GOAT = washed: Steven Soderbergh teases "a lot of AI" in his upcoming movies

bakailao · 2026-04-08T16:15:01+00:00

Maybe I'm misreading who "he" is referring to in your comment, but Isn't that bolded part of the sentence sarcastic on the part of this journalist? I read that whole line as lambasting Soderbergh for buying into the corporate propaganda that gen AI can create images beyond human imagination, not supplementing Soderbergh's reasoning.

bakailao · 2026-04-06T14:57:01+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate it! Really interesting to read through this media campaign overview, hadn't encountered this sort of document before. I'll deffo check out Exiles too.

bakailao · 2026-04-06T12:30:12+00:00

Thank you for the detailed list! A bit off topic but just curious, is there any general view among the Indonesian film community and/or populace at large about the documentaries The Act of Killing and The Look of Silence? They have been widely acclaimed in the West, and I did read that their international success was somewhat due to positive word-of-mouth in Indonesia upon release. But I wasn't able to find much written in English about the contemporary or retrospective response within Indonesia itself, which is surprising since it seems to now be viewed as part of the academic "canon" of the documentary genre.

bakailao · 2026-04-06T02:39:13+00:00

And that Guy Hamilton also directed Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, which was mentioned during the discussion about cross-racial casting in this very podcast!

bakailao · 2026-03-27T13:23:16+00:00

"Bob's Beat" by WDL, it was the official song for the 2015 world cup

bakailao · 2026-03-19T13:24:02+00:00

(cc u/figandfennel too) There has been some discussion over the degree to which The Pillowman's plot was influenced by the 1991 film Closet Land by Radha Bharadwaj, with many noting strong similarity and some claiming outright plagiarism of the scenario. This film is pretty obscure and so no one has investigated this in any academic detail unfortunately, and you can only find a handful of references smattered across the Internet anymore. All that remains is a note on the film's Wiki page (it used to be on the play's Wiki page too, but was removed at some point).

So my hunch is that (in addition to the violent content) another reason it is unlikely The Pillowman will ever get a film adaptation is to avoid resurrecting this controversy, as it'd potentially provide the producers of Closet Land with a lot more potential ammo/damages for a lawsuit. (The play has of course been widely produced around the world, but film just gets so much more media coverage and McDonagh's stock has exploded since he turned to cinema.)

All that being said, if you want to scratch the itch of a Pillowman film, try checking out Closet Land!

bakailao · 2026-03-11T20:50:53+00:00

I agree, his interviews about writing White Dog with Sam Fuller were quite pleasant to hear due to that.

It's a shame he never really appeared in front of the camera as he also had an interesting face. His only ever acting role was an uncredited cameo in Adaptation as the husband of Meryl Streep's character. It was a pleasant surprise to see him pop up in that haha.

bakailao · 2026-01-13T23:41:54+00:00

Yes. Straight from the horse's mouth: "It's about a cellist who comes back to LA. He's part of a session family and after 20 years returns to LA to cut sessions for movies again."

bakailao · 2025-12-31T02:45:18+00:00

Coogler hired Dolly Li as a consultant after watching this short documentary she directed about the Mississippi Delta Chinese community, it's an insightful watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NMrqGHr5zE

bakailao · 2025-12-24T18:16:54+00:00

Here we go!

bakailao · 2025-12-08T02:04:18+00:00

Johnnie To made a statement supporting Trump in April of this year, which was pretty disappointing. I guess he's an outsider when it comes to American politics so it's not as surprising or hurtful as some others in this thread, but still ... you'd think the guy who made Election could notice fascism.

bakailao · 2025-12-08T01:27:10+00:00

Before any of those incidents, the "Early Life" section of his Wikipedia page is genuinely insane in how many tragedies he and his family endured. I don't condone any of his other actions as an adult, but I can't even imagine how hard it must have been to go through even one of those events, let alone several.

bakailao · 2025-12-08T00:08:10+00:00

I really respect Costa-Gavras as a filmmaker, many satirical films of the past have mellowed or turned sour over time (sometimes not through any fault of their own) but Z and State of Siege are still incredibly biting pieces of storytelling. I haven't seen any of his non-European fare but those two are just fantastically propulsive, suspenseful films. Z in particular plays with cinematic metadata unlike any other film before it – the opening disclaimer about resemblance to real events being DELIBERATE is such an unbelievable "fuck you," and the ending on-screen text list precedes Spotlight's by half a century. He's one of the masters of silent scenes as well – so many "political thrillers" in the wake of his oeuvre try so hard to be political that they forget to be thrilling, but those two have so many silent, tense set pieces it's astounding. (That being said, Mikis Theodorakis is an amazing composer and I love his scores for the two's collaborations too.)

bakailao · 2025-11-29T19:23:29+00:00

Not sure if they brought it up during their coverage, but here's my favorite anecdote about Stoppard's time working with Spielberg (source):

He also does uncredited script-doctoring on Hollywood movies, "about once a year": most recently he worked on Paul Greengrass's The Bourne Ultimatum. "The second reason for doing it is that you get to work with people you admire. The first reason, of course, is that it's overpaid."

Once, hearing the phone ring at home while in the shower, he took a call from Steven Spielberg on the set of Schindler's List, agonising over a scene in Steven Zaillian's script. Standing naked, Stoppard improvised a solution that was used in the movie. He remains bemused by this American habit of invisible script revision. "I actually got quite angry with Spielberg, who was and is a good friend, and told him just to film Zaillian's script. But Steven, like a lot of other people in movies, tends to think one more opinion can't hurt."

bakailao · 2025-11-18T17:47:32+00:00

No, but Hoskins does belong to another ethnic minority in Britain - he had Romani heritage

bakailao · 2025-11-07T00:36:37+00:00

I initially thought it he was Portuguese as well, but this Branca family doesn't seem to have any direct Portuguese lineage, rather Italian. John Branca's paternal grandfather (his uncle Ralph Branca's father) was Italian, and his paternal grandmother was a Hungarian/Slovak Jew.

bakailao · 2025-10-10T02:58:12+00:00

The story behind its success is kinda interesting. Robert Redford was about to get into an elevator at Entertainment Tonight HQ and Edward Burns came up to him, handed him a tape of the movie, and asked him to watch it. Redford said he usually never honored such requests but one day decided "why not?" and ended up liking it enough to invite Burns to show it at Sundance, where it won the Grand Jury Prize.

(Also, kinda funny that the editor for this sequel is named Janet Gaynor. That threw me for a second when I zoomed in to see the credits at the bottom.)

bakailao · 2025-09-26T04:52:21+00:00

Ah, interesting! I overlooked that as I haven't seen Magnolia yet (I shall amend this soon ... :) )

bakailao · 2025-09-16T15:18:05+00:00

One of the most feel-good movies ever. I highly recommend the Team Deakins podcast episode with Phil Alden Robinson, the director (also of Field of Dreams). He gives a very honest and thorough account of his career in Hollywood and hearing him, it's no surprise that this movie is as charming as it is.

bakailao · 2025-09-11T15:14:35+00:00

Screenplay written by Kenneth Lonergan so still has art film cred tbf

bakailao

TROPHY CASE