Digital effects will make Robert De Niro look decades younger in his new Scorsese movie.
For me this raises interesting questions about the essence of acting. We’ve long been able to create backgrounds and scenes with CGI that are nearly impossible to distinguish from ‘the real thing.’ So where does the acting happen? Facial expression? The body? The tone and inflection of the the actor’s voice? If an AI captures and then perfectly reproduces De Niro’s voice, is that acting? Will we notice or care? Are we close to someone (some thing) passing a cinematic Turing Test?
Category Archives: Film & TV
RKO Pictures
Wikipedia: “RKO has long been celebrated for its series of musicals starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in the mid-to-late 1930s. Actors Katharine Hepburn and, later, Robert Mitchum had their first major successes at the studio. Cary Grant was a mainstay for years. The work of producer Val Lewton’s low-budget horror unit and RKO’s many ventures into the field now known as film noir have been acclaimed, largely after the fact, by film critics and historians. The studio produced two of the most famous films in motion picture history: King Kong and Citizen Kane. RKO Pictures is also a member of Motion Picture Association of America.”
This image brings back lots of great memories from my childhood.
Sound City Studios
Wikipedia: “Sound City Studios was located in the San Fernando Valley, amidst rows of dilapidated warehouses. The little-known recording studio housed a unique analog Neve recording console and had a reputation for recording drums. Artists such as Nirvana, Kyuss, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Fleetwood Mac, Neil Young, Rick Springfield, Tom Petty, Rage Against The Machine, and Slipknot recorded groundbreaking music at the studio. The film tells the story of the studio from its early days in 1969 until its closing in 2011.”
Twenty Feet from Stardom
Watched this a year or two back but if I mentioned it here I can find no reference. Wonderful documentary about backup singers.
Steve McQueen (Great Escape)
Arrival
“Arrival” is a science-fiction parable in a distinctly more idealistic hopeful key than most movies in this genre, one in which the best solutions don’t necessarily materialize in a gun sight. It has a little action, a bit of violence and clenched-jawed jittery men. Mostly, it has ideas and hope, as well as eerie extraterrestrials who face off with a soulful linguist-heroine, Louise Banks (Amy Adams), the story’s voice of reason and its translator. She’s thoughtful, serious, at ease with her own silence and fears. — New York Times; The Atlantic review; Time review
Good movie. Don’t think it will do well at the box office because there was no car chase and you have to entertain the idea that time is nonlinear. But my kind of alien flick.
Michael Moore in TrumpLand
I enjoyed this hour-long stand-up/one-man-show. I’ve seen several of Mr. Moore’s documentaries and liked some better than others. But none of them prepared me for this. If I had to pick one word to describe this… (I really don’t know what to call it. It didn’t feel like a documentary) I guess I go with “personal.” It felt like he was trying to speak “from the heart” as the expression goes to everyone in America. And to Hillary Clinton. Fuck it, there’s no way to describe this and I’d say just watch it but I’m guessing most folks have made up their mind about Michael Moore just as they have everything else (myself included).
I’m a little unclear on his objective. Can’t believe that many people will see this before election day. I watched it on iTunes. I’ll tell you what this reminded me of (a little), a Louis C. K. stand-up special. It was an hour of Moore standing in front of a theater full of people just talking to them. Some jokes, sure, but he really put himself out there. Left me feeling better and it only cost me five bucks.
Trees speak to the mind
“Trees speak to the mind, and tell us many things, and teach us many good lessons.”
Lo And Behold: Reveries of the Connected World
Tiny House Hell! This fall on HGTV.
I have a hard time believing very many people continue living in these tiny houses for as long as a year (6 months?). The HGTV producers show the design, construction, a reveal and — maybe — a real short “now that they’ve been in for a month…” at the end of the segment.
What I want to see is two people actually living in one of these shoe boxes. You want some reality TV? Set it up like this: We’ll build your tiny home and give it to you on the condition you let us put cameras in and record continuously for three months. If you live in the house for one year, it’s yours, free and clear. If you can’t make it for 12 months, you have to pay back the cost of the house (let’s $50,000). This would work even better if it was a live stream on the net. We could tune in 24/7, just like The Truman Show.