Latest news with #techmoguls
New York Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- New York Times
‘Mountainhead' Review: While We Go Down, They Bro Down
Over four seasons of 'Succession,' the creator, Jesse Armstrong, told the story of people who control the world by selling ideas: the Roy family, who ran and fought over a media and entertainment empire. Toward its end, as their business was sold to a tech entrepreneur, 'Succession' suggested that power was shifting, and that the future belonged to silicon hyperbillionaires. In his film 'Mountainhead,' which premieres Saturday on HBO, that future has arrived, and it is both terrifying and ridiculous — not unlike our present. In the scabrous story of a weekend getaway for four tech-mogul frenemies, Armstrong finds that our new bro overlords are rich targets for satire, though when it comes to depth, nuance and insight, their story has nothing on the Roys'. As 'Mountainhead' begins, countries around the globe are erupting in hatred and sectarian violence, fueled by A.I.-generated propaganda. This chaos is the whoopsie of Venis (Cory Michael Smith), a chuckleheaded social-media entrepreneur whose company pushed a half-baked software update that gave bad actors around the world the sudden ability to create unfalsifiable deepfake videos. (The name 'Venis,' a seeming portmanteau of 'venal' and 'penis' that is pronounced 'Venice,' is Armstrong's sensibility in five letters.) The world is burning. But in the snowy, Randian-named retreat that gives its name to 'Mountainhead,' Venis has arrived to chill with his boys. Jeff (Ramy Youssef) has developed possibly the only A.I. capable of weeding out the dangerous fake videos from Venis's company. Randall (Steve Carell), a self-styled philosopher-exec, tosses around terms like 'Hegelian' in a way that makes you wonder if he's ever finished a book. And Hugo Van Yalk (a wonderfully debased Jason Schwartzman), the owner of the property, is a meditation-app developer nicknamed 'Soup' — for 'soup kitchen' — because his net worth is a mere half billion dollars. The edgy bro-down that ensues is fueled by unspoken rivalries and schemes. Venis wants Jeff to sell him his A.I., which would allow him to call off the apocalypse without having to do an embarrassing recall of the update. Randall, who has received a concerning diagnosis, is keen on Venis's plan to usher in the 'transhuman' era by uploading people's consciousnesses to the cloud. Soup wants someone to fund his anemic wellness app and finally add a zero to his humiliating nine-digit wealth. The film centers almost entirely on this quartet. (Like the Roys, they mash up aspects of several real-life analogues — Musk, Thiel, Zuckerberg and more.) The narrow focus matches their perspective: The four men see themselves as the only real people in the world, while the other eight billion of us are NPCs. At one point, Venis asks Randall, 'Do you believe in other people?' The only reasonable answer is, 'Obviously not!' Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mountainhead to See How They Run: the seven best films to watch on TV this week
In Jesse Armstrong's squirmingly funny satire, four tech moguls gather at a retreat called Mountainhead (a wry nod to Ayn Rand's paean to individualism The Fountainhead). When the launch of a deep-fake tool by Cory Michael Smith's billionaire Venis plunges the world into financial and social meltdown, he and his alpha male peers – Jeff (Ramy Youssef), Randall (Steve Carell) and their host Souper (Jason Schwartzman) – insouciantly ponder exploiting this 'moment of creative destruction' and taking over the world. As in Succession, Armstrong has a keen eye for the supercilious world of the super-rich, where people are expendable and petty grievances can be dressed up as utopianism. Sunday 1 June, 9pm, Sky Atlantic Part affectionate throwback to classic Agatha Christie, part knowing sendup, Tom George's engaging comic whodunnit is set in the wake of a murder after the 100th West End performance of The Mousetrap in 1953. The corpse is lecherous American director Leo Kopernick (Adrien Brody), who was due to film a version of the play. Sozzled Insp Stoppard (Sam Rockwell) and eager, naive PC Stalker (Saoirse Ronan) are put on the case, with a star-stuffed cast of suspects – Ruth Wilson, David Oyelowo, Reece Shearsmith, Harris Dickinson – joining in the fun. Saturday 31 May, 9.20pm, Channel 4 Pete Docter's relentlessly inventive animation spins a touching yarn out of the competing emotions that swirl around a child's brain. Joy (a chipper Amy Poehler) is the controlling voice in the head of 11-year-old Riley. But when the girl and her parents move to a big city, San Francisco, the other feelings – Anger, Fear, Disgust, but principally Phyllis Smith's Sadness – come into play. An error in the handling of core emotions sends Joy and Sadness on a desperate quest into the weirder recesses of Riley's