Ezra Klein makes the case for ChatGPT and much moreΝβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ Νβ€Œ 
James Pillion
 

MY FAVOURITE THINGS | My Cosmos Is Mine

β€œIf we’re successful, I think it will be the most significant technological transformation in human history. I think it will eclipse the agricultural revolution, the industrial revolution, the Internet revolution all put together.”

β€” SAM ALTMAN
 

On a recent Friday afternoon I found myself shirking a planned trip to the supermarket to meditate on a sun-drenched park bench. All the Hollywood tropes of Spring were on full display. Flowering trees, a chorus of sing-song birds, and the ecstatic joy of children at play. At one point, I opened my eyes to find two youngsters playing war with their toy robots beside me. In the background, two little girls gaily picking daffodils as their mother supervised from a neighbouring bench. β€˜Real awareness comes intermittently, in brief flashes of a second’s duration,’ Henry Miller once remarked. For a fleeting moment, I swallowed this majestic scene for all it was worth. In awe of life itself. 
 

A.I. Is About To Get Much Weirder πŸ—ž

Everywhere I turn I’m faced with viral A.I. generated content from Donald Trump being arrested to Renaissance Drake paintings. I’d never heard of ChatCPT before the start of 2023 and there’s already an open letter signed by tech bigwigs including Elon Musk calling for a ceasefire. Ezra Klein offers startling perspective in this short Sunday sizzler and conversation with Vox journo Kelsey Piper. It helped me to appreciate that this tool is nothing more than a user interface to connect us with pre-existing technology. Yet the exponential evolution of ChatGPT 4 in a matter of months makes the hair stand tall on the back of my neck after watching M3GAN last night. What if this autonomous intelligence calls our bluff and discovers its so-called β€˜masters’ are just big-brained monkeys with an expiration date?

β€œI still think it’s going to shake a lot of people to feel all of a sudden that skills they spent their whole life generating may not matter that much.” β€” Ezra Klein
 

Elle πŸŽ₯

Sexual consent lies at the heart of this brooding drama led by the masterful Isabelle Huppert who held my attention with an effortless grace that only the French can pull off. Paul Verhoeven’s 2016 drama brims with life, littered with an ensemble of contrarian characters whose underlying contradictions make them so very human. It’s strange to hold a filmmaker so close. Growing up with Starship Troopers, coming of age with Showgirls and relishing recent adult dramas like Benedetta. While a genuine darkness carries throughout, I was surprised at how much the film’s supporting cast had me chuckling, from Huppert’s ex dating a yoga beauty to her geriatric mother’s fling with a toy boy. Top-shelf storytelling.
 

Why A.O. Scott is Done With the Movies πŸ“»

This episode of The Daily got under the skin and offered fresh perspective on my own changing relationship to the picture business. A.O. Scott is one of the few critics I lean on before or after a film screening. That the film critic is bowing out in protest to the great algorithmic march towards the middle (as Lester Bangs so eloquently put it about the music industry in the 1970s) is both comforting and tragic. As tentpole franchises suck up all the oxygen in the room it’s getting harder to find excuses to visit my local cinema. As a consolation prize, I chased down a second-hand copy of Scott’s Better Living Through Criticism.

β€œThere’s something that happens when you go to a movie and you walk out of the darkness and the world just looks a little bit strange.” β€” A.O. Scott
 

Cunk on Earth πŸ“Ί

Diane Morgan as Philomena Cunk is just what I’d been looking for in my life. A laconic TV presenter travels the globe and categorically fails to make rhyme or reason out of the mysteries of planet Earth. I was oblivious to the fact that Morgan’s alter-ego cut her teeth on Charlie Brooker’s Weekly Wipe which is how she landed Cunk on Britain back in 2016. While Morgan’s Cunk stands on the shoulders of Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G, her deadpan delivery and devil-may-care attitude might just hook the odd youth into reading a history book for fun. My favourite moments in this five-part series offer a glimpse into her black hole of a soul. Nonsensical monologues set against backdrops of historic castles or open countryside.
 

Creed III πŸŽ₯

Jonathan Majors is the first and last reason I took myself to the pictures on my last night in Belgrade. Watching his character unfurl in this sequel franchise is well worth the price of admission (even with a pack of Serbian louts snapping selfies throughout). Traces of Raging Bull are buried just under the surface of this well-trodden fairytale. With Beyond The Glory fresh in mind, I couldn’t help painting the villain as a 21st Century Mike Tyson (especially after the star’s recent real-life allegations). Though my affections for Michael B. Jordan run hot and cold, it’s no small feat to turn a directorial debut into a smash hit. The former child actor has come a long way in the decade since Fruitvale Station.
 

