80. Nothing is what it seems
I.
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is a chaotic and bonkers mess which, objectively speaking, has all sorts of flaws, but I enjoyed it. Tim Burton has packed the film with all sorts of references to the 1988 original, without simply retelling the same story. That alone is commendable. And the fun really shines through. Especially with Michael Keaton, who at 73 returns as the mad demon Beetlejuice, whom I actually found even more likeable this time round than in the first film.
In one shot, we see Beetlejuice burst into sentimental tears, causing the dark circles around his eyes to drip down his cheeks. As if his mascara were running. As a viewer, for 35 years you assumed that the circles, just like the rest of his bedraggled appearance, were there because he’s been dead for hundreds of years. I thought that was a good visual joke.
It immediately reminded me of Krusty the Clown. Because the creators of The Simpsons regularly play with the idea that Krusty isn’t wearing any make-up at all. In Homer’s Triple Bypass (season 4), Krusty tells Homer that his grotesque appearance is the result of multiple heart attacks. Homer replies that he looks fine, to which Krusty says: “This isn’t make-up”.
And in Bart the Fink (season 7), Krusty stages his own death and dons a disguise so he won’t be recognised. With a beard and a yellow face, he looks like a normal bloke in the Simpsons universe. Krusty is just about to sail off into the horizon in a boat when Bart sees through him and convinces him to stay. Krusty jumps overboard and, as he swims towards the shore, he leaves a trail of yellow make-up behind him and the familiar face of the clown appears.
---II.
Director Guillermo del Toro talks to the BFI about his stop-motion film Pinocchio and the craft of filmmaking. He is no fan of the AI videos we see popping up on YouTube and social media. “AI has shown that it can create semi-convincing screensavers,” he says. “Are these screensavers going to make people cry who have just lost a son? Or a mother? Or people who haven’t made the most of their youth? Fuck no.”
The film industry is slowly reaching a critical point, writes film critic Peter Bradshaw for The Guardian. We must therefore think carefully about the place films occupy in society. Lionsgate announced a partnership with Runway, a company that creates semi-convincing screensavers. Runway will have access to Lionsgate’s catalogue to train an AI model. The idea is that the model could help filmmakers in the future to… well, what exactly? Simplify their work. Improve it. It’s rather vague.
Bradshaw believes that artificial intelligence could contribute to a new wave of creative excess. But he warns that the opposite could also happen. “If we aren’t careful, making original films will become a marginal pursuit for connoisseurs, and artificially generated imagery will flood the cinema chains.”
III.
The iPhone 16 series has been released, and the biggest innovation of the year is a physical camera button. iPhone launches just aren’t that exciting anymore. Joanna Stern of The Wall Street Journal agrees with me. She decided to create an AI chatbot of herself that can answer readers’ questions about the new phones. Based on her notes, older reviews and a list of specifications. “Why? Because the iPhones are starting to feel a bit like Groundhog Day,” she writes. “More of the same every year. Since Apple is now fully embracing AI, I’m embracing it too.”
Incidentally, she doesn’t leave everything to the chatbot. People remain essential for a review, writes Stern. “Bots can’t take photos or experience the joy of a battery that lasts two days.”
PS.
There’s a new film by Bong Joon Ho on the way, and if you’ve seen Parasite or Snowpiercer, you know that’s good news. Mickey 17 is about a man (Robert Pattinson) who keeps getting cloned. He has to, because his job is to die. Afterwards, he wakes up in a cloned body with most of his memories intact. That’s unpleasant, but it goes well… until one time he doesn’t die.
---I’ve written before about Widelux, the camera that takes panoramic photos by physically rotating the mechanical lens. Actor Jeff Bridges is a big fan of the camera brand, but they are no longer being made. Bridges is set to change that next year by launching one himself: the WideluxX. Details about the revamped camera are still scarce. Hopefully it will be somewhat affordable, as the classic models that still exist often cost thousands of euros. Bridges recently appeared on Stephen Colbert’s show, where he spoke about his love for this camera.
---I didn’t see this cover coming. Willie Nelson (aged 91) records his version of Do You Realize??. The original by The Flaming Lips is quite energetic, Nelson turns it into a melancholic song. The impact of the line ‘do you realise that everyone you know someday will die’ is somewhat different when sung by a frail, elderly voice. Naturally, The Flaming Lips themselves are bursting with pride.
Bob Dylan (I’ll be seeing him again next month!) has been enjoying himself lately. His festival tour with Willie Nelson has just finished, and the strangest moment came during the final performance. During the song Desolation Row, Dylan grabs a spanner to drum along on his microphone. He’s certainly enjoying himself, but the Bob Dylan corner of the internet is now wondering: why?
Incidentally, Dylan released The 1974 Live Recordings last week, a box set containing no fewer than 27 CDs with 431 tracks. A ridiculous collection, of course, but recordings that haven’t been released after fifty years end up in the public domain. And then Dylan doesn’t earn a penny from it.
---There’s a documentary coming out about the artist Mr Doodle. You’ve probably heard of him; he once drew a massive house full of black felt-tip pens. But however cheerful and innocent he and his drawings may seem, such a creative and insatiable mind takes its toll.
---I’m a big fan of Spelunky (1 and 2), so I keep a close eye out whenever developer Derek Yu releases a new game. Together with a team of developers, he spent over seven years working on UFO 50, a collection of fifty games. UFO 50 contains games that look as though they were made in the 1980s. The creators have packaged it all accordingly. These are supposedly long-lost games that have now been brought together, offering a historical overview of a defunct studio.
The games start off simple and gradually become more polished and advanced. Unfortunately, UFO 50 is currently only available for PC. Hopefully it will be released for consoles later on, so I can get stuck in.
---Batman is 85 years old. LEGO is celebrating the milestone with an animated short.
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