July 1, 2025 • 39 mins
S7E3 – In this episode we see an interesting take on bringing vintage movies into the modern world. How amazing would it be if this was turned into a consumer experience? What movie would you like to star in?
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https://blackmirrorpodcast.com
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Thank You for Listening
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
We to the podcast join host Hoh as he discusses
the riveting Netflix original series Black Mirror. Now Here he
is her broadcasting from Weabini Saft Production Studio. Be Welcome
to Black Mirror Podcast and as always, I'm your host
(00:33):
ho Ho. So, how y'alls doing. I hope you're doing good?
I really do, because today we are going to continue
in season seven with episode three, titled Hotel Reverie. Now,
I gotta admit, so far in season seven, this is
my favorite episode. It really is an excellent episode. I
(00:54):
loved how they did it. I love the concept the
whole nine yards. It was an excellent movie.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And there's a lot of things to kind of discuss.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
In this one. There really is. But before we get
into that spoiler alert, we are going to be talking
about the episode. So if you have yet to check
out Hotel Reverie, head on over to Netflix and watch
the episode and then come on back for the discussion.
Let's get into it now. This episode starts actually kind
(01:26):
of different from most other Black Mirror episodes. It starts
off with a vintage black and white movie titled coincidentally enough,
Hotel Reverie, and it very much has kind of a
Casa Blanca, Casa blank, Casa Blanca type of a field
(01:48):
to it. Wow, that one hurt. But it has a
Casablanca type of a field to it. And I got admit,
I've never actually seen Casablanca, and I'm probably you know it,
I feel like I'm not pronouncing that right, forgive me,
but yeah, it kind of has a Cosablanca type of
a feel. I've never actually seen the movie. I've watched
(02:09):
some stuff from it, different clips. You know, it definitely
has that type of a feel, and I really do.
I mean, I have watched vintage movies and I do
like vintage movies. I really do, because they're they're simpler.
You don't have the you know, the huge plots that
are in there. You don't have a lot of the fanfare,
(02:30):
the special effects everything else. I mean, it's it's very
simplistic in its approach. In its approach, it's it's about
telling a story one that in that time everybody can
you know, relate to, you know, just just a different
(02:52):
way of doing movies. I like them, I really do.
They're they're good, wholesome, fun. Vintage movie are awesome. And this,
you know, it really talks about a different way of
bringing a vintage classic to the modern era. And that's
(03:16):
where we well known that we don't get there yet
because after this we are introduced to Brandy. She is
an actress and she's kind of upset about how her
career is going because she's kind of been pigeonholed, right,
I mean, she only plays like a couple different types
of roles and that's about it. You know, There's been
(03:40):
several different actors and actresses over the years that I've
noticed that very much get pigeonholed. Now, I don't know
necessarily why they get pigeonholed, but to me, I don't
know about you, but for me, the marks of a
good actor or actress is in the sheer variety of
roles that they're able to play. I mean, one of
(04:03):
my I don't want to say one of my favorite actors,
but I have a I very much have a deep
respect for his acting ability, even though it kind of
ticks me off because I mean it's just he seems
like he's at least with the characters that he plays.
(04:23):
I mean, he's just.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Just I don't like him.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
He's a douche. I don't like him. Yeah, I don't
like him at all, but I respect his career because
of the sheer array of different characters that he's played
and how immersive he is in you know, preparing himself
to play the role. I have a deep respect for
(04:51):
his acting career. And that's Leonardo DiCaprio. Just the different
characters he's played, it's almost a you name it, he's
done it kind of a thing, and he does it well,
he really does. I have a deep respect for his
ability as an actor, his screen presence, everything. And there's
(05:13):
other actors out there that it seems no matter what
role they play, they seem like they're playing a different
version of the same character in a matter of speaking,
you know, and to me, regardless of the person's screen presence,
because okay, for example, Vin Diesel, you know, awesome screen presence,
(05:36):
but he kind of plays the same type of character
all the time, right, And to me, that's just not
a good actor, if you will. And I don't know
the reason why Brandy has been, you know, pigeonholed into
playing these two different types of characters, but she has been,
(05:57):
and she wants her Casablanca, Casablanca, however you pronounce it.
