Welcome to the Age of AI

 I for one am annoyed by our new overlords.

This week, I watched in real time as the latest craze for tech bros caused serious problems for the Science Fiction publication Clarkesworld. I don't know who told all these people that they could make it big through the short story market (clearly they've never seen our pay scale), but someone said something and now Clarkesworld has had to close their submission portal and figure out a better way to screen for AI submissions without punishing human writers. 

No solution has yet to be found. At least for Clarkesworld.

And yes, the submission page has a little check box stating that the piece being submitted isn't AI generated work. These grifters don't care.

When I first heard about AI merging into the mainstream, it was through the art world. At first I was a bit middle of the road on my reaction. AI could be a cool new tool to make art depending on the programing and programmer. 

Yes, this is art. Mutt signed his name and everything.

I quickly changed my mind. 

A lot of what these AI programs are doing is stealing other people's art and awkwardly changing it. You might think that that's transformative art, people do stuff like that all the time. Except that some of these AI works are including the original artist's signatures and watermarks in their "art". The person behind the AI then tries to pass this new work off as their own original work without any recognition to the originator. The original artists in question are also not giving their permission for their art to be used. 

To make an easier art analogy, it would be like trying to pass off a famous painting like The Mona Lisa as your own work after taking the original canvas and splashing red paint across it. I don't think the Louvre will give you any credit. 

Art forgery has always been a problem and experts are often needed to confirm if a piece is real or not. Digital art is still fairly young (as far as art production goes), so the expertise on how to judge it's authenticity is a lot harder. And grifters are always out to make an easy buck.

That brings us to the latest AI target - literature. 

This is a space I am active in (not just passively like I am with art). Like creating quality art, writing any form of literary work takes a lot of skill honed over years of crafting. Writer's typically have a distinct voice that is consistent throughout their writing. This is something that is difficult for a computer to replicate and makes AI work stand out to a reader.

Recently, there's been a rush to self publish AI generated children's books. I'm not fully sure if this was a legit experiment or turned into an experiment when the creator started getting called out. Regardless, the children's book (called Alice and Sparkle) was a collaborative work by the human Ammaar Reshi and an AI. Both the art and writing were AI generated. It currently has three stars with reviews either raving about the author's innovation or completely bewildered by the lack of plot and strange art design.

It's currently the subject of a lot of mockery on many areas of the Internet. 

Though I haven't read the book, I have seen a few examples of the art work. All I can say is, it's bizarre - almost uncanny. And if that's the art, I shudder to think how off putting the writing is.

I am a writer, not because I think I'll make it big and end up as the next Hunger Games, but because I love telling stories. Even when my work doesn't go beyond my writing groups, I feel great sharing it with others. There also isn't that much money in short stories, self publishing, or even traditional publishing. The vast majority of writers have day jobs. 

Tech bros are trying to get rich quick by disrupting a market they barely understand with technology that can't replicate the creativity and voice that goes into these crafts. They have admitted that they don't care if they have to steal data to improve their technology and don't seem bothered by the real humans who are struggling to make their craft their full time jobs. Ten bucks says that we'll start seeing YouTube videos and expensive writing seminars on how to get rich writing stories and making art with AI in the next couple of months.

They are far more likely to just get themselves banned after trying to submit their AI nonsense. 

Until next week. 

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me. 

Note: this is a controversial topic and I reserve the right to delete anyone.

Welcome to Noir Falcons

 Please note that this blog post discusses a book that was written nearly a century ago and a movie that came out in the 40s. If you’re unfamiliar with the plot of The Maltese Falcon, you have been warned.

I recently picked up a used copy of The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett. The same Dashiell Hammett who wrote The Thin Man which was an early movie mystery series that had its own fandom.

I could continue on with this tangent, as I am also a fan of the Thin Man movies and book. However, I am meant to be writing about The Maltese Falcon - famous on its own as the pinnacle of noir stories - which came out a few years earlier.

The Maltese Falcon was written in serialized form between 1929 and 1930. It was published as a book in 1930 - just as the Great Depression was kicking into high gear. The movie came out roughly a decade later, in the midst of World War II. Though it doesn’t seem like a long time, the US was a very culturally different place in those short ten years.

