running away
- Comment on 'Toy Story 5' Casts Conan O'Brien 1 week ago:
I decided I was done after Toy Story 3. It did a good job of wrapping up the story and I just didn’t feel the need to go beyond it. It’s like if they made a sequel to Return of the Jedi or Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. I still haven’t seen Toy Story 4, and likely never will.
- Comment on ‘The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie’ Sets HBO Max Premiere Date - 27th June 1 week ago:
I saw it in the theater, and I’d give it a C. I didn’t love it or hate it, but I only laughed out loud a couple times. There were times when it felt more Ren & Stimpy than Looney Tunes. Maybe that’s a positive for some folks, in which case you might enjoy it more than I did.
- Comment on Star Wars' Showcase of AI Special Effects Was a Complete Disaster 1 week ago:
No one likes AI in movies, period. I’m just saying this reel sucked and that would actually be impressive. Anyway, SAG negotiated rules around this that require consent from family estates and compensation, so if the estate wanted to block it, they could.
- Comment on Star Wars' Showcase of AI Special Effects Was a Complete Disaster 1 week ago:
I was referencing 4, which was released over two years ago and was a significant improvement over 3.5. I was genuinely impressed with 4, but I haven’t been very impressed with anything since then. Probably the most substantive change was pulling chain of thought into the model itself, but everyone was already doing anyway.
I’m not coming at this from a place of ignorance: I have AI patents to my name as both first inventor and supporting, and I’ve worked with these teams directly. I’m saying that the rate of improvement in critical (i.e., non-toy) areas is slowing down, and I believe it’s a significant possibility that AI will start to hit the same walls it did many times before. That was before it entered the consciousness of execs and the general public, and because they aren’t as familiar with the long stop-start history of AI, they don’t think that wall exists.
AI companies definitely know that wall exists, and in at least one case they’re getting increasingly nervous about it.
- Comment on Star Wars' Showcase of AI Special Effects Was a Complete Disaster 1 week ago:
this is currently the worst it’s going to be
Yes, this is a favorite line from the industry, who assume the trend line continues uninterrupted into the future. But how about this as a counter future: what if AI plateaus?
What if it doesn’t get much better than it already is except around the edges, and the next breakthrough is two decades away? Companies have exhausted training data and exhausted data center capacity in the quest to keep the trend line at the previous vector. Yes, they’re building new capacity, but no one is making any money on this except Nvidia.
LLMs haven’t seen any significant improvement in a couple years. Image generation has improved, but at a much slower pace. Video is no longer Will Smith eating spaghetti, but there’s a long, long valley between where we are today and convincing, photorealistic, extended scenes that can be controlled at a fine level.
- Comment on Star Wars' Showcase of AI Special Effects Was a Complete Disaster 1 week ago:
I watched the video. It’s all 1-3 second shots of either recolored animals or two animals combined. In other words, exactly the kind of video AI can deliver at a consumer level. Not impressive. The TED audience politely clapped, but aside from one or two folks the audience didn’t seem particularly impressed either.
It’s all C-suite executives pushing this onto executives below them, who push it onto their organizations as mandates. The C-suite execs don’t care about creativity; they only care about cutting costs. At first this means shortening development times. Soon this will mean cutting staff, and not 10 years from now, but way before this technology can actually replace a human.
You know what would’ve been a good showcase? Show Rogue One but with the film shots digitally composited with an AI Tarkin or an AI Leia, and have it be better than what was originally released in 2016, and have it be lip-synced. It shouldn’t be too hard to improve upon them; those shots weren’t very good.
But AI can’t do that.
- Comment on 10 Years Ago, A Legendary Sci-Fi Director Showed Hollywood The Secret To Reviving A Franchise 1 week ago:
Blade Runner 2049 was another very good late sequel, except for the unfortunate fact that Jared Leto is in it.
Tron: Legacy was great except for the uncanny valley Jeff Bridges.
Top Gun: Maverick. Rocky Balboa. Creed.
It’s rare, but it can happen.
- Comment on 'Sonic the Hedgehog 3' Tops April Disc Sales, 'Wicked' Still No. 1 for 2025 - Media Play News 1 week ago:
You know, for all the people who complain about how there’s nothing original coming out of Hollywood, there sure are a lot of people buying “Sonic the Hedgehog 3”
- Comment on The official title for "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" sequel is "Super Mario World" 2 weeks ago:
World perfected the formula that 3 established
- Comment on Alison Brie and Dave Franco Face Copyright Suit Over $17 Million Sundance Hit ‘Together’: ‘A Blatant Rip-Off’ 2 weeks ago:
I don’t need to see either movie, but you’re right that the similarities do sound pretty damning.
- Comment on ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’ Is Getting Pulled by Netflix 2 weeks ago:
They could easily release this to 4K and Blu-ray if they cared. But it’s all just disposable content to them.
- Comment on Highest 2 Lowest | Official Teaser HD | A24 3 weeks ago:
Denzel Washington is a 70-year-old man.
- Comment on Trump announces 100% tariffs on movies ‘produced in foreign lands’ 3 weeks ago:
Trump doesn’t even know, so no one else does either. For all we know, it might mean new Criterion 4K Blu-rays would be priced at $80.
- Comment on Now You See Me: Now You Don’t (2025) Official Trailer 4 weeks ago:
First of all, that photo is so silly looking that it looks like a parody of Hollywood blockbusters
Second, the first woman on the left is staring directly at the camera
- Comment on Adam Driver Praises Francis Ford Coppola For “Not Letting The Money Dictate” ‘Megalopolis’ At AFI Life Achievement Tribute 4 weeks ago:
Coppola self-funded Megalopolis to the tune of $120M. It has a 4.7 on IMDB.