She wants her Hotel reverie type of a movie. That's
what she wants. That's the type of movie she wants.
And just coincidentally enough, her agent finds out that, hey,
(06:18):
you know, they're looking to remake the movie. They're looking
to do that, and so Brandy's like, dude, yeah, I'm interested.
I'm absolutely interesting. Under one condition. I want to play
the lead role, not the love interest. I want to
play the lead role. They can recast it as a
(06:41):
black woman, sure, let's go ahead and do it. And
this isn't like this is a new concept, right, I
mean this happened before, you know, with The Wild Wild
West that Oh What's that? That Will Smith played in,
which was absolutely hilarious because I remember whenever that movie
(07:01):
came out, I listened to a I listened to an
interview with Will Smith and apparently he was talking with
his agent about it and he's like, but look, I
can't play Jim West. I'm black. Jim West was white.
Aren't they going to notice? And I guess his agent
(07:23):
was like, yeah, but it was a black and white television,
They're never going to know the difference. And I'm just like,
oh wow, that's hilarious. That's awesome, and Will Smith nailed
her role. He did a good job with it, he
really did. So she gets this opportunity. She gets a
package in the mail you know, has got you know,
the script in it and everything else, and she does
(07:45):
her job. She memorizes a script, but she accidentally drops
the USB USB drive on the ground, which was explaining
the concept and what they were actually going to be doing.
So she knows nothing about how they're actually going to
(08:05):
do this and why they're going to be able to
do it so quickly. Because this is one of the
selling points of doing this is you can you know,
redo a vintage movie for a fraction of the cost
because you're only you know, you're only booking your actor
or actors for like an hour and a half, a
(08:29):
fraction of the time. I mean, normally filming a movie
takes time. You've got you know, to change your sets,
You've got to you know, go to different locations. You've
got so many different people that are involved in it.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
It is expensive, right, multiple actors, actresses, film crew, locations,
set up, tear down all kinds of crap.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
But this method, they're able to do it at a
fraction of the price. Because and this is where I
thought it was just amazing concept was because it takes
whatever actor and it puts them into that world using
AI whoe. My mind was blown on this, It really was.
(09:25):
I mean, could you imagine this, I mean not just
as a not just as a different way to remake
a movie, to modernize an old vintage movie with a
with a modern cast, but just I mean, could you
imagine if they actually use this technology on a consumer
(09:50):
basis to put you in the movie to where you
can basically star in your own mom? I mean, how
many of you have watched a movie so many different
times that you can virtually quote the entire movie. You
could watch it and you could you know every line,
(10:13):
you know every scene, you know how it's going to
play out. Maybe if it's a horror movie, you're yelling
at the screen, going don't go down the hallway, don't
check out the noise. Stop it. You're going to die.
You know what's going to happen. I mean, how many, oh,
how many of you have a movie like that? How
many of you would think it would be amazing to
(10:38):
basically star in your favorite movie? I mean that would
be awesome. Like imagine if this was if this actually
became a thing and they use this on a consumer level, Oh,
(10:59):
that's just that to me is just is dude, that's cool,
that really is. I mean that was one of the
first things I thought of whenever I seen how they
ended up doing this. Hands down, I'm like, dude, that's exciting.
That's exciting to me. And I mean how far away
(11:19):
do you think this type of technology is? You know,
I mean they have made advancements in technology by leaps
and bounds. I mean they actually announced not that long ago, actually,
I mean this was within the past year, within the
(11:40):
past twelve months, they've announced being able to map consciousness.
I mean, dude, that's cool. Computing actually being able to
be advanced at that. Wow. I was blown away. I
(12:03):
was blown away just the interface. I was blown away.