Between 1930 and 1941, the United States rebounded from an economic disaster, ended prohibition with the 21st Amendment, entered the Second World War, transitioned from silent films to “talkies”, and implemented the Hayes Code (I promise the last one is relevant). 

My copy of the book seemed to have been modified a bit to better align the narrative with the movie’s timeline. Spade makes a few references to cases in the 1930s that shouldn’t be in the text if it was formally published in 1930. Thus, I don’t know how many other changes may have been made to my copy of the text. 

However, if my copy of the book only has the date changes, then the 1941 movie adaptation is incredibly good (with a few difference that would never get past the censors).

My introduction to The Maltese Falcon and the noir genre in general was through parodies. “Rugrats”, “Animaniacs”, and “Tiny Toons” all had an episode dedicated to noir. The “Rugrats” episode “Radio Daze” even has a “dingus” like the falcon called The Malties Woodchuck (so called because it was hiding malted milk balls). Additionally, “Star Trek: The Next Generation” had a few episodes where Captain Picard role-played as a Detective on the holodeck.

Additionally, film noir heavily influenced the characters Jessica Rabbit (Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and Helga Sinclair (Atlantis). Those two characters helped shape my understanding of what a “femme fetales” was. 

All of these media influences shaped my understanding of film noir and (more importantly for this blog post) The Maltese Falcon. Did my expectations match my experience?

Kind of…

There was plenty of mystery and fast talking, shady characters. Sam Spade is certainly a man’s man of a detective, but he’s also a cad - stringing along his partner’s widow is only the tip of the iceberg. Gutman is the greedy leader of the thieves, but he’s also not as brilliant or violent as I expected. The gunman Wilmer Cook actually has a personality in the book and movie instead of being a nameless, faceless entity. Joel Cairo’s character I mostly new from stills and promotion for the movie. 

But it’s Brigid O’Shaughnessy’s character that surprised me most. She may be smart and devious, but she’s nowhere near as confident as the femme fetales I’d become used to. Honestly, I find her a bit pathetic - likely an act to get Sam on her side, but even her confession and reactions at the end aren’t very strong. She kind of just stands there, teary eyed and trembling as Sam explains how he know she set him up. It’s not the reaction Jessica or Helga would have, that’s for sure.

Despite these breaks in expectations, I do see why The Maltese Falcon is the iconic book and movie that it is and its influence on the noir genre. It’s a good story about very flawed, despicable people (including Sam Spade). Humphrey Bogart bring likability to Sam Spade, but he isn’t a good guy - not in the slightest. 

Honestly, all of the actors in the movie version make the characters a lot more likable than their book counterparts. 

Additionally, there are changes from the book to the movie adaptation. Some scenes are shorten or skipped entirely. A few characters don’t make an appearance at all such as Spade’s lawyer and Gutman’s daughter. There are also a few things that had to either be implied or cut out entirely due to the Hayes Code (I said it would come back).

In the book, there are a few scenes describing naked or semi naked women. At one point Spade forces O’Shaughnessy strip in a bathroom to see if she had palmed $1000 from him. In another short (and stomach turning) scene has Spade finding Gutman’s daughter drugged out of her mind with only a robe on in a hotel room. The Hayes Code wouldn’t have allowed any of that in an American cinema.

And though it’s only hinted at though 40s cinema language, Spade does indeed have sex with O’Shaughnessy in the book. The scene picks up while he’s getting dressed, but it’s obvious they hooked up.

Finally, I need to talk about the other coding in the movie. The Queer Coding.

In the movie, Peter Lorre expertly plays the queer coded character Joel Cairo. In the book, there is no coding. Joel Cairo is called out for being gay right from his introduction. It’s not a flattering portrayal of gay people - Spade is quite awful to Cairo even before he knows he’s a villain. However, it is openly stated.

Additionally, it’s heavily implied that Cairo is in a relationship with the gunman Wilmer Cook. Something that isn’t present at all in the movie.

We can thank the Hayes Code for that omission as well.  This wouldn’t be the first or last time that queer characters would be smoothed out for cinema - this is why we have the term Queer Coding. Nor is it the first or last time that queer characters are used as villains in a story. The Hayes Code helped solidify these tropes and prevented growth for LGBTQIA+ characters in film for nearly all the 20th century.

