Latest news with #HBO
Digital Trends
an hour ago
- Entertainment
- Digital Trends
Mountainhead creator says he ‘scraped AI companies back' to make his movie
Mountainhead writer and director Jesse Armstrong has said he's 'pretty sure that the AI companies have been scraping my material along with everyone else's to train their large language models,' and that to find the right voices for the movie's tech-bro characters, 'I've been scraping them back.' Mountainhead, which lands on HBO this weekend, is a dark satire about a group of tech billionaires who retreat to a secluded mountain lodge during a global crisis — a crisis that's exacerbated by their own creations, including highly convincing AI-generated deepfakes and a social media platform that fuels misinformation and instability. Speaking in an interview broadcast on Tuesday by the BBC's The World Tonight, Armstrong said that his 'scraping' process involved accessing large amounts of content online to help him shape the characters' voices, 'especially the tech CEOs and founders, because they all make themselves available on innumerable podcast and TED talks.' The Succession showrunner and co-writer added: 'It was crucial for me to tune into their particular voices, partly the vocabulary, a bit the philosophy, the whole package of how they approach the world with this tremendous confidence. Getting that voice was actually the reason that I pitched the film because I couldn't get that overweening confident voice out of my head, and it's a funny voice because it lacks a certain amount of self-awareness.' AI companies like ChatGPT creator OpenAI, Google, and Meta are known to use (or scrape) online content to train their large language models (LLMs), which power the AI platforms. It's a controversial issue, with creators understandably upset at having their content used without permission, recognition, or payment. On the topic of how generative AI could impact his own industry, Armstrong commented that 'eventually it will be able to do pretty much everything.' When asked if it can already write as well as him, Armstrong laughed, saying, 'People can judge for themselves,' adding, 'At the moment, the part of it which is creative is somewhat limited. Their large language models are predictive and they give you a bit of what you want and a bit of what they think might come next so they're pretty good at mimicry, not great at creativity. But I'm sure that part will come.' Mountainhead premieres on HBO on Saturday, May 31.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Cause of death revealed for Texas Renaissance Festival founder 'King George'
The Brief Texas Renaissance Festival founder George "King George" Coulam was found dead at his home last Wednesday. Coulam was the founder and longtime owner of the festival. He previously served as mayor of Todd Mission for more than 40 years. TODD MISSION, Texas - Grimes County Precinct 3 officials announced the cause of death of Texas Renaissance Festival founder George "King George" Coulam. What we know According to the Todd Mission city manager, police were called to Coulam's home at about 9 a.m. on Wednesday, May 21. He was found deceased in his home. Officials with Grimes County Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Mark Laughlin say Coulam died by suicide. What we don't know No other details are available at this time. Dig deeper Coulam is the founder and longtime owner of the Texas Renaissance Festival. He started the Texas Renaissance Festival in 1974, and it has grown into the largest of its kind in the United States. In addition to being the festival's leader, Coulam served as mayor of Todd Mission for more than four decades, but lost the most recent election on May 3. In 2024, the HBO docuseries "Ren Faire" focused on the festival's succession and Coulam's eventual retirement, highlighting the tension between his desire to find a romantic partner and his need to choose a successor. It also highlighted Coulam's strict leadership style. There have been ongoing legal disputes and potential sales of the festival, with a recent judge's order in early May mandating the sale of Coulam's properties, including the festival. The Source Previous FOX 26 reporting and Grimes County Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace Mark Laughlin's office
CBC
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CBC
Why is Bella Ramsey getting so much hate online?
The second season of HBO's hit series The Last of Us wrapped up on Sunday with a dramatic finale. But in recent weeks, the show's star Bella Ramsey, who plays Ellie, has become the target of a significant amount of online criticism and ridicule. Worse, a lot of it has been specifically directed at their non-binary identity. Today on Commotion, culture reporter Kat Tenbarge explains how the online hate campaign against Bella Ramsey got so bad.
