Fears

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeWallace and Gromit fans have spent the weekend worrying about the fate of production studios Aardman Animations after it was reported that the stop-motion animation studios were “running out of clay”.The Bristol-based animation company behind British classics such as Shaun the Sheep and Chicken Run were said to be in their “time of knead” last week when The Telegraph reported that…

Humane's Ai Pin is a unique device that can perform the majority of the tasks that a smartphone does, without a display or requiring to touch it even once. Its cofounder Imran Chaudhri called this new technology “AI as an interface”, where you only had to make minimal interactions with the device in order to get things done. However, there were some concerns raised by skeptics as well. One of them pointed out that the 13MP camera on the device, when worn on clothes, also stares at whatever you're looking at. Such a…

‘All around me are familiar faces / worn-out places, worn-out faces” goes the song, and a man on stage in a voluminous skirt jerks his body with the beat as Mad World fills the auditorium. LoveTrain2020 is the new show from Marseille-based Israeli choreographer Emanuel Gat, set entirely to the music of Tears for Fears. Not the usual soundtrack for contemporary dance, but if Birmingham Royal Ballet can dance to Black Sabbath (not to mention Arthur Pita’s Björk Ballet, or Marco Goecke’s Tori Amos dance piece) then why…

The 1975 frontman Matty Healy’s recent appearance at a festival in Kuala Lumpur – where he criticised Malaysia’s homophobic laws and kissed a male bandmate on stage – has strongly angered conservatives in the country.Members of the LGBTQ+ community have also expressed unease over his actions, fearing that the episode risks further exacerbating the hostilities they face.“He gets to fly out of the country and not face the consequences, while our people have to face the brunt of what just happened,” said the drag performer…

Superintelligence is not required for AI to cause harm. That is already happening. AI is used to violate privacy, create and spread disinformation, compromise cyber-security and build biased decision-making systems. The prospect of military misuse of AI is imminent. Today’s AI systems help repressive regimes to carry out mass surveillance and to exert powerful forms of social control. Containing or reducing these contemporary harms is not only of immediate value, but is also the best bet for easing…

An informational meeting held by SAG-AFTRA yesterday afternoon offered up a bleak outlook for the future of the entertainment industry, suggesting that the acting industry may no longer exist if a new deal isn’t negotiated. Over 760 people attended the Zoom meeting on Monday afternoon, including notable actors and actresses such as Vanessa Hudgens, Lucy Liu, Melissa McCarthy, Jon Huertas, and Josh Pence, just to name a few. SAG-AFTRA’s national executive director and chief negotiator, Duncan Crabtree-Ireland, led the…

The defining development happening in the entertainment world right now is of course the SAG-AFTRA strike, so naturally it’s having repercussions for the Marvel Cinematic Universe too. Specifically, one picketing actor hasn’t held back in sharing their thoughts about the injustices going on at Disney, which rather calls their future as part of the Mouse House-owned franchise into question. Elsewhere, we get an explanation for why an MCU series was wiped from the record as another debuts on a whole other platform. A…

A new deal on data transfers between the EU and US has alarmed businesses and privacy campaigners. The pact, known as the EU-US Data Privacy Framework, was announced on Monday by the European Commission. The EU’s executive body concluded that the US offered an “adequate level of protection” for data transfers under the new arrangements. The framework replaces the Privacy Shield, which the EU’s top court had struck down in July 2020 over concerns that the US didn’t provide sufficient protection…

Get our free weekly email for all the latest cinematic news from our film critic Clarisse LoughreyGet our The Life Cinematic email for freeTom Holland has admitted that Hollywood is “not for me”.The British actor has appeared in a number of box office smashes, including the Spider-Man film franchise and the 2022 Uncharted adaptation.Appearing on the On Purpose podcast, Holland, 27, said that while he loved making films, he did not enjoy being in the Hollywood entertainment industry.“Look, I really am a massive fan of…

In case you have been wondering why solar activity has increased exponentially over the last few months, you should know that scientists have predicted that the peak of the current solar cycle will arrive by the middle of 2025. The peak, also known as Solar Maximum, is the phase when the solar activity is at its highest in the 12-year period of the cycle. That's why we saw two separate solar flare incidents last week, both of which triggered a radio blackout on Earth. And now, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has…