So I mean, how far do you think? How far
away do you think they actually are from being able
to do this? I mean, do you think we're like
five years away, ten years away? Do you think they
can actually do this now? At least in you know,
(12:27):
on some level, I don't know. So Brandy gets hooked
up into this, into this machine, and she's like shocked,
you know, she had no idea what she was getting into.
She had no idea what was going on. Now. Before
(12:49):
this happened, she kind of researched the actress whom she
was going to be. You know, who was the female
star in this this Dorothy Chambers whom it plays Oh,
what was her name, Clara, Clara something or another? What
was her name something? I think it was French, Maybe
(13:10):
I'll know Clara something played by this actress named Dorothy.
And you know, she looks up what had happened to
her that she you know, tragically well not that she
tragically died, but she you know, self deleted herself with
with sleeping pills, and you know, she she just kind
(13:31):
of fell in love in a matter of speaking with
the with the actress, her her tragic life and whatnot,
and she just she yeah, begin to feel for and
so entering into the movie, that's whenever she found out
(13:52):
what she was in for. Because is what happens is
this AI recreates the entire world that the movie takes
place in. So if it happened in the movie, then
the whole entire set was completely laid out in this
(14:14):
I guess you can call it virtual reality world. All
taking place within a computer, and all of the characters
are AI generated and they respond to what's going on.
But at the same time, it's supposed to happen basically
(14:35):
in the way that it happened in the movie. I mean,
you have character arc, story arc, all that kind of
stuff they're supposed to take place, right. I mean it
kind of reminds me, in a matter of speaking, with
Assassin's Creed. You know, you have to sink what's going on,
you fall out of sink and then you just throw
the whole thing out because it happened in a particular
(14:59):
way and in order to make it through the story,
you have to be as accurate to the story as possible.
And so she's saying her lines, she's doing what she
is supposed to do. And in the opening scene, you
know they're measuring, you know, the the love aspect of it.
(15:24):
They're measuring how accurate to the story they are. I
mean that they're tracking all kinds of stuff with the
computer on how well she's doing Blown Away. And then
you get to the point where Brandy, acting as the doctor,
(15:45):
has to play the piano. And this isn't like a
typical movie where if the actor can't actually do what
it is that they're supposed to be doing. Then they
got a stunt double in there or somebody that knows
how to do it that can just kind of, you know,
do it for them, and there you go. But Brandy
(16:06):
doesn't know how to play the piano. And it's like,
you know, it makes you wonder how many different actors
or actors. I mean, that really makes you wonder. I
mean it, to be honest with you, it surprises me
whenever an actor or an actress can do some of
these things, you know, because before, I mean, it's just
(16:28):
that's not how it was. That's not how it worked.
You know, actors and actresses couldn't do half the stuff
that they do on screen. You know, they use filmography,
camera angles and different things like that to make it
look like they are, but it's not actually them doing it.
It's not them doing the moves. It's not them jumping
(16:48):
out of the helicopter, it's not them hanging onto an airplane.
Sometimes it is, most of the time it's not. And
why the director would be surprised that, you know, the
actress can't actually pay play the piano.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I'm like, really, I mean, do you not know how
acting works.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I mean, that's just that was one of the parts
where it just kind of fell through for me. I
gotta be honest with you, that was one of the parts.
It's like, and you're surprised about this that she can't
actually play the piano at any rate. That's when the
whole thing falls apart. That's where we find out something
(17:36):
kind of interesting because the doctor being able to play
the piano was actually an integral part of the movie.