mind to save their charge in a bitter, sweet tearjerker. Sunday 1 June, 3.30pm, BBC One Tommy Lee Jones always appears most at home on screen with a stetson, a horse and a noble purpose. For this rare 2005 foray into directing, he gave himself a plum role as Texas ranch foreman Pete, who is determined to honour the last wishes of his friend and colleague, illegal immigrant Melquiades (Julio Cedillo), shot dead by trigger-happy border patrolman Mike (Barry Pepper). A modern western with a social conscience and a dose of mordant wit, it also has time for those genre staples of self-sufficiency, friendship and loyalty. Sunday 1 June, 9pm, Great! Action Sign up to The Guide Get our weekly pop culture email, free in your inbox every Friday after newsletter promotion A woman who lived her life battling the repression that is an enduring theme in her novels, Irish author Edna O'Brien is a terrific subject for a documentary. Sinéad O'Shea does her proud here and is blessed with access to the then 93-year-old – who is as sharp as ever when talking through her experiences. But O'Brien is also tinged with melancholy – a result of a traumatic childhood, an oppressive marriage and the misogynist resentment she faced – not least back in Ireland – due to her frank opinions. Sunday 1 June, 9pm, Great! Action Armando Iannucci's 2009 comedy bridges the gap between The Thick of It and Veep by throwing together governmental fools and chancers from the UK and US. It also ups the ante by making the result of the bungling of its apparatchiks, spin merchants and elected officials an actual war. Most of the Thick of It cast return, though confusingly as different characters. Luckily, Peter Capaldi's vituperative director of comms Malcolm Tucker is present and incorrect, bullying the out-of-his-depth minister for international development Simon Foster (Tom Hollander) on an ill-fated visit to Washington DC. Tuesday 3 June, 11.45pm, BBC Two New Mexico casual labourer Dylan (Charlie Plummer) is getting by day to day with his alcoholic mother and younger brother, until he gets a casual job at the House of Splendor ranch. It is home to – and refuge for – a community of LGBTQ+ folk, in particular rodeo rider Sky (Eve Lindley). Her and Dylan's mutual attraction is instant, though she is already in a relationship that maybe isn't as open as she says and he hopes. Luke Gilford's queer coming-of-age drama is a warm-hearted tale of finding your people, set in a bigotry-free environment that keeps the political personal. Wednesday 4 June, 11.20pm, Film4
WIRED
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- WIRED
Jesse Armstrong Finds Sympathy for ‘Rich Assholes' in Mountainhead
May 28, 2025 7:00 AM The Succession creator says writing and directing a satirical movie about four tech moguls gave him an understanding of the 'inhuman task' they face: balancing huge profits with responsible action. From left to right: Cory Michael Smith, Steve Carell, Ramy Youssef, and Jason Schwartzman star in Mountainhead . Photograph: Fred Hayes/HBO Jesse Armstrong hadn't planned on making another project about billionaires. The Succession creator was taking a break after finishing HBO's Emmy-winning series about the ludicrously wealthy siblings fighting for control over their father's media conglomerate, which ended in May 2023. But while writing a review of journalist Michael Lewis' book Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, about crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried, Armstrong got sucked into listening to podcasts featuring tech elites. It inspired him to write and direct his first feature: Mountainhead , a movie about three tech billionaires and their less rich, deeply insecure friend, all of whom have far too much power at their disposal. 'I couldn't get the … tech voice, tech man voice, a billionaire, out of my head,' Armstrong says, noting that to him, that voice embodies both 'supreme confidence in their analytical abilities' and 'arrogance.' Armstrong is being nice here. The word that repeatedly came to my mind while watching the foursome trade jargon, insults, and delusions of grandeur for the movie's nearly two-hour run time was douchebag . The film, which will start streaming on HBO May 31, stars Steve Carell as venture capitalist Randall; Jason Schwartzman as Hugo Van Yalk, whose nickname 'Souper' is a reference to a soup kitchen—and his lower net worth; Cory Michael Smith as Venis, a Zuck-Elon figure unleashing hyperrealistic deepfakes on his platform Traam; and Ramy Youssef as Jeff, who plans on profiting big from releasing AI that can counter the chaos his pal Venis is wreaking on the world. The friends meet up for a retreat in the mountains, hosted by Souper, whose fixation on impressing the cohort with his home decor and food platters is met with scorn by the others. They have a 'no deals, no meals, no high heels' rule for the weekend. But the fun—in their case, snowmobiling to a peak and writing their net worths on their chests with lipstick—is eventually superseded by plots to take over the world and 'coup out the US.' Mountainhead came together in just a few months, against the backdrop of President Donald Trump's second term in office, much of which has been dominated by Elon Musk's DOGE mission. Shooting took place over a few weeks this spring. While Carell says there were upsides to the tight turnaround—'everyone's just trusting their gut'—Schwartzman says quickly attaining fluency in the 'tech voice' Armstrong was going for was a challenge for him. 