Overall, I understand the appeal and importance of The Maltese Falcon to American cinema, pop culture, and genre. It helped to establish tropes and characters that are still easily recognizable today. I also find it dated. 

The book is easy to read and follow. The characters leave a lot to be desired, but they are fully realized, complex characters.

It’s a story to be appreciated for its place and time in American culture. It certainly established Bogart as a leading man.

Could it be updated for modern audiences? No idea. There are apparently really bad adaptations (including a romantic comedy in 1935) and a very close 1931 adaptation that included scenes that couldn’t be shown at all to audiences (the strip search I mentioned above). There was also a parody sequel released in the 70s.

And even if it could be adapted for a modern audience, would we want it to be?

I don’t think I would.

Let me know in the comments what your favorite noir (played straight or parody) is. Who Framed Roger Rabbit is probably mine.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope you like hearing from me.

Until next week.

Welcome to a Love of B Horror Movies

Here’s a not so secret about me, I un-ironically love bad horror movies. My favorites are campy horror movies from the 50s and 60s, typically star Vincent Price or Christopher Lee, and are overacted by a factor of 10,000. Whether these movies are actually good can be debatable. I don’t think I’d call The Blog a good movie (let alone a good horror movie), but I would call it an entertaining one.

When I’m having a tough time and need a good laugh, I like put on one of these movie. There’s no denying the VelociPaster is a mess of a movie, but I will laugh my butt off when there are explosions being heard and the screen just says “VFX: Car on Fire”. Leprechaun (the 1993 version with pre-famous Jennifer Aniston) has some actual scary moments, even if it is hard to take Warwick Davis’s character seriously when he’s laughing like a Saturday morning cartoon villain.

Recently, I was able to watch Killer Klowns from Outer Space, which is a classic B Horror movie from the late 1980s. It is a glorious example of a so bad it’s good kind of horror movie. There were some genuinely horrifying moments between the campy acting and costumes. It was a clear throw back to the creature features of the 1950s (30 something teenagers et. all). However, I was actually disturbed by the clown klown that was luring a little girl away from her family, or the klown pretending to be a statue outside of a pharmacy, or the ending where it’s implied that pretty much everyone but the final characters die in the town.

Also the costumes are by far the creepiest clown costumes - beating out all three It movies  by a landslide.

Old B horror movies might be my go to, but sometimes a gem of a B horror movie comes out now. However, these movies typically aren’t shown in theaters. 

Thanks to the streaming wars and Internet critics, B horror movies have had a bit of a renaissance. Some are actually pretty good, others are so bad they’re good (VelociPaster on Amazon Prime falls here), and then you have the so boring I can’t watch this anymore. That last category is the worst. I watch B horror movies for a cheap thrill and a hearty laugh, not because I want to fall asleep.

Willy’s Wonderland, starting a completely mute Nick Cage, is one of those so bad it’s good. I love this movie. Did it scare me? Not really. I may have jumped a couple of times because of a loud noise or jump scare. I did laugh my butt off and did care about the characters (even if I knew most were gonna die). My cat, however, did find the movie scary and didn’t like the humans dying (she’s a sensitive kitty).

It was because I’d watched Willy’s Wonderland that a new horror movie popped up on my recommendations. 

Haunt (2019) is a legit intense B horror movie. It’s not the most amazing horror movie I’ve ever seen - it is very much a B horror movie and was made with a shoe-string budget. However, what it lacks in effects it makes up for solid performances and seriously creepy moments. This movie doesn’t rely on jump scares. There’s only one that I can think of and it’s deserved for all of its dumbness. Instead, this movie uses voyeuristic techniques, long stretches of silence, and effective theming to create a fantastic horror experience. There are still a few funny moments - the movie takes place in an extreme haunted house experience and knows how to have fun with the setting. 

It’s not The House October Built, but Haunt knows what it’s doing.

B horror movies walk a fine line. They still need to be scary on some level, while still being fun. There might be a wink at the camera and some self awareness, but the best also take the material they are working with seriously. There’s a reason Killer Klowns from Outer Space and Leprechaun are considered cult classics. Heck, I’d argue Poltergeist is a classic B movie with an A list director to give it credibility.

But the overarching message of this post is a simply silly one: horror movies can be comfort movies, especially the campy, overacted ones with 30 somethings playing teenagers.

Until next week.

If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y’all like hearing from me.