It made something happen that was going to advance the
(17:58):
movie along and make it to where it could get
to its nice, little happy ending. But because Brandy was
not able to play the piano and threw the whole
thing off and they had to reset because instead of
(18:23):
a particular person dying, it ended up being the dog
that died, and the plot just a big, huge plot
hole happened, and the movie was not going to play
out as it was supposed to. It was going to
be bad, right, So they were going to reset the
entire movie and out try it all over again. Unfortunately,
(18:50):
the system had a bug in it and it wouldn't
reset the movie, so they were forced to improvise. They
were forced to do things different in order to make
it work, in order to make it happen, and then
(19:15):
what we see ended up playing out is well. There
was kind of a heated scene between Brandy and Clara,
the actress whom in the movie was being played by
Dorothy everybody is you know, all of the people that
(19:47):
were in the in the real world that weren't in
the movie itself. You know, the ones that were keeping
track of this, keeping track of that, you know, put
making sure that everything was, you know, going together nicely.
You know, they're paying attention. They are just in what's happening.
(20:08):
Accident happens. Coffee spills on the computer? Are you kidding me?
I mean, you know, just you don't put liquids, you
don't put your drink water, any electronics, just don't mix.
I mean, how could you make such a rookie mistake
and spill your drink on your computer, screwing the whole
(20:31):
thing up. It's like, dude, everything goes out. They no
longer can see what's going on in the movie. They
can no longer communicate with Brandy, to talk to her,
to walk her through anything, to find out what's going on,
to give her any type of you know, help nothing.
(20:51):
Everything is frozen. Not only that, everything in the AI
generated world the movie, everybody stops. Everybody is frozen in time,
like somebody hit the pause button on their remote control
(21:15):
except Brandy and Clara, the only two people that can
move around interact with each other in the whole nine
yards Now, obviously, Clara starts freaking out. It's like, what
(21:36):
the heck is going on? Right? Because Clara thinks that
she is in a movie. I mean, she's not acting this.
This isn't like this is Dorothy playing the role of Clara.
This is Clara the you know, the these uh the
characters that are you know, AI controlled, AI powered. I
(22:00):
guess you can say they all think they're real. This
isn't a movie to them. I mean just the concept,
Like I said, the concept is awesome. And so she's confused,
and then something happens because Brandy actually addresses Clara as Dorothy,
(22:23):
the actress who played Clara in the movie, and this
kind of echoed with Clara, like she understood without really understanding,
you know, like an echo going on, and this was
you know, how they ended up tying this together was
(22:45):
interesting to me because basically how they played it off
was Dorothy. Whenever she played that character, she used, you know,
her own life as inspiration to play the character. So
there was a lot of Dorothy in the character Clara
(23:07):
in that movie. And this, I mean, this really got
me thinking because it's like, I mean, we hear about
different actors and actresses that whenever they are playing a role,
they just they they just dive headfirst into a character.
(23:29):
I mean they they just they completely emerge themselves into
the role, becoming the character that they're playing. And that
to me, I mean it just it seems just psychologically draining.
(23:49):
But I think in some in some ways some forms
that in order to really play a character and make
it believable. I mean that's everybody knows that whenever they're
watching a movie, they're watching something that is staged, something
that's fake, something that is not real. And the magic
(24:12):
happens whenever you can watch a movie and be immersed
in it to the point to where you're you're not
watching a movie. I mean, good actors make great movies.
I mean the skill that it takes to change yourself
(24:34):
into somebody else to where you can make your performance believable,
natural and make the audience believe that they're not even
watching a movie. They may as well just be you know,
a third person, a fly on the wall in this scenario,
in this movie, they're not watching a movie. They're watching
(24:55):
something that is real. That's one of the things that
makes a great movie. I mean, I have a lot
of respect for a character that can immerse themselves or
I'm sorry, a lot of respect for an actor and
an actress that can immerse themselves into a character and
make it believable to where the audience, I mean not
(25:18):
like they're none the wiser, but they believe. That's just
awesome to me, you know. And so that's what Dorothy
did whenever she was playing this character of Clara. And
so Clara was like it echoed, her name echoed with it.