Vogue
4 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Vogue
And Just Like That Returns With a Third Season as Gloriously Unhinged as Carrie's Outfits
Last week, I received some disturbing news. There were whispers in journalistic circles—and by that, I specifically mean circles that had been lucky enough to receive early episodes from the hotly anticipated new season of Michael Patrick King's And Just Like That—that the upcoming third installment of the divisive Sex and the City reboot was… actually good. Not bonkers, watch-it-through-your-fingers, so bad it's good, but genuinely good, and a real departure from its previous, wonderfully unhinged outings. Could it be? Surely not. To find out, I dove head first into the six episodes shared with critics. And now, I'm delighted to confirm that reports of its superior quality have been exaggerated. And Just Like That remains as thrillingly batshit as ever—and I, for one, could not be more grateful. Sarah Jessica Parker's beloved Carrie Bradshaw in And Just Like That Season 3. Photo: Courtesy of HBO We pick things up with Carrie (the ever-luminous Sarah Jessica Parker) and co. not long after the (highly surreal) events of Season 2: namely, our gal about town's decision to pause her relationship with John Corbett's beleaguered Aidan Shaw for five years while he raises his teenage sons. The pair are still in touch, though, sending each other mostly blank postcards and occasionally having very awkward phone sex. Miranda (Cynthia Nixon), meanwhile, is cruising 'lady bars,' which only seem to yield eccentrics or former acquaintances, and living in a noisy Airbnb next door to a crazed naked man wielding a meat cleaver, even though her best friend, Carrie, literally has a giant, mostly empty Gramercy Park townhouse and garden. As for Charlotte (Kristin Davis), she has, as usual, got her hands full with her life as a high-powered, late-night-partying gallerina, as well as her husband, Harry (Evan Handler), and kids, Rock (Alexa Swinton) and Lily (Cathy Ang), the latter of whom has a new, polyamorous, ballet dancer boyfriend.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Mountainhead' reviews: Jesse Armstrong's ‘Succession' follow-up is ‘rich in laughs' but focuses too much on ‘cruel intentionality'
Just like Succession, HBO's gone-but-not-forgotten drama series, Mountainhead comes from the satiric mind of Jesse Armstrong and focuses on a group of unserious billionaires. However, critics aren't as enthusiastic about the new TV movie as they were with its Emmy-winning predecessor. Mountainhead follows four wealthy tech bros — played by Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef — who meet at a swanky ski resort. Their retreat soon descends into chaos as a global crisis unfolds, exacerbated by the actions of one of their companies. More from GoldDerby 'The Handmaid's Tale' star Elisabeth Moss on directing the series finale and June's new mission: 'She has to fight a different battle now' 'The Handmaid's Tale' EPs on the series' final scene: 'It was the North Star I was aiming for the whole time' Billie Eilish sweeps 2025 American Music Awards: See all the winners Armstrong is a seven-time Emmy winner for Succession (four for writing, three for producing), but this is his feature directorial debut, and critics are well aware of the fact. Fair or not, most of the initial reviews included comparisons between Succession and Mountainhead. The new telefilm, with its runtime of 109 minutes, is "rich in laughs but lacks the substance of Succession," says Shaina Weatherhead (Collider), who adds, "If you come solely for the comedic stylings of four powerhouse actors, Mountainhead will certainly win you over if you don't take it too seriously." Christian Zilko (IndieWire) writes, "While Succession was all about delusion, with the Roy children cluelessly thinking the family business needed them while everyone maneuvered around their childish stunts, Mountainhead is all about the cruel intentionality of men who actively choose to burn down our world and just might have the competence to do it." Peter Bradshaw (The Guardian) says, "This is a movie driven by the line-by-line need for fierce, nasty, funny punched-up stuff in the dialogue, and narrative arcs and character development aren't the point. But as with Succession, this does a really good job of persuading you that, yes, this is what our overlords are really like." Addressing the satire angle that Armstrong is known for, Chris Barsanti (Slant Magazine) writes, "If there's a moral here, it might be that the only thing worse than a competitive billionaire is a bored one. By following Succession with another acid-singed comedy about a slightly different subset of 0.01 percenters, Armstrong is sticking to a kind of satire he knows well." Liz Shannon Miller (Consequence) says, "Armstrong's dialogue flows like no one else's, but there's something just a little bit unbearable about listening to stupid people talk like they're smart, and Armstrong doesn't pull away from that aspect. There was an emotional core to the Succession story ... The lads up on the mountain, meanwhile, are all about posturing amongst themselves." Mountainhead delivers "a decent amount of laughs," says Tim Grierson (The A.V. Club), who calls it "a wry smackdown of four insanely rich bros hanging out at a gaudy estate in the Utah mountains." However, the movie "is best when Armstrong puts satire aside for rage, seething at the tech kingpins destroying our society to increase their profits." Nick Schager (The Daily Beast) writes, "Prescient about the dangers posed by AI and, more pressingly, the cutthroat, avaricious, and egotistical madmen who wield it, the film is an incisive portrait of 21st-century villainy, if ultimately a satire that can't quite locate the funny in the horror." Finally, Nadia Dalimonte (Next Best Picture) says, "Mountainhead arrives at a time when reality has certainly caught up with Armstrong's sharp eye, making the film a depressingly perceptive mirror of the current state of the world." Mountainhead will premiere May 31 on HBO and Max. It will compete at the 2025 Emmys in the TV movie/limited series categories. SIGN UP for Gold Derby's free newsletter with latest predictions Best of GoldDerby 'The dialogue is king': 'Adolescence' sound editor James Drake on the 'chaotic and intense' first episode 'The Handmaid's Tale' star Elisabeth Moss on directing the series finale and June's new mission: 'She has to fight a different battle now' 'The Pitt' star Tracy Ifeachor thinks about Collins and Robby's backstory 'all the time': 'It just didn't work out because it's not the right time' Click here to read the full article.
