The fortress-like Kowloon Walled City of Hong Kong was demolished in the early 1990s, but a German documentary crew braved the sprawl in 1989 and captured amazing footage from inside this sunlight-less patchwork metropolis.
Category Archives: Film & TV
Drone speeding up a snowy mountain
Competitive FPV drone racer Gabriel Kocher filmed an incredible video of his drone speeding up a snowy mountain.
Can only humans act?
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?
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.”