(25:42):
And you know, this is where things got a little
weird because Clara, in her desperation to find some type
of grounding that made what was going on makes sense,
(26:05):
I mean, she was told by Brandy that you know,
nothing is real. You're just a character where redoing this movie,
you're somebody that's actually AI generated, you know. But the
weird thing was and that this is where they kind
of it went to the next level because Clara kind
(26:26):
of became self aware, right, I was like, dude, that whoa,
because what Clara does you know? In her trying to
find rooting and something stable in this craziness that was
taken that was happening, she walks over to a wall,
(26:48):
a door, maybe walks over to a door, and instead
of trying to open the door, she just kind of
reaches out to try to touch the door and her
hand goes right through it. I'm like, are you serious?
I mean, you couldn't have had her like break a
window and try to go through the window and the
(27:08):
same thing happened. I mean, this I thought was kind
of weird. I mean, this was supposed to be a door.
The AI generated world would have made it a door
everywhere else in the story, in the you know, in
the setting, every door is a door. Why would you
make this not a door? Why would you make this
a something you can pass through like you're in a
(27:30):
bad video game. But that's what they did. She walks
through it and it is complete blackness. Now, how they
end up explaining it is whenever Clara went through that barrier,
(27:51):
she entered into the rest of the computer, giving her
access to everything that the computer knew about Dorothy, the
actress that was playing Clara, and you get the flashbacks
of you know, Dorothy's experience on set. You find out
(28:17):
that Dorothy had a love interest on set, and you
find out more or less why she ended up self terminating, heartbreaking,
(28:48):
and she comes out, you know, really trying to accept,
come to terms with what it is she just learned
about herself. And no surprise, you know, Clara and Brandy
(29:12):
end up, you know, having a relationship. You know, they
end up getting close to each other. And I mean
they spend months in limbo. I mean that's just the
I mean, could you imagine, I mean, being stuck in
(29:32):
limbo like this, And I mean they were trying everything,
you know, in the real world. They were trying everything
they could to figure this thing out. They were trying
everything to fix the problem because they couldn't just unplug Brandy,
because doing that would have separated Brandy's body from her consciousness.
(29:55):
In essence, killing her wasn't an eye option. So I mean,
they had to fix this, and they're trying everything to
fix this. They were, and time in the movie was
going by at an accelerated rate. That's why even though,
(30:18):
you know, not even an hour and a half of
real time went by in the simulation. In the movie,
months were going by. They gave a like a time frame.
I don't remember what it was. It was like, I
think seven days per minute, maybe I think something along that.
(30:41):
Let At any rate, it was a long amount of months.
Like I said, months of time went by. And so obviously,
you know Brandy and Clara, they get close. Love ends
up happening between the two, and then Brandy has this
(31:08):
uh you know. They're laying in bed and she's like,
you know, because Clara is like, you know, I love you,
and Brandy's just like mm hmmm. And I'm like, really, wow,
that's what you're going to say to her, you know,
And and her response was like, you know, I don't
know if you love me, if you're saying you love
(31:30):
me because you actually love me, or if that's because
that's how your character is supposed to act. I mean
that's how it is in the movie, right. But Clara
assures her, no, I actually love you. This isn't programming
(31:50):
from the movie. I know you. I know you're not
this person, You're somebody different, and this is the person
that I love interesting. They fixed a problem in the
real world, and they they are able to talk to
Brandy and tell her, hey, we're going to reset everything.
(32:12):
We're going to get this thing back going on, and
you know, Brandy is starting to protest a little bit,
and then they tell her that when they reset, when
they go back to a previous save point, everything is
(32:35):
going to go back to where it was. Nobody's going
to remember anything. Clara is not going to remember anything.
It's going to be in the in the eyes and
minds of everybody else, all the AI individuals there that
those months never happened. And so just like Brandy was told,
(33:04):
that's how it happened. Like dude, they fixed the plot holes,
they get things back on track. Things end up taking
(33:27):
a completely different turn.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
And they don't actually, I mean dude.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
A completely different ending than what the original ending was.