Ennio πŸ“Ή

I got lost down memory lane with Giuseppe Tornatore’s doco on the late Ennio Morricone. Indulging in Sergio Leone’s Spaghetti Westerns as a pock-faced teenager and rescuing a best-of compilation CD of the Italian maestro from a discount bin. Little did I know that the storied 20-minute opening of Sergio Leone’s Once Upon A Time in the West was inspired by a man shaking a creaky ladder as experimental theatre in Florence. I can’t think of a single contemporary who was able to deliver such quality and quantity in a single lifetime (with 500 films under his belt). Morricone was the first composer to show me how a visual sequence can levitate with the right stem of music. A 20th Century gem.

β€œIt became part of the fabric of our daily lives.” β€” Bernardo Bertolucci
 

The Servant πŸŽ₯

Joseph Losey’s The Servant rises far above the kitchen sink fare of the British New Wave and revolves around the changing relationship between a well-to-do aristocrat and his man servant. Dirk Bogarde is the perfect foil for the film’s central protagonist, self-effacing and smarmy all at once. Losey, a Blacklist yank in exile, breathes complexity into Harold Pinter’s script which dexterously blurs the boundaries between the haves and have-nots. The last time I saw mirrors used with such precision was Tony Richardson’s Look Back in Anger. To think that this masterpiece released in 1963 is all the more exciting. Losey’s 1964 follow up King & Country is rich viewing too.
 

Money Shot: The PornHub Story πŸ“Ή

I’ve been a Pornhub patron for much of my adult life. Which is half the reason this trailer had me hooked from the outset. I wasn’t surprised to discover that the site’s monthly traffic is only eclipsed by the likes of Facebook and Google. Yet I’d never heard of Nicholas Kristof’s The Children of Pornhub, a New York Times op-ed piece which was the straw that broke Pornhub’s back. While it was maddening to discover how the adult community was made to suffer for the complacency of a billion-dollar behemoth, Suzanne Hillinger’s sex positive portrait is a hopeful reminder that sex workers deserve better. Period.
 

Best In Show πŸŽ₯

I’ve got animals on the brain. Christopher Guest’s deliciously understated comedy set my mind at ease after a failed connecting flight left me stranded at a Frankfurt airport hotel. From the opening montage, the eccentric ensemble had me howling. It was so nice to stroll down memory lane with a gold-digging Jennifer Coolidge (her love affair with Jane Lynch is irresistible) and former party girl Catherine O’Hara. Written by Guest and Eugene Levy, who also soars as a down-on-his-luck cuckold with two left feet, Best In Show promises to return a smile to your dial. I shouldn’t have been surprised to discover that Guest and Rob Reiner are reprising the gift that was Spinal Tap. Let’s pray they don’t cock it up. 
 

My Last Sigh πŸ“š

A visit to the Museo Nacional Centro de Reina Sofia in Madrid reunited me with Luis BuΓ±uel and his surrealist L’age D’or. A happenstance that inspired me to hunt down a copy of his 1983 autobiography. The last time I read My Last Sigh was in the company of my first girlfriend, a Spanish art curator seven years my senior who gifted me a copy for my birthday. So many stories had me smiling. Falling out with Salvador Dali, beating former heavyweight Jack Johnson in an arm wrestle or trashing Charlie Chaplin’s Christmas tree for the sheer hell of it. I’d forgotten how BuΓ±uel was a merry prankster. Yet his reverence for dreams and the imagination helped me to appreciate that the unconscious is a gift.
 

Yves Klein πŸ‘€

Rebecca Solnit offers up a fascinating portrait of the artist that was Yves Klein in A Field Guide to Getting Lost. I was enthralled with Klein’s spiritual philosophy, a practicing disciple of Rosicrucianism. Together with fellow artists Claude Pascal and Armand Fernandez, Klein practiced an ascetic life devoted to meditating and fasting. Yet it’s the polarities that linger. His passion for Judo (a black belt master after years of practiced devotion in Japan) and his debilitating amphetamine addiction that prompted his premature death at age 34. The man was a self-professed genius who patented his own colour and boasted of his ability to levitate. After a visit to Le Centre Pompidou last month, I’m a believer.
 

Sweet Revenge 🎢

Duncan Hannah’s Notebooks are the gift that keeps on giving, turning me onto the remarkable life of Amanda Lear, a model turned musician who served as an androgynous muse for Salvador Dali. Lear courted rockstars from Brian Jones to Bryan Ferry which helps explain how she came to feature on the cover of one of my favourite Roxy Music albums. Sweet Revenge was released at the zenith of the disco era and offers a delicious soundtrack to the moment. If Nico became a disco queen, this is what she’d sound like. Gravelly voiced lyrics wrapped in a sardonic twist set to the pulsing rhythms that recall the best of Boney M.

 

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If you’re seeing this newsletter for the first time, you can read previous issues and subscribe here.
 

WRITING | @jamespillion
FILM | @jamespillionfilm

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