I'm Not Even Human
A story about a child in a time when children are Not Even Human anymore.
Quarantine
It was the beginning of 2020. The model of Neonspeedster for Moria's Race was already done. I was sitting at home on the Quarantine. It was the beginning of the corona-virus mayhem. Everybody was locked at home. I was bored. And so I made a MIDI album.
Is Agenda Bad For Discussion
The studio was full of people and the host was mentally preparing for the cameras to go live. The cameras started rolling which filled the room with tension. And the producers behind the cameras started counting the count-down. The host touched his tie in a nervous manner, to make sure that it sits nicely. The countdown went - "5 - 4 - 3 - ..." - from that point on, the producers counted only with their fingers, to avoid accidentally being heard counting on the broadcast itself. They showed 2, then 1 and then pointed to the host, which meant that it's the time to start.
The Ultimate Paradox Of Freedom
Is it freedom to be rebellious? Or is it just an uncontrollable reaction? There is this concept called Reverse Psychology which suggests that sometimes to obtain a wanted result from somebody it's better to push that somebody in the opposite direction. But reverse psychology doesn't work always. Only when the person feels like his or her freedom is at stake. For example when a parent doesn't allow a teenager to engage in a particular activity. The parent might not be an inherently evil person. He might not desire to exercise any kind of power. He maybe just really wants to protect the teenager. But the teenager feels like his or her freedom is being betrayed and taken away. So they rebel. Is it freedom to be rebellious, though? Or is it just an uncontrollable reaction? Is there freedom at all? Or is it just a big paradox?
The Vast Of Night
It's so weird to be watching The Vast Of Night almost right after No One Will Save You. One movie has no dialogue, while the other is just dialogue. To be honest, it might seem very strange to make a film so dialogue heavy, if we didn't have people like Quentin Tarantino who shows time and time again that movies with a lot of dialogue can work fantastically.
The Pentas
Pentas are 5 gong-style round drum-things which are used to play simple melodies. Each one of those is one note in a scale called the Pentatonic scale. If you take the modern western scale with it's 7 notes (Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si). The pentatonic scale is the best sounding 5 of those (Do, Re, Mi, Sol, La). The easiest way of achieving the pentatonic scale on a piano would be to play only the black keys. Also the pentatonic scale is quite popular with beginner guitarists. It's rather simple on a fret-board and gives a nice sounding solo when improvising. The Pentas - being my second album, was still recorded during my time learning the guitar. So I used a lot of the pentatotic scale in it. Thought quite frankly, knowing about the other two notes (Fa and Si) I added them quite often still.
CGI vs AI
I showed my movie Moria's Race in a gas station once. A woman came by, saw it and asked me "Is it AI?". I obviously cringed. Because it wasn't AI, it was CGI. And there is a difference. Well technically there was one AI tool that was used. The open-image-denoise denoiser that comes preinstalled with Blender. But it's not really AI. Or is it?
What Lies Beneath
Have you ever wondered what would Alfred Hitchcock do in the age of CGI and VFX? What kind of strange insane shorts he would come up with? Well Robert Zemeckis set out for himself a challenge to find out. He is notorious for using visual effects creatively. A lot of people might be familiar with the mirror shot he did in the film Contact. So something like trying to make a Hitchcockian thriller of the 21st century was just about the right kind of thing for Zemeckis.
School Shootings: More Or Less Guns
It seems like United States of America has a unique problem related to guns. I certainly don't remember being taught at school in Israel or earlier in Ukraine about how to survive a potential gun shooting by a rouge student or other kind of terrible person. Here in Israel they do point us to the direction of a bomb shelter. So we would know where to run when a siren is heard. But that's about it.
Democracy Is Not Enough
People tend to think of Democracy and Freedom as one and the same. And yes, in the modern world you can expect more freedom from countries practicing democracy. And less freedom in any other form of government. And it's because the two are very much linked together. But since people do not understand both: what are the differences between the two; and what Democracy is really trying to achieve, they get sometimes very confused.
The Real Steven Spielberg
Yesterday I went to buy myself a hamburger that I allow my fat ass only about once a month or so. When it was time to take the finished package ( since I prefer to eat at home ) the cashier lady called me "Steven". I blushed and felt both amazing and embarrassing. No, she doesn't know that I do movies and that soon a movie of mine comes out. She has no actual idea who I am. That was the first time I ever saw her. It's just when you order something, their machine asks you to write a name, so they could call you when it's ready. Writing my own name would be a horrible privacy problem. So instead I write names of celebrities. And this time I wrote "Steven Spielberg".
