The Artificial Intelligentsia

Now that Project Hail Mary has grossed $400 million worldwide and still going strong, two points have been proven.

#1 – Ryan Gosling is one of our last remaining and enduring movie stars under 50.  I mean, anyone who can headline a film opposite a literal rock and build a humanistic relationship with a faceless voice in an offscreen booth that makes us laugh, cry and send us into existential thought while looking dreamy, has to be anointed our 21st century Cary Grant.

Ryan Gosling Takes Flight With Must-See First 5 Minutes of 'Project Hail  Mary'
… all the while in this dorky sweater!

AND –

#2 – It is still possible to make a movie in a timely fashion without artificial intelligence that people all over the world will see. 

Again and Again.

And again.

(Note: Project Hail Mary famously avoided AI in favor of real sets, practical effects and, well, actual people, puppets and physical…rocks!)

James Ortiz '10 Makes a Faceless Puppet Irresistible • Acting • Purchase  College
We love a practical effect!!

The possibility that this could continue to any sort of financial and/or creative advantage is not what the internet, corporate rich folk or your basic industry pundit would have you or I believe.

What so many would like us to think is that the end of the alive talents in the industry as we know it is coming courtesy of AI and that every movie in the 2100s will feature a movie star with some not so distant relation to Tilly Norwood.

Though I hate to give her/IT any additional publicity, if you must, click here:

Very uninterested in whatever this is

Many of my students work as interns at various Hollywood companies, and more than a handful have recounted stories in the last few months about a person or persons obsessed with talking about, dealing with, or having them deal with AI. 

These tend NOT to be top tier people but rather those who dream the shortcuts technology might offer are a substitute for the hard work and creativity it takes to make something audiences will want to pay to consume en masse that is memorable — or even any good.

When the subject comes up of teaching young writers AI tools my response is usually something like this – we don’t teach them to type, even though that is a much needed technical skill for screenwriters and cuts down on time. Instead, we teach them to think and dream and sweat out the stories they want to tell by studying, watching and using their imaginations to bring their projects to realization. 

Bit by bit.  Day by day. And month by month.

Or, as one of the GOAT writing professors of all-time, Anne Lamott once wrote:

Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life: Lamott, Anne:  8601404243813: Amazon.com: Books
Love you

I came across an article in the Hollywood Reporter this week that claimed to survey more than a dozen assistants in the industry who are being asked, or in some cases, encouraged, ahem, to use AI in order to do their jobs. Presumably quicker.

Some companies are absolutely anti AI and others are open or inclined to have support staff use it.  But as one former assistant noted, no one has given any thought to the fact that when you post a movie star or executive’s schedule or contract paperwork onto an AI tool to write a cohesive memo you are in essence opening that information up to public digital tools.

Data theft gif Images - Free Download on Freepik
ruh roh

So even though, as another assistant mentioned, it helps when you have to send a bottle of wine to a remote movie set location, and need to figure out the fastest way to get it there, it begs the question of how easy it will be for so many others to infiltrate that location for whatever disruptive or juicy tabloid fodder they may attempt to come up with.

Or have AI come up with.

You see what I mean.

Gossip GIFs | Tenor
and you know we love gossip

Nevertheless, The Hollywood Reporter will this month release an entire special issue devoted to AI, so we have that to look forward to.  As well as so many follow-ups too numerous to count from ad infinitum sources.

Now before the hissing and booing gets too loud from the peanut gallery, let’s agree that no one is saying that advancements in technologies can’t be beneficial in some areas.

Namely, if AI can take all the science ever published and come up with a cure for cancer, we’re ALL all-in. 

Where do you stand on AI? Good or bad? I'm very optimistic about the future  of AI, and its potential to revolutionize the way we live. :  r/OptimistsUnite
What if I’m sitting in the aisle?

That is, as long as it’s checked out and confirmed by actual human clinical studies before it goes on the market.

This is where technology can shine and will shine.

However, when it’s used as a cost-cutting method to further dumb down the world to an even lower common denominator, or bore us to death or even down further into our isolated psychological shells with mediocrity, count the majority of us out.

I don’t know about you, but I’m already beginning to read emails and press releases that I’d bet $100 bucks are AI generated. 

NIST AI 100-4: Synthetic Media Detection for CISOs
Mind… blown…

So jolly, so glib, so vacant of anything approaching a real point of view that might offend or truly inform anyone in a more recognizably alive, humanistic way.

And don’t get this flower child started on the driverless Waymo car that seems everywhere in Los Angeles. 

Not getting in one, and never want to drive behind one. 

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Brilliant

For one thing, they literally will NEVER think to continue that left turn through the yellow light!  Which literally means.  PROCEED, with caution.

That’s what I say about AI.

Proceed if you dare.

But think about the consequences of your actions for your future. 

And for ours.

Aretha Franklin – “Think”

Mr. Scorsese

There are barely a handful of American directors who have been making movies for more than half a century and still working at the top of their craft and Martin Scorsese is one of them.

The rest are these guys

But that’s not the only reason to watch Mr. Scorsese, the excellent five-part documentary of his life and films, now streaming on Apple TV.