But it was a good ending. Credits roll, Brandy wakes up,
(34:06):
the movie goes out, gets released. It's a hit, it
was successful, and this is where I thought it was.
I mean, dude. How they ended this episode was just
I mean, dude, because obviously, during this timeframe, Brandy gets
(34:29):
feelings for Clara, and well, I mean not really so
much Clara. I mean it was Dorothy because you know,
Brandy researches her, she finds out who she was in
her tragic end and everything else. She spends you know,
months in this AI world trying to recreate this movie,
and all that time she gets feelings for in the
(34:54):
studio that produced the movie, the remake of it. Just
what they did was just wow. They sent her a
package I believe it was a DVD. Maybe I think
it was a DVD, and what was on it was
(35:20):
the screen test that Dorothy had whenever she tried out
for the role of Clara. And there's this little telephone
handle that hooks up into a USB thing and it
allows Brandy and Dorothy to talk to each other, to
(35:45):
actually communicate. I was like, dude, that was actually really
really freaking cool. It really was. I mean, dude, favorite
episode so far this season very much, so I'm excited
to continue going. But here's the thing. How how far
(36:09):
along do you think we are technology wise into something
like this actually being a reality? Would you like to
see this technology being used in this way to where
an actor can just step into somebody else's role to
(36:32):
you know, bring a vintage movie into the modern era
in that way. What movie would you like to see
go in this direction? What character would you like to
see reprise a you know, whatever role would you like
(36:56):
to see because I know I would. Would you like
to see this being implemented, this type of technology implemented
on a consumer level, much like what was done in
Striking Vipers. Dude, the possibilities on this, Holy crap. I mean, dude,
(37:19):
there are so many movies that I would like to see,
you know, that I think would be awesome if this
person could play that role, If that person could play
this role, I mean just so many different things that
would be Like, Dude, I would love to see what
this person would do with that role, so many different movies,
(37:42):
And I would love to see this being implemented in
a consumer type of role. I think that would be
absolutely phenomenal. I mean, how many people out there that
would just that would love to do that? What would
be what would be your movie that you would want
(38:04):
to experience? What character would you want to play? And why?
Send me an email? Ho ho at the ho Ho
Show dot com. No wait, nope, scratch that ho ho
at Black Mirror Podcast dot com. Holy crap, ho ho
at black Mirror Podcast dot com. Let me know on
(38:26):
a consumer level what movie would you like to star
in and why I'm curious let me know. Let me
know down in the comments, send me an email ho
Ho at Black Mirror podcast dot com. Anyway, that's all
I got for y'alls today. That is it. The next
episode is going to be Plaything. I've heard some good
(38:49):
things about this episode. I'm actually very excited to watch
it and that one will go live next month. Until then,
y'all have a so for a great one. Thank you
for listening to the Black Mirror Podcast. If you would
(39:11):
like to join the conversation, you can comment on this
episode a sprinker dot com or go to the ho
host Show dot com, Forward, slash form and the discussion
board for this c
We to the podcast join host Hoh as he discusses
the riveting Netflix original series Black Mirror. Now Here he
is her broadcasting from Weabini Saft Production Studio. Be Welcome
to Black Mirror Podcast and as always, I'm your host
(00:33):
ho Ho. So, how y'alls doing. I hope you're doing good?
I really do, because today we are going to continue
in season seven with episode three, titled Hotel Reverie. Now,
I gotta admit, so far in season seven, this is
my favorite episode. It really is an excellent episode. I
(00:54):
loved how they did it. I love the concept the
whole nine yards. It was an excellent movie.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
And there's a lot of things to kind of discuss.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
In this one. There really is. But before we get
into that spoiler alert, we are going to be talking
about the episode. So if you have yet to check
out Hotel Reverie, head on over to Netflix and watch
the episode and then come on back for the discussion.
