ThaOGDreamWeaver

As someone who works a lot with voice tech, generally available pure-AI voicing has a looooooong way to go - call it an uncanny echo valley. The best stuff out there is from that clever Ukrainian bunch ReSpeecher. But that depends on having an actor's take to model on first, which the AI then rebuilds in the voice of, say, James Earl Jones or Peter Cushing. So you still get the human part of performance, the range, the music, the pacing, without those tiny odd drops or run-ons that give the computers away. For the same reason, language dubbing studios for movies aren't going away any time soon. Auto AI translation is getting better - and can even voiceclone and translate the original performers - but still sounds slightly like a 90s Roxette or current Ghost song. The words make sense, but they aren't what you'd say, and feel mangled together in unnatural ways.

I'd prefer nobody reminded me how long that was ago, when I could wear New Rocks without ankles cracking... [le sigh] If Ross is the dramatic core of this movie, you need a Proper Actor to do it, and in the absence of Bill Hurt, he's a solid but one-shot choice. If you needed Ross around for a series, I would have gone for Skårsgard, Cranston, or a lesser known but solid character actor like Bruce Greenwood or Chris McDonald. About the flicks generally: I read an article recently that said Marvel were trying too hard to make tentpole movies, when what they need to do is to cut the budget and get back to where they were in the early days. The original Iron Man is an indie director - Favreau - who's just got hold of the big budget toybox and is messing around with it. And sure, he's got some big fight scenes and spectacle as expected, but the dialogue snaps around, there's a bit of a redemption arc, and there's plenty of very personal scenes. Cap is a Boy's Own war movie that just happens to have a supe landed in the middle of it. (Well, two if you count Peggy. Which I do.) Winter Soldier is a proper conspiracy movie... with flying aircraft carriers, but nonetheless retains that feel. I am kinda sad that Thunderbolts is going to be just another teamup movie. I had a whole other script idea for that, which went close to the original comics, but wrapped in the modern obsessions with media and social media imaging, and the idea that bad guys could be tempted to the good side rather than vice versa.

Only real ones remember.✌

So the first two episodes have dropped... SPOILERS AHEAD!

Oh, sweet Freya in Asgard - thanks to all the devs for all their thoughts and memories, which I'm spending far too long reading. stunned_pikachu.gif That... is... genius. Proper MHD stuff. I'm gonna have to go take another look. ...I'm not sure anyone'd notice, but...

Joeyy - Gout 🕶️🧙🏽‍♀️💷✌🏻

Good stuff. And, yes, Dune II was a very beautiful and satisfying movie, with the possible exception of...

Sharing a recent discovery from the Temple of Pharaoh Ui'wakframhoom...

If you're the kind of person who watches trailers very carefully, there's *another* hidden joke tucked in right before that joke. If you're not that kind of person...

Just posted that to Jukebox. Little too clean on the mix for my Purple tastes, but for a sci-fi show... yeah. Slightly worried that some kind of major cultural event erases all music before 1990 (perhaps the deadly Swiftie/Katycat wars of 2028). But good to know the good stuff still makes it to the future.

Cory Todd - Highway Star (Belta's Vershan)

Gary Clark Jr & Stevie Wonder - What About The Children?

At the Roast of Bill Shatner, they invited that sweet little ol’ lady Betty White. I mean, what could an innocent granny like that come up with… Full 3 minute bit here. (Consider yourselves warned.) https://www.facebook.com/ParamountNetworkAsia/videos/399542402253910/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

I miss the good Saturday morning cartoons. With the good music. (©️Mark Reynolds / @stuff_by_mark on Threads)

Matt Berry - Take My Hand

Joy Division - Shadowplay

Fantastic actor, gone way before time, and I can remember pretty much every one of his performances... except this one. (Oddly the only bit that's stuck with me was Simon Pegg channeling Spaced in his cameo as Benji, which then turned into a full-time sidekick role. Which he's done pretty well at). It's very odd that 2 and 3 back-to-back didn't work out - maybe another one you can pin on JJ Abrams - whereas Brad Bird turned it around for Ghost Protocol.

They're kinda... variable. First one was very decent and did some unexpected stuff - like teamwiping the A-List that Ethan/Cruise had been widely advertised with in all the publicity in the first ten minutes. (Does that make Cruise the Scrapper, Corruptor or Mastermind here?) The sequels: if you quietly forget that these kinda movies need a plot, a halfway convincing antagonist, or a McGuffin that could or should be anything more than just a McGuffin, they're fun. MI:Dead Reckoning more or less did away with all three, and still came out as a perfectly popcorn-munchingly watchable flick. There's nothing wrong with that. (Though how the series survived past MI:2 or 3, I don't know). CA:1, also decent: second one, not so much. Reboot: not perfect, but better than CA2, and much better than the box office bomb it turned out to be.

There have also been plenty of not-so-good ones over the years. Although they often provided some laughs (sometimes unintentional). And at least a couple of good dance tunes...

I think Tom Cruise might like a word with you. There's been... a lot. (Though I'm not sure about half of these count). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_based_on_television_programs Of the others in recent memory... The Equalizer movies were... pretty unremarkable, but Denzel did decent box office ($150m to $200m on $60m to $70m-ish budgets). X-Files... nah. Loved the series (and the reboot/extension), but neither movie added anything useful. And I would like to present for your consideration/humiliation/obliteration one of the single worst, childhood-wrecking adaps known to man...

That, unfortunately, is not a great opening weekend. Gosling and Blunt should both be red-hot right now. It's had great reviews - including the only one I care about: my partner went to see it on a Tuesday, sadly, I got called to work, and laughed and stayed riveted the whole way through. (They dozed off through most of Dune I & II, just for comparison). Well, that's Hollyweird for ya. You give the people what they ask for - romance, laughs, ludicrous stunts, shirtless Gosling, and a cute dog - and it doesn't catch fire.

...may be stealing that... 🤣🧀 I gotta say though, both The Thing and DOOM himself look pretty dead-on compared to some of Sony's outings. Even though you just know this thing was likely shot on less of a budget than a single episode of Incredible Hulk. Yup. And if you read the list of directors of those movies - Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Ron Howard, and Joe "Gremlins" Dante... ...you'll never guess who gave every one of them a big damn break in movies. And was on the end of the phone if they needed advice or just a friendly ear throughout their careers. https://people.com/ron-howard-mourns-director-roger-corman-death-98-8647362 (And seriously, who else would have taken a chance on Richie from Happy Days as a director?)