Rather it’s the candor in which the director, his family, and his long-time friends and collaborators so openly lift a veil of privacy to share his flaws, his genius, his often volatile nature and lifelong devotion to film, as well as his obsessive fervor and determination to make each of his movies to the absolute best of everyone’s abilities, especially his own.

MR. SCORSESE (2025): New Trailer For Documentary About Film Director Martin  Scorsese… | The Movie My Life
The man behind the eyebrows

Never a part of Hollywood (Note: Whatever that is) and yet an undeniable part of Hollywood film history for present and future generations, Marty, as almost everyone calls him (Note: Except Daniel Day-Lewis, who for some reason only uses the more formal Martin) is that rare documentary subject that emerges not so much noble or admirable but merely very human and very, very, very hard-working. 

So much so that when you’re done with the five-hours it’s hard not to feel you should immediately get to work on your next six projects and begin considering the seven others that could be percolating on the back-burner. (Note: Whether you’re in show business or not).

Get to work Chairy!

Yet as directed by feature filmmaker, documentarian, novelist and former actress Rebecca Miller, Mr. Scorsese, more than anything else, is a true portrait of an artist.

You meet the short, asthmatic kid who grew up in Queens and Little Italy among professional gangsters and street bullies that became the inspiration for so much of the subject matter he covered in movies like Mean Streets, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Good Fellas and Casino.  But you also meet the devoted Italian Catholic kid who studied for the priesthood and made The Last Temptation of Christ, Kundun and Silence.  Not to mention, the lifelong movie fan who brought his encyclopedic knowledge of cinema to New York, New York, The Color of Money and The Aviator. Even the director-for-hire who was so able to bring himself to other people’s projects –  Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore, The King of Comedy and The Departed, to name a few – and transform them into award-winning cinema that captured the zeitgeist of their times.

Cheers to you, Marty

Still, this is not so much a lesson in film history than a fairly unvarnished exploration in what makes a person in the public eye we feel we somewhat “know,” tick.  There are many dozens of interviews, mostly new but others archival, including a significant amount with the director himself, detailing his drug use, periods of clinical depression, faltering marriages and unbridled fits of rage and frustration with not only his career, but his failure at life.

Among them are also a lot of incredibly funny stories about his “lacks,” often told in a self-deprecating manner by Mr. Scorsese himself.  Despite his gargantuan successes, the amount of times the director went from being at the top of the directing heap to virtually “dead” in the business (Note: His words, not mine) become head-spinning and almost comical.  While it doesn’t seem like someone at his “level” (Note: Again, whatever that means) would have to go butt heads with studio moguls or beg for money, Scorsese jokes that he’s been there a lot.  He even recounts one hilarious story where he threw the desk of someone he perceived to be a studio spy out a third floor window, admitting that right after he did it he was told it wasn’t even the right desk.

Oops?

I’ve seen every Scorsese film with the exception od Silence (2016) (Note: Some snowy night in front of the fire, as Joseph Mankiewicz wrote for Margo Channing to say in All About Eve) so by the end of Mr. Scorsese I wondered if there was anything significant I or the documentary hadn’t covered.. 

That is besides his 2024 Chanel commercial with Timothee Chalamet. Note: Ok, here it is:

Turns out there was one thing.

Ten years ago Marty directed an amusing 16 minute short film called The Audition, starring Robert De Niro and Leonardo DiCaprio playing fictional versions of themselves.  It was essentially made as a promotional tool for a new casino in Macau at a reported cost of $70 million, and has never been released theatrically, but, well, okay, you can watch it here:

The premise is that De Niro and DiCaprio arrive separately in Manila, run into each other, and find they’re both up for the same lead role in Scorsese’s next feature film. Written by his Boardwalk Empire collaborator Terrence Winter (Scorsese directed the pilot of the hit HBO series that Winter created, winning an Emmy in the process), it plays on a generational rivalry between the two stars and frequent Scorsese leading men as they try to one-up each other in front of the boss in order to land the role.

Scorsese being… well… Scorsese, even the short doesn’t take the easy way out.  Not only are both stars  full of themselves, but so is the fictional version of the director.  He’s clandestinely pitted them against one other, siding with each in different moments, until finally Brad Pitt shows up to make his cameo appearance by the end (Note: You know he’s coming at some point because he gets third billing). 

After that, well, you can probably figure it out what happens to the two Scorsese veterans.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro are starring in Martin Scorsese's next  movie
They beat each other up with their awards?

The quick, stylish directorial touches, clever asides (Note: I particularly loved the moment an annoyed De Niro begins imitating DiCaprio in disdain) and morally questionable behavior of the characters of the “director” “and his “actors,” are everything we come to expect from the Scorsese “brand.” (Note: Coined before that term was a de rigueur thing for anyone doing any job in the business).

But what’s most memorable about The Audition is just how keenly aware Mr. Scorsese is of the fact that to be in entertainment industry means that even when you reach the brand level of a Scorsese, you will spend the rest of your life, now and likely well into the hereafter, forever auditioning, often in uncomfortable, demeaning or even faux-demeaning situations.

The question is – will you let it get the best of you, or will you make the best of it?

Liza Minnelli – “New York, New York”