Dog Tooth was also pretty uncomfortable viewing!

Idk I found Poor Things challenging but ultimately it’s supposed to be a piece of art as opposed to like a moral authority on human sexuality. The setup is so clearly outlandish that it’s hard to claim it has an opinion on real world sex issues.

Some of the scenes were a bit sexploitation-y though, like there was a definite male gaze aspect to the direction. I’m more sympathetic to the description of it being crass or a bit tasteless in some places as opposed to describing it as morally problematic.

I would be interested to hear your opinion on 3 if you watch it. It is very divisive and I never liked it but it has some serious fans. Directed by David Fincher so it has a strong vision, even if it’s not quite the one I was looking for.

This looks like nostalgia bait for the original. Reminds me a little of the new Star Wars films. I’ll still see it though since I’m a big fan of the franchise.

Come at the king, you best not miss

“Furiosa edges Garfield”

Why do they assume we are all huge fans of Gollum? Like that dogshit videogame from last year wasn’t enough

Upvoted for a hot take. I think I agree with you about the first one - it’s kinda like a western but it’s low budget in a way that has aged badly* and overstays its welcome.

*Easy Rider would be an example of a low budget film that has aged well imo

It would be great if he would just make 11 films. The script he’s junked for this one which is a sort of sequel for Once Upon A Time In Hollywood sounded amazing.

Alex Garland is an interesting director. Ex Machina is a classic! Men was a bit of a let down after that but overall I enjoyed it, and thought it was a decent film.

The marketing seems a bit cynical for this latest film but I’m intrigued so it must be working. He’s got some good will out of me due to his previous work.

That makes sense! I was thinking that the movie was suggesting the guru was analogous to the literal Indian PM, Narendra Modi, who is a hindu nationalist.

There are a lot of references to Indian politics. The villain is hinted quite unsubtley to be the Indian Prime Minister. Agree about the Jason Bourne style jump cuts in the actions scenes.

I’d been quite excited for it due to Mark Kermode giving it a rave review on his podcast but seems like he’s becoming more generous as a reviewer the older he gets.

That’s their excuse but it is convenient for them that in order to train the AI the workers need to follow the exact same steps as what an AI would be doing if it was sufficiently trained. We can’t say as outsiders to what extent the actual work is assisted by AI. Seems likely that it is largely a manual process.

I’m not exactly sure how they would have set this up given that their usual solution of Mechanical Turk does not pay their workers in cash anywhere outside of the US.

In some rural parts of the states Mechanical Turk is the largest employer but workers in other countries can only get paid in Amazon vouchers.

Somehow there are still a lot of Indian people working for Mechanical Turk though. It’s not clear if they are exchanging the vouchers or are stuck in a hellish walled garden where their wages can only be spent with their employer.

Yeah it was always suspect when this “shopping experience” came from the company behind Mechanical Turk.

I’m guessing it’s in hallucinogens which would explain the 90s

Best movie I am never going to watch ever again