Recent media diet: AI weasels, doppelgangers, domed havens
Hey there! Hope you've been well. Sorry it's been a while—I've been neck-deep in Final Draft 13 (the worst writing software ever created) and dicking around making very silly video games. Some interesting media I've gobbled up recently:
🤖 Mercy (film)
I watched this Netflix feature with dread, because it's mostly shot in one claustrophobic setting: a guy strapped in a chair, arguing with an AI judge on a screen, while glassy bits of UI fly about in an effort to make social media comments feel dramatic. The funny thing about this otherwise by-the-book thriller, where future courtrooms force defendants to prove their own innocence before a heartless robot judge, is the conclusion it reaches about AI. It doesn't say AI judges are a bad idea! or even Abolish the techno-surveillance state!. It basically says Hey, AI is here to stay, so might as well make the best of it. I was left filled with despair, and bourbon.
🫥 Acting Class (graphic novel)
One of the best graphic novels I've ever read. Author Nick Drnaso (cool name) has created an incredibly mysterious, immersive world that ostensibly is about a group of strangers taking a free acting class, but slowly becomes a mirror-land where roles take over reality in strange and unexpected ways. Drnaso's crude, minimal art style is loaded with subtlety and hidden intent; his story, basically about the doppelgangers we create for ourselves, gave me some seriously weird-ass dreams, like one where everyone had a copy of themselves and were...totally okay with it. If you haven't, read his other works (Sabrina, Beverly). They're absolute masterpieces.
⛰️ Paradise (TV series)
Hulu sucks. With that out of the way, this show is great. Not just because it has a black protagonist who is fully human (ie. layered, flawed, relatable, not a stereotype, or worse, an archetype), but because the mythology of the story is grand and ambitious enough to remind me of the good old days of Lost or Westworld (season 1 only, there are no other seasons, come at me). It's not much of a spoiler to say the show is about a secret paradise bunker built for elites after the rest of the world self-destructs. From this premise, the show slow-burns out dozens of satisfying mysteries: how was Paradise built? Who gets in? What's its real purpose? Why did the world really self-destruct? Most shows are either too mindless, or too taxing, but this one falls perfectly in-between. Great for watching after a long day of cursing the creators of Final Draft 13.
As always, if you ever want to chat, hit the link to the Reddit thread. From a very lovely recent comment by faerieofstars:
I do very much believe in adding beauty and joy to the world, because bringing happiness while I still can to those who can still experience it is important.