Aleš Kot

Interview: Geeta Gandbhir on The Perfect Neighbor Reversing injustice: the filmmaker discusses her new documentary, which uses police body-cam footage to capture the events that culminated in the murder of a Black mother by her white neighbor

"Susan had been calling the police on the community for two years."

www.filmcomment.com/blog/intervi...

Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn on What ‘Pluribus’ Is Really About, Why Hollywood ‘Needs More Heroes’ and How Silicon Valley Has ‘F—ed Up the World’ Vince Gilligan and Rhea Seehorn unpack the first two episodes of 'Pluribus' and slam AI: 'Silicon Valley' has 'f---ed up the world.'

“I hate AI,” Gilligan says ... “AI is the world’s most expensive and energy-intensive plagiarism machine. ... a bunch of centibillionaires whose greatest life goal is to become the world’s first trillionaires. I think they’re selling a bag of vapor.”

variety.com/2025/tv/news...

Wouldn't have mattered if sliwa dropped out. Mamdani had an actual and in fact mandate.

Retailers Dealing With Increasing Levels of Theft and Violence Report emphasizes importance of preventive measures, coordination with law enforcement

can't believe outlets are running moral-panic headlines again based on flimsy anecdata from the *same* trade group (the national retailer federation) and sponsored by the *same* anti-theft company (sensormatic) that had to retract this *same* "study" just two years ago for being bogus.

I don't know how many more ways to say "you need to start fucking listening to the people who warned you that exactly this would happen."

LLM/GPT-type "AI" recreate patterns in pursuit of matching statistical correlations on which they're trained. They make shit up.

Do Not. Put this. In healthcare

All right, Bluesky. Do your thing. I've got two cats – a kitten and a young cat – clearly strays, bonded, incredibly sweet, and of course cautious. I want to help collect them, do the whole spay/neuter/whatever else they need thing, can foster them, can't keep them. Recs for LA?

In a film overflowing with riches in every aspect, two choices that particularly stand out at the moment: No subtitles for Spanish language, and PTA really wants the kids to watch The Battle of Algiers.

ONE BATTLE AFTER ANOTHER: Contends with its meta-textual limitations and potential failures through exquisite character work, meticulously unsentimental plotting, and some of the most potent film imagery of the decade. A full heart of a film.

I hear the President has decreed that it is possibly a crime to refer to Americans as "fascists," but "fascism" is a word that has a relatively clear meaning that's worth understanding. Here's how an official publication of the US Army defined "fascism" in 1945.

Also genuinely wild and surreal to see something so specific from my past reappear– an anti-surveillance school walkout, while very different in specifics, led to medialization and getting cameras removed from our school back in 2006

HAPPYEND (2024, dir. Neo Sora): A deeply tender, funny, bittersweet engagement with the dystopia of state surveillance & violence, grounded within the themes of friendship & collective action. So aurally youthful & vulnerable, a film about transitions, a successor to Edward Yang.

Fired By The Post The Washington Post said it fired Karen Attiah over comments she made about white men in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, Status has learned.

Scoop: Status has obtained the termination letter The Washington Post sent to @karenattiah.bsky.social, in which it informed her that she was being fired for social media posts "about white men."

Details in @status.news: www.status.news/p/karen-atti...

James Cameron made over 95 million dollars directing the second avatar movie.

Makes perfect sense that AI tech produced by techno-fascists would begin its violent spiral by targeting the same groups techno-fascists are historically invested in killing.

Whistleblower says Trump officials copied millions of Social Security numbers A whistleblower complaint says that the personal data of over 300 million Americans was copied to a private cloud account to allow access by members of the Department of Government Efficiency team.

A whistleblower complaint says that the personal data of over 300 million Americans was copied to a private cloud account to allow access by members of the Department of Government Efficiency team.

Ten new favorites I watched for the first time in August.

You Can’t Look Away: Dea Kulumbegashvili on “April” The Georgian director’s second feature plants one foot in the real world and another in the realm of the magical.

"I hope I’ll continue to experiment and sabotage my own notion of what cinema can be."

mubi.com/en/notebook/...

Sickening. Every journalist in America should think deeply about the fact that most American politicians are willing to accept and indeed facilitate the murder of our colleagues.

ICE is a Terror organization Formed based on counter-insurgency theory developed by paramilitaries during the Cold War, the organization's actions fit even the FBI's definition of "state sponsored terror"

"Lessons learned by U.S. security forces in Latin America (not just in Colombia but ... in Nicaragua, Chile, Argentina & El Salvador), were incorporated into the creation of ICE by U.S. President George W. Bush. And support for ICE has been bipartisan."

www.piratewireservices.com/p/ice-is-a-t...

The Exorcist (1973) | Review by James Baldwin - Scraps from the loft The Exorcist (1973) - Review by James Baldwin. The mindless and hysterical banality of the evil presented in The Exorcist is the most terrifying thing about the film.

"It is that moment when no other human being is real for you, nor are you real for yourself. This devil has no need of any dogma—though he can use them all—nor does he need any historical justification, history being so largely his invention."

scrapsfromtheloft.com/movies/the-e...

The fascist 2020s: We can't build Skynet, but we can sloppily recreate it in the aggregate.

well. looks like short stories might be back on the menu

In a somewhat stunning turn, the short story, my first, gets reprinted in an anthology alongside Samuel R. Delany and William Gibson. Maybe it's time I finish the second one?

A Life of Its Own Amazon.com: A Life of Its Own eBook : Kot, Aleš, Sammelin, Robert: Kindle Store

It's 2019. I move back to LA and proceed to get so sick my stomach feels like a bad cut-up experiment. In that feverish state I see a tech giant's CEO suggest their competition is not other companies but sleep itself. I write a short story about it.

www.amazon.com/Life-Its-Own...

Definitely recommend seeing it!

SORRY, BABY (2025, dir. Eva Victor): Vulnerable, sad, deeply funny, and thoroughly alive. The film's patience and layered tonal balancing show deep emotional intelligence. Lets every actor shine. A fantastic debut feature, easily one of my favorites of the year.

Finally: A Place in the Sun (1951, dir. George Stevens) is a better (and better looking) film than most that came out so far this year, Gremlins 2 still rips and Brain Gremlin is my friend, and Once Upon a Time in China made me remember why I love filmmaking within like two min