…considering that it’s AI–generated and all. It’s hollow and inorganic but decent.

Posted today (1.11.24) by World of Reel‘s Jordan Ruimy.

Children of Men premiered 17 years ago (technically 12.25.06), which is at least a generation ago. Most Zoomers probably couldn’t be bothered to stream it, but if they did they’d probably presume that most of this driving scene is digitally painted or augmented, when in fact it’s all real (pure physical stuff) except for the one bit where Clive Owen opens the door and the guys on the bike go flying. Otherwise it’s totally organic.

33 year-old Kristen Stewart has been out for quite a few years now. She officially announced on SNL in September ’17, but I recall getting slapped around by the HE commentariat a year or two earlier for saying that I found one of her girlfriends too butch and that if I were Stewart (rich, famous, pick of the litter) I would go for someone foxier.

Anyway, Variety‘s Adam B. Vary has posted a 1.11.24 piece called “How Kristen Stewart Became A Queer Trailblazer“, and I’m like “we’re doing this again?” How many times can Stewart be celebrated for being out and proud? Are we going to be reading a similar cover story in 2030, when Stewart is 39?

As you read the article you can feel Vary’s emotional investment in Stewart’s bold-as-brass queerness. It turns him on, lights him up, gets him off.

Vary adopted this “yay, team!” approach because Stewart is promoting Love Lies Bleeding, a Sundance ’24 attraction about a hot lesbian love affair.

About 20 days ago I wrote that I don’t find Love Lies Bleeding especially appealing as neither Stewart (whose character looks plain and butchy and wears bad mullet hair) nor costar Katy O’Brian seem especially attractive, at least in this instance. The commentariat bitches beat me up for saying that also.

Nikki Haley’s statement about pardoning Trump was disgusting. She and Ron DeSantis can go to hell. Chris Christie was the best of them — a blunt-spoken classic Republican who talked straight and plain about The Beast and the horrific threat he poses.

And a tough break for Maestro’s Bradley Cooper, who absolutely delivered a more dynamic, reach-for-the-skies dazzler than…well. Scorsese anyway. KOTFM is a reasonably good film, but it saddles us with an idiot and drags on and on. HE commenter Mike: “Scorsese is [one of the five] because his film is about indigenous struggle.”

I won’t divulge his name or even the country where he operates from, but yesterday HE spoke to a real-life, honest-to-God streaming pirate.

I was poking around about the pirating of Fast Charlie and the apparent inability or unwillingness on the part of Vertical Entertainment to do very much about it.

I’d been told that Vertical’s communications with pirates basically boils down to AI threats and warnings. Pirates don’t listen because AI threats are bullshit. So I asked this guy…call him Long John Silver…about who, if anyone, he might actually be afraid of? Who does he take seriously?

Long John Silver: “We don’t know much about Vertical. We know Muso and other similar services, and we know that they use AI for notices but (a) they don’t follow up, and (b) what can they do when our servers are in countries they have no control over? Servers change so much, and it’s not worth it for them to chase one or two movies.

“Plus takedown notices only come when we host on services such as Dropbox or Google drive. They’re not effective when chasing torrents.

“Why should we take companies like Vertical or anyone else seriously? It’s been 25 years and they haven’t done anything. They can’t do a thing if they don’t know who/where we are.

“If it’s a genuine movie or a fake movie pretending to be real, we still earn from ads. You might find it interesting that when fakes are floating around, real movies get downloaded much less.”

Ed Harris‘s “happiness is bullshit” rant is a glorious retort to Sally Hawkins‘”Poppy” character, an emotional fascist who taunted people left and right with “are you happy?” sentiments, in Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky (’08).

It’s from the under-appreciated Kodachrome, and was written by Jonathan Tropper.

I hated Jason Sudeikis‘ character, an overly sensitive 40ish candy-ass who still can’t get past his dying dad’s (Harris’s) show of parental indifference when they were both younger.

Sudeikis to Harris: “When’s my birthday?” 

My father wasn’t much in the affection department either, weenie.  Man up.