Let's get into it now. This episode starts actually kind
(01:26):
of different from most other Black Mirror episodes. It starts
off with a vintage black and white movie titled coincidentally enough,
Hotel Reverie, and it very much has kind of a
Casa Blanca, Casa blank, Casa Blanca type of a field
(01:48):
to it. Wow, that one hurt. But it has a
Casablanca type of a field to it. And I got admit,
I've never actually seen Casablanca, and I'm probably you know it,
I feel like I'm not pronouncing that right, forgive me,
but yeah, it kind of has a Cosablanca type of
a feel. I've never actually seen the movie. I've watched
(02:09):
some stuff from it, different clips. You know, it definitely
has that type of a feel, and I really do.
I mean, I have watched vintage movies and I do
like vintage movies. I really do, because they're they're simpler.
You don't have the you know, the huge plots that
are in there. You don't have a lot of the fanfare,
(02:30):
the special effects everything else. I mean, it's it's very
simplistic in its approach. In its approach, it's it's about
telling a story one that in that time everybody can
you know, relate to, you know, just just a different
(02:52):
way of doing movies. I like them, I really do.
They're they're good, wholesome, fun. Vintage movie are awesome. And this,
you know, it really talks about a different way of
bringing a vintage classic to the modern era. And that's
(03:16):
where we well known that we don't get there yet
because after this we are introduced to Brandy. She is
an actress and she's kind of upset about how her
career is going because she's kind of been pigeonholed, right,
I mean, she only plays like a couple different types
of roles and that's about it. You know, There's been
(03:40):
several different actors and actresses over the years that I've
noticed that very much get pigeonholed. Now, I don't know
necessarily why they get pigeonholed, but to me, I don't
know about you, but for me, the marks of a
good actor or actress is in the sheer variety of
roles that they're able to play. I mean, one of
(04:03):
my I don't want to say one of my favorite actors,
but I have a I very much have a deep
respect for his acting ability, even though it kind of
ticks me off because I mean it's just he seems
like he's at least with the characters that he plays.
(04:23):
I mean, he's just.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Just I don't like him.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
He's a douche. I don't like him. Yeah, I don't
like him at all, but I respect his career because
of the sheer array of different characters that he's played
and how immersive he is in you know, preparing himself
to play the role. I have a deep respect for
(04:51):
his acting career. And that's Leonardo DiCaprio. Just the different
characters he's played, it's almost a you name it, he's
done it kind of a thing, and he does it well,
he really does. I have a deep respect for his
ability as an actor, his screen presence, everything. And there's
(05:13):
other actors out there that it seems no matter what
role they play, they seem like they're playing a different
version of the same character in a matter of speaking,
you know, and to me, regardless of the person's screen presence,
because okay, for example, Vin Diesel, you know, awesome screen presence,
(05:36):
but he kind of plays the same type of character
all the time, right, And to me, that's just not
a good actor, if you will. And I don't know
the reason why Brandy has been, you know, pigeonholed into
playing these two different types of characters, but she has been,
(05:57):
and she wants her Casablanca, Casablanca, however you pronounce it.
She wants her Hotel reverie type of a movie. That's
what she wants. That's the type of movie she wants.
And just coincidentally enough, her agent finds out that, hey,
(06:18):
you know, they're looking to remake the movie. They're looking
to do that, and so Brandy's like, dude, yeah, I'm interested.
I'm absolutely interesting. Under one condition. I want to play
the lead role, not the love interest. I want to
play the lead role. They can recast it as a
(06:41):
black woman, sure, let's go ahead and do it. And
this isn't like this is a new concept, right, I
mean this happened before, you know, with The Wild Wild
West that Oh What's that? That Will Smith played in,
which was absolutely hilarious because I remember whenever that movie
(07:01):
came out, I listened to a I listened to an
interview with Will Smith and apparently he was talking with
his agent about it and he's like, but look, I
can't play Jim West. I'm black. Jim West was white.
