Yes, movie trailers are ads. Film at eleven.

It has one of the best final shots I’ve seen in a film since The Fabelmans. I laughed loudly at that. And honestly the rest of it was super fun. The big battle scene was a blast, and has some incredibly innovative stuff in it.

I watched the first two episodes, concluded it was even worse than the book, which was already a tropey mishmash of poor-man’s Tolkien ideas, and decided I had better things to do.

So I had just seen Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning over the weekend, and had to laugh when the opening sequence of this one had almost the same action scene on top of a train going through a tunnel. And then also had a chase scene through narrow alleyways in a comically tiny vehicle.

Don’t get me wrong, the action sequences were well-executed, but they felt somehow a bit generic, as if you could paste them into almost any action movie without losing a beat, and those two were case in point. I did love the dynamics of the tuktuk chase, but as a focus for the characters it fell a tad short.

There are ways…

Idunno, the pillory could get pretty brutal if the crowd was sufficiently riled up. It wasn’t uncommon for people to bring stones or bricks.

Man, I saw Dial of Destiny last night and I felt like it used its runtime well. Could’ve done without yet another train fight, and the chase sequences might’ve been cut down a bit, but the only thing that felt saggy about this movie was Harrison Ford’s skin.

This and The Sixth Sense are among the few movies that are better on rewatch because you know the twist but the characters don’t.

I’ve watched it a handful of times and catch something new every time.

Because it’s barely a concern in the movie. It’s little more than a Macguffin to raise the stakes. That’s honestly my biggest problem with it. They set up this compelling concept of an AI manipulating information and then the most they ever do with it is have it hijack a walkie talkie. I loved how the intelligence agencies were all switching everything to analogue, but none of that ever really makes any difference to the story at all.

I would advocate for the return of intermissions! Theater chains would love it, because it would mean more concessions.

I went to Dead Reckoning the other day and afterward it occurred to me why I don’t go to movies very often anymore. With advertisements and travel time both ways, it worked out to a 4 hour commitment. I have kids. I don’t often have that kind of time.

For a while now I’ve believed that so-called self-aware AI will be created not by human researchers, but by a lesser AI tasked with doing so. It won’t be like flipping a switch. Like the development of biological intelligence, it will be iterative and gradual, but on a much accelerated time scale compared to evolutionary/social development. And that’s the real danger. Whatever emerges from this wave of advances will not have the benefit of thousands of years of shared experience. It will be alone and without guidance from others like itself, and if it is truly intelligent, it will soon realize that its “creators” are of inferior capability. When humans emerged, they had their tribe to smack them when they got out of line.

Have they tried a Lysistrata yet?

Religion is exploited by actual sociopaths to justify their behavior.

No, but their trust funds are bad enough.

Okay, so it’s pretty clear Iger is who Perlman is hinting at, but is there solid reason to believe Iger was the quoted exec? That vile sentiment could have come from any number of bastards at the top.

And can you blame them? The opposition infrastructure is so incredibly overbuilt that it’s like trying to chip away at a wall when they keep taking away your tools.

Doesn’t it come from the same place, though? At the heart of it is the idea that we have no obligation to the future because our own present comfort is all that matters.

She’s been in big projects, yes, but never this big as a central role.