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Sony Boss Urges Theaters To Stop 30 Minutes of Trailers and Ads Before Movies (variety.com) 152

Sony Pictures chief Tom Rothman urged theater owners to cut down the roughly 30 minutes of trailers and ads before movies. "Get off the ad crack," Rothman told the audience at CinemaCon this week. "Get rid of the endless advertising and substantially shorten the long pre-shows." Variety reports: He noted that frequent moviegoers now show up a half hour late to avoid all the spots (something that reserved seating has made easier than ever before). Rothman said that means many people "don't even see the trailers," which results in "enticements gone to waste." Rothman predicted that the 2026 box office, which has already benefitted from hits like "Super Mario Galaxy Movie" and "Project Hail Mary," will rebound in a big way. But he acknowledged that attendance still trails pre-pandemic levels.

Rothman has been a vociferous defender of the big screen, pushing studios to embrace longer windows so that movies will stay in cinemas longer. That was a theme that Rothman returned to at CinemaCon, pressing exhibitors to hold strong and agree not to show movies that quickly appear on streaming services or on-demand platforms. "Enforce longer windows," Rothman said. "Yes, even if that means you cannot play every film."

In addition to stumping for exhibition, Rothman has practically begged Hollywood to invest in new stories along with all the franchise fare. In a recent New York Times op-ed, for instance, Rothman, the longest-serving studio chief, wrote, "For all the success of films driven by existing intellectual property, originality is essential to movies. Neither movie theaters nor the art form itself can survive without at least some originality. After all, you can't make a sequel to nothing."

Comment It's easy to understand how this is happening (Score 2) 51

Lawyers are some of the most overworked people on the planet. Not only that, but the work they do requires a lot of high-level thinking and processing for long stretches of time. It's exhausting work.

So along comes AI, which can turn hours of work into minutes, saving them a lot of time and work (at least up front). Of course they'll take a chance at it, especially when it lets them get eight hours of sleep a few more times a week. Besides, with better odds than a coin flip, the case will probably settle anyways, and what they write will never see the light of day.

Besides, it's very easy to skim through what AI generates and feel convinced that it's good enough. Only if one were to really scrutinize the work would one discover how terrible it is, but why bother doing all that extra evaluation...wasn't AI supposed to save you time?

Comment Re:Looks like panic to me (Score 2) 80

More like the total opposite, I'd say.

I can't imagine what's the business value of having ChatGPT doing a BloodNinja impression. It's not good for PR, it'd risk exclusion in serious environments, school and the like, it'd risk legal trouble, the list goes on. The potential for trouble far outweighs any possibly benefit, which is what? There's only downsides because it'd go wrong in some way sooner rather than later.

No, doubling down on serious, well paying uses and removing controversial ideas of little worth is exactly what looks like a clear, decent strategy here.

Comment AI is sooooo misunderstood (Score 1) 108

I think there's way too many people who imagine AI to be some sort of Stuxnet, and they're letting their imaginations run wild. It's all pareidolia at work. AI is just an amalgamation of training data. Think of it like hamburger...when you look at what comes out of the meat grinder, you can't say to yourself, "That morsel came from the shank, and that little bit must be the filet, and that tidbit there came from the rib." It all clearly came from somewhere, but when blended together, you can no longer distinguish its individual parts. There's nothing at all intelligent about AI, but we perceive it as such.

Can we perhaps stop trying to anthropomorphize an algorithm?

Comment What a waste (Score 2) 49

It's just absolutely sad to think about how many billions of dollars have been burned by Meta on such stupid things. Hey Zuck, how's that metaverse going for you?

Imagine...with that same amount of money, we could have created a program that would give everyone free access to a four year college education. But to hell with all the Socialists, because clearly this monstrosity will generate more economic growth than free college for all.

Fuck our corporate overlords.

Comment "I reject your reality, and substitute my own." (Score 5, Informative) 153

Comment Absolutely Agree (Score 1) 304

I bought myself a hybrid a few months ago. Auto start/stop on it makes perfect sense, especially when the electric motor is there to do part of the work. I have to actually concentrate hard to even notice when the engine fires up or powers down.

On the other hand, when it's a pure ICE vehicle, I'm not a big fan. Most of the time it's tolerable, but three months ago, I was driving an Expedition that shut off the engine while I was idling at a frontage road waiting to make a turn onto the street. When I began my turn and hit the accelerator, the engine turned over, fired once, then stopped, and I got an error on the dash telling me to put the car in park and power-cycle the car to restart it. I was so glad I was on a frontage road with no cars behind me, because I swear I would have panicked if I was actually on a street with a car telling me it needed a "reboot".

Comment Trafficking (Score 4, Informative) 122

Hundreds of thousands of people have been trafficked to run online scams in Myanmar and elsewhere in South East Asia.

I was in the Philippines last November attending a wedding. The groom was a member of the Philippine Coast Guard. He said the #1 problem he dealt with was illegal fishing. The #2 problem he dealt with was trafficking of women and children. He said they seize at least one boat every month with hundreds of passengers. These women (and parents of the children) actually pay brokers to transport them over to Thailand, where they are promised employment. Then, when they get to Thailand, they're smuggled through the country into Laos, Cambodia, or Burma to work in these locations managed by crime families, often managed by the Chinese mafia.

Never forget: slavery still exists today. The western world just outsourced it to poorer countries.

Comment Pretty sure I know how this'll go (Score 5, Insightful) 66

Our court will protect the rich interests of Bayer, because they only work for the rich. Bayer doesn't want to have to fight 50 potential lawsuits in 50 states; that's too many election fund donations they'd have to make. Much cheaper to just pay off the feds to make the ruling for everyone.

Fuck our corporate overlords.

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