Every creative swing doesn’t need to be successful, but you probably want to tighten up the script you’ve been working on for literally 40 years if you’re going to invest that kind of money…
- Comment on The smash success of "Sinners" could shift Hollywood's power balance 4 weeks ago:
Is there ever a time when Hollywood isn’t desperate these days? It’s the first word that comes to mind to describe it.
- Comment on Predator: Badlands Teaser Trailer (2025) 4 weeks ago:
BWAOOOOOOOOooooo
- Comment on Toys ‘R’ Us Live-Action Movie in the Works With Story Kitchen (EXCLUSIVE) 5 weeks ago:
Next up: Martin Scorsese’s Kool-Aid.
- Comment on Morpheus Actor Laurence Fishburne Reveals He Was Turned Down for The Matrix Resurrections — So He Might Not Be Back for Matrix 5 Either - IGN 5 weeks ago:
I watched it. The plot really only served as an extended middle finger to Warner Bros. After I finished it, I just thought what a waste. It had promise, but it didn’t try anything new or expand the world in any way.
- Comment on Hollywood Execs Fear Ryan Coogler’s Sinners Deal ‘Could End the Studio System’ 5 weeks ago:
The rights are reassigned after 25 years, so I don’t really think the theatrical release is a concern in this case.
- Comment on Hollywood Execs Fear Ryan Coogler’s Sinners Deal ‘Could End the Studio System’ 5 weeks ago:
They don’t have to do anything. Licensing companies will come knocking with a briefcase of money, and all they have to do is sign. It will likely result in better availability, not worse, because it’s not bound to studios. Studios can hold back releases because they want to release them later, or tie them into a remake schedule, then the remake gets canceled and they never get around to it, etc.
(And although it’s just a hypothetical, in my system above, the rights holders would always be known.)
- Comment on Hollywood Execs Fear Ryan Coogler’s Sinners Deal ‘Could End the Studio System’ 5 weeks ago:
Look at it this way: movies will be around in 100 years; studios may or may not be. The goal is movies.
Is there value in a system that isn’t essential? Writers are essential. Actors are essential. Directors are essential. Camera equipment and marketing are essential, but equipment rental companies and marketing companies exist. Investment is essential for anything larger than a student film, but startups do it every day through the VC system.
Studios consolidate all of that under one roof and streamline it, but that’s not essential. It’s convenient. And no VC demands 100% ownership of the company, so why should studios get that? The execs aren’t the ones working 16-hour days to create something.
The way that it should work is everyone involved in producing the movie should get shares in the enterprise, sized according to their role, down to the best boy. The investors should also get a big cut of shares as well, to make it worthwhile. The holding company that’s created to hold the film’s rights should be run by the biggest shareholders in order to determine future licensing deals. This should all be set out up front in contacts.
Then each worker can build a portfolio of shares and trade them on a market—not alongside companies on, like, Nasdaq, but a separate market, although I could imagine a mutual fund of movie rights appearing on the regular market as well. If the investors or creatives want to buy up worker shares, they can compete to offer up a fair price.
This is also how it should work with video games.
- Comment on Shawn Levy's "Star Wars" movie starring Ryan Gosling officially titled "Star Wars: Starfighter" — releases May 28, 2027 5 weeks ago:
One of several theatrical projects still in development from Lucasfilm, including films by Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, James Mangold, Taika Waititi and a new trilogy by Simon Kinberg, Levy’s film — Star Wars: Starfighter — will star Gosling and go into production starting this fall.
Time for SEVEN new Star Wars movies, because they’ve learned nothing.
I guess they think 6 years from the last cinematic debacle was enough time, especially considering the MCU has ran ashore.
- Comment on Jack Black tells Minecraft Movie audience to stop throwing popcorn 1 month ago:
In the real world people are nuanced and complex
- Comment on Hollywood Is Cranking Out Original Movies. Audiences Aren’t Showing Up. 1 month ago:
I mean, sure, but compelling characters and interesting situations is not what you said. You talked about making the viewer uncomfortable. It’s not hard to identify characters and situations that are compelling and interesting and yet don’t particularly challenge the viewer or make them feel uncomfortable.
- Comment on Hollywood Is Cranking Out Original Movies. Audiences Aren’t Showing Up. 1 month ago:
But themes and conflicts that make you uncomfortable are what makes fiction interesting
Most moviegoers want to shut their brains off and escape and be entertained for 90-120 minutes. Not be challenged or be uncomfortable.
I own thousands of movies on 4K and Blu-ray. I’ve had a surround sound setup since the mid-2000s. I have complete collections of many directors’ entire filmographies. Even in my case, the ratio of entertained to challenged that I want most nights is about 90% to 10%.
- Comment on Hollywood Is Cranking Out Original Movies. Audiences Aren’t Showing Up. 1 month ago:
I liked the movie, but it had no chance. The budget was way too big. It should never have been given such a big budget.
I want more mid-budget original movies that actually have a chance of financial success.
- Comment on Bryce Dallas Howard's New Documentary Uncovers the Emotional Ties Between Humans and Pets 1 month ago:
Uh, you want to expand on that?
- Comment on Warner Bros. Confirms New 'Gremlins' Movie and 'Beetlejuice Beetlejuice' Sequel 1 month ago:
Obviously Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice was inevitable.
Red Letter Media initially joked about Gremlins 3 bringing chaos to the White House and Capitol Hill, but the concept doesn’t work anymore (for obvious reasons). So they did a new pitch to set it in Hollywood instead.