'At a certain point I said to Jesse, if you ever want us to say anything extra, do you have a glossary or a dictionary,' Schwartzman says. 'It's like if you were doing a movie in French and then improvise something in Italian.' While Armstrong acknowledges that some people might react to his latest project by asking, 'Why should I care about these rich assholes,' he refrains from outright making a judgment about them. 'I do feel some sympathy for the real people grappling with some of this tech, because it is a bit of a hall of mirrors,' Armstrong says. 'Lots of people go into, especially AI, with a sense of the power of the technology, and I think, as far as I can tell, a genuine sense of responsibility.' However, he says the 'unbelievable amount of money' in the space, coupled with regulations that are often playing catch-up, make it 'almost an inhuman task to keep your head straight about your desire to properly marshal the forces you're bringing into the world.' (He also describes the power of the Roys' media empire in Succession as 'quaint' compared to that of tech leaders.) Carell is similarly coy about 'demonizing the characters' in the movie but offers a very human motivation to some of Randall's actions. The film sees Randall grappling with a terminal cancer prognosis that he refuses to accept, demanding his doctor find a solution, and later banking on the idea of having his consciousness immortalized by tech. It's a storyline that mimics real-world transhumanism movements, where entrepreneurs like Bryan Johnson are determined not to die. 'I think people are naturally afraid of death,' Carell says. 'And he is, but he sees, somehow, he sees an out. He sees a way of cheating it. And so I think that motivates him to make decisions at the expense, basically, of the rest of the world.' Mountainhead ends somewhat ambiguously, with deals afoot and the fate of the world still very much in the hands of these four men. It's too bad that part doesn't feel like satire.
Arab News
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: Pico Iyer's essay ‘The Joy of Quiet'
Pico Iyer's essay 'The Joy of Quiet' dissects modern life's paradox: the louder our world grows, the more we crave silence. The essay was first published in 2012 in The New York Times. With the precision of a cultural surgeon, Iyer — a travel writer famed for his meditative prose — exposes how digital noise erodes human connection, leaving us drowning in a sea of notifications yet thirsting for meaning. But this isn't a diatribe against technology; it's a forensic examination of our collective burnout. He maps a silent counterrevolution emerging in the unlikeliest corners: Silicon Valley CEOs fleeing to Himalayan monasteries, Amish-inspired 'digital sabbaths' trending among younger generations, executives paying to lock away their phones and nations like Bhutan trading gross domestic product for 'Gross National Happiness' as radical acts of cultural defiance. Iyer's genius lies in reframing silence as an insurgent act of self-preservation. A Kyoto temple's rock garden becomes a 'vacuum of stillness' where fractured minds heal; a tech mogul's secret retreats — funded by the same wealth that built addictive apps — mock his own industry's promises of liberation. The essay's sharpest insight? Our devices aren't just distractions but 'weapons of mass distraction,' systematically severing us from presence, empathy and the sacred monotony of undivided attention. Critics might argue Iyer romanticizes privilege (not everyone can jet to a Balinese silent retreat), yet his message transcends class: in an age of algorithmic overload, solitude becomes not a luxury but psychic armor. He anticipates today's 'attention economy' battleground, where mindfulness apps monetize the very serenity they promise to provide. His closing warning: 'We've gone from exalting timesaving devices to fleeing them,' feels prophetic in 2025, as AI chatbots colonize conversation and virtual reality headsets replace eye contact. Less self-flagellating than Orwell's colonial reckonings, 'The Joy of Quiet' offers no easy answers. Instead, it dares readers to ask: When every ping demands obedience, what revolution begins with a silenced phone? What if reclaiming our humanity starts not with consuming more but with the radical courage to disappear?
