I get that and I think we are headed to a world where AI is going to be used more and more. I think that a best actor performance that needed AI is a self report in a way. Should it be disqualified for it? I don’t know, but I do think it is an important thing to note when we are comparing best on best.
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In a world where Peter Cushing’s face was deepfaked onto Guy Henry’s face for Rogue One, using some computer enhancement for a voiceover seems so tame. At the same time, I acknowledge the unlikeliness of the Rogue One scenes gettting made today.
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Or where Rami Malik wins an Oscar for lip syncing to someone else’s voice
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This article gives a pretty good summary of it. https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/22/entertainment/the-brutalist-ai-controversy-scli-intl/index.html
I tend to lean on the side of believing it simply didn’t need to happen. However, perfecting the Hungarian wouldn’t take away from his performance.
Exactly! What are we even doing here?
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Listen, Big Randy stan here. Almost always enjoy the big guy’s takes, and I’m not saying you can’t have your own opinion about a movie. BUT, the big man is getting a little whiny on the Dune 2. Give him a blanket and a warm bottle, he a little cranky. I’m not saying it’s a great movie, but if you are a movie fan, it’s an easy one to like, and easy enough to follow. Randy is out here playing to cool for school.
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This is the thing, I don’t think it actually needed it. They used to to correct some minor inflections with speech/accent while speaking Hungarian after multiple attempts at ADR couldn’t get it to satisfactory levels for the Hungarian dialect coach, who then used his own voice to correct a few words. They easily couldn’t have let it go, and no one who doesn’t speak Hungarian would have known at all. None of us can pick out where it was actually used, and it had no effect on any of his on screen performance in a 3.5 hour movie.
This also demonstrates the issue with just calling everything “AI” with no differentiators. This isn’t creating scenes or actors out of whole cloth, or writing big chunks of a script. This is doing something that has always been done, but using tools that make it much faster and much cheaper to do on a targeted scale. It’s not the kind of thing the union workers were really worried about during the strikes.
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Other BP nominees from this year used AI too. We’re going to need to get comfortable with the fact that some of this tech is already ubiquitous in Hollywood.
To me, I’m treating it as the next frontier of S/VFX (of course, I’m not naive, I think it should be disclosed because it could be used unethically).
In the case of The Brutalist, were jobs taken away because of their use of AI? No, it was used as storyboard inspiration for some of the architecture seen during the epilogue of the movie (but what you see in the movie isn’t AI).
Did Brody and Jones give permission to use Respeecher for their Hungarian? Yes they did.
In the end, yeah, I wish they didn’t do it. It takes away from Corbet’s story of scrapping this thing together, attempting to make an epic ala the golden age of Hollywood. But I’m also not sure if it’s too different from effects innovations of years past.
Going to be a weird few years as we figure out where the line should be drawn.
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I hope to one day find something I love as much as NLU loves a 10 point scale.
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Same. I’m shamefully behind on watching this year’s nominees. About halfway through them and need to figure out how to hammer out the rest this week.
It’s my worst performance in years. This also feels like a really weak class, and I’ve struggled with motivation to finish them at the rate I did in previous seasons.
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Movies I definitely want to see before Sunday and likely will:
Nosferatu
Flow
The Apprentice
Movies I want to watch, but aren’t available or VOD prices might be too much:
A complete unknown
Sing Sing ($10 rental, and may bite the bullet)
Nickel Boys
Hard Truths
Movies I’m not sure I’ll ever watch:
Wicked
Emilia Perez
I’m still here
I think I’ve seen all the other major nominees. I guess I haven’t watched Gladiaror 2 yet, and that’s on Paramount+, but I’m not real excited for that and it doesn’t seem super necessary.
Honestly think this is the farthest along I’ve been since the first year they went to 10 nominees, which was a great year for movies iirc. This year feels like a down year for actual great movies, but a big year for Very Good movies. Not sure anything this year would truly be in the top 3 or 4 of best pic contention in most other years. Maybe the brutalist just because of its style and ambition, but most of these feel like movies that would be in the 8th to 10th spots.
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what was the movie about scotland that DJ mentioned. I can’t figure out what hes saying
The Outrun
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We watched this last night - very good. Jean-Baptiste was absolutely snubbed.
Almost 4 hour podcast this year? HELL YES
@Cody is this one going to be made available on YouTube?
Probably going to hold off on this one until watching the Brutalist but eager to see what movie Tim detonates this year. I don’t think I’ve ever been more heard than when he went off on Everything Everywhere all at Once.
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Tim is my favourite trap draw guest and it’s just not even close. Could go for like 12 pods a year featuring him
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As somebody who hates feeling stressed when watching shows/movies, I always look forward to this pod. Spoilers, but not too specific, they kind of give me a scouting report to go into each film with, and I generally know what I am getting into. Love listening to this yearly than watching whatever peaked my interest during the pod.
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Complete co-sign. They sold me on Tar, a movie I would’ve never in a million years watched otherwise, and was totally blown away by.
Highly recommend his guest spot on the Jaws episode of Blank Check
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