Paternalistic Laws Make Very Little Sense
There are 3 types of laws: Freedom laws; Power laws and Paternalism laws. Freedom laws are those laws we actually like. Free Speech and things like that are all freedom laws. Some freedom laws are less obvious than others. But if the law makes your freedom stronger, it is a freedom law. Power laws are similar. Some people confuse power laws with freedom laws. Power laws are those that give people power. Most obvious examples are laws about censorship. Or laws that state that you can't criticize the government, some countries have that. Those give power to the government over the people. Power laws are any laws that give anybody power. Taking away somebodies else freedom in the process. But then there are paternalism laws.
Why pedophilia in particular is such a great tool when it comes to arguing for mass surveillance
People in the government rarely have the interests of the public as their primary goals. This has been like this since the invention of governments. But while with kings and queens of the middle ages it was apparent that it's the case, politician now a days with democracy, which allocates some control to the masses, have to pretend that they care about this thing of that thing, so that the masses would choose them to form the government. There is no reason to be a politician if you aren't fighting for some sort of control over the masses. Very rarely politicians are genuine, and even those that are, are swapped into the same scheming and manipulations of the public as any other ones. The competition demands thins kind of vicious behavior. The unfortunate truth is that for those manipulations of the masses, there should be mechanisms for such manipulations. And if the masses can get away from those mechanisms by forming ways to preserve their rightful freedoms, the government has to intervene and scheme something so that the freedom itself would sound like a bad idea to the masses.
Babylon
I would say that Babylon, the 2022 film directed by Damien Chazelle is Damien Chazelle's 1941. I wrote an article describing how 1941 is the ultimate Steven Spielberg movie and how there is a certain type of over the top insanity you can expect from a good filmmaker going completely unhinged. 1941 wasn't received well. People in the cinema were reportedly closing their ears from the shier amount of loud explosions that happened in the movie. Babylon is the lowest rated movie from Damien Chazelle. But it doesn't mean that the movie is dull, or badly made. Both 1941 and Babylon are explosive insanity-fests showcasing the ability of a good director to maintain focus in an absolute chaos. Both films are incredibly well directed. There are complex shots and interesting cuts all through out. But perhaps they had injected so much energy into the movies that the movies overdosed the audience. And therefor received worse reviews.
Only God Forgives
From my review of Drive you probably know that I like the taste of Nicolas Winding Refn's cock. And in this review I will be sucking his cock once again, while drooping saliva all of his masterpiece Only God Forgives.
Justification for Money
This is kind of both an update on my current financial state and also a deep dive into philosophy and the ethics of money itself. As you maybe know I am struggling with even basic necessities at the moment. And I might get kicked out of the house. I have a lot more hope now than I had before that. I still don't exactly know how I will pay the rent this months. But judging by my father's tone when he spoke to me about it. It seems like it should not be a problem. I will probably write a proper update ones I get out of this mess.
The House That Jack Built
When I started doing movie reviews I told myself that I will make reviews right after I saw the movie. But there is an exception to this rule. The first and the last time I saw The House That Jack Built was in Jerusalem Cinemateque in the end of 2018. Roughly 5 years ago. And this review will be made from the memory I have of the movie. I have no problem with the existence of this movie. Freedom of Speech is important. But I am not willing to watch it again. Even though I am kind of a fan of the director Lars Von Trier and the movie is arguably very good. It's just I'm not brave enough to sit through it again.
AI The Intellectual Laziness Of Humans
Artificial Intelligence - the last frontier of the electronics. An invention that will alter the course of evolution. For the last few billion years humans slowly evolved an organ that gave us superiority among the animal kingdom. The brain. A machine of logic, reason, curiosity and knowledge. It brought with it civilization. Before there was any civilization people would mindlessly do nothing unless afraid, hungry or horny. Every other animal today just chills most of the time. They don't have jobs. They don't have art. They don't have laws or social responsibilities. Animals are lazy. And humans are not particularly that different from other animals. Since the dawn of civilization we fought against social responsibilities. We fought against hard labor. We fought for our right to do nothing and chill all day long. We invented machine after machine. We replaced hard labor of almost every kind and all due to our superior brain. Until we reached a point where we took it upon ourselves to replace the brain too.