Aren't they going to notice? And I guess his agent
(07:23):
was like, yeah, but it was a black and white television,
They're never going to know the difference. And I'm just like,
oh wow, that's hilarious. That's awesome, and Will Smith nailed
her role. He did a good job with it, he
really did. So she gets this opportunity. She gets a
package in the mail you know, has got you know,
the script in it and everything else, and she does
(07:45):
her job. She memorizes a script, but she accidentally drops
the USB USB drive on the ground, which was explaining
the concept and what they were actually going to be doing.
So she knows nothing about how they're actually going to
(08:05):
do this and why they're going to be able to
do it so quickly. Because this is one of the
selling points of doing this is you can you know,
redo a vintage movie for a fraction of the cost
because you're only you know, you're only booking your actor
or actors for like an hour and a half, a
(08:29):
fraction of the time. I mean, normally filming a movie
takes time. You've got you know, to change your sets,
You've got to you know, go to different locations. You've
got so many different people that are involved in it.
Speaker 3 (08:42):
It is expensive, right, multiple actors, actresses, film crew, locations,
set up, tear down all kinds of crap.
Speaker 1 (08:55):
But this method, they're able to do it at a
fraction of the price. Because and this is where I
thought it was just amazing concept was because it takes
whatever actor and it puts them into that world using
AI whoe. My mind was blown on this, It really was.
(09:25):
I mean, could you imagine this, I mean not just
as a not just as a different way to remake
a movie, to modernize an old vintage movie with a
with a modern cast, but just I mean, could you
imagine if they actually use this technology on a consumer
(09:50):
basis to put you in the movie to where you
can basically star in your own mom? I mean, how
many of you have watched a movie so many different
times that you can virtually quote the entire movie. You
could watch it and you could you know every line,
(10:13):
you know every scene, you know how it's going to
play out. Maybe if it's a horror movie, you're yelling
at the screen, going don't go down the hallway, don't
check out the noise. Stop it. You're going to die.
You know what's going to happen. I mean, how many, oh,
how many of you have a movie like that? How
many of you would think it would be amazing to
(10:38):
basically star in your favorite movie? I mean that would
be awesome. Like imagine if this was if this actually
became a thing and they use this on a consumer level, Oh,
(10:59):
that's just that to me is just is dude, that's cool,
that really is. I mean that was one of the
first things I thought of whenever I seen how they
ended up doing this. Hands down, I'm like, dude, that's exciting.
That's exciting to me. And I mean how far away
(11:19):
do you think this type of technology is? You know,
I mean they have made advancements in technology by leaps
and bounds. I mean they actually announced not that long ago, actually,
I mean this was within the past year, within the
(11:40):
past twelve months, they've announced being able to map consciousness.
I mean, dude, that's cool. Computing actually being able to
be advanced at that. Wow. I was blown away. I
(12:03):
was blown away just the interface. I was blown away.
So I mean, how far do you think? How far
away do you think they actually are from being able
to do this? I mean, do you think we're like
five years away, ten years away? Do you think they
can actually do this now? At least in you know,
(12:27):
on some level, I don't know. So Brandy gets hooked
up into this, into this machine, and she's like shocked,
you know, she had no idea what she was getting into.
She had no idea what was going on. Now. Before
(12:49):
this happened, she kind of researched the actress whom she
was going to be. You know, who was the female
star in this this Dorothy Chambers whom it plays Oh,
what was her name, Clara, Clara something or another? What
was her name something? I think it was French, Maybe
(13:10):
I'll know Clara something played by this actress named Dorothy.
And you know, she looks up what had happened to
her that she you know, tragically well not that she
tragically died, but she you know, self deleted herself with
with sleeping pills, and you know, she she just kind
(13:31):
of fell in love in a matter of speaking with
the with the actress, her her tragic life and whatnot,
and she just she yeah, begin to feel for and
so entering into the movie, that's whenever she found out
(13:52):
what she was in for. Because is what happens is
this AI recreates the entire world that the movie takes
place in. So if it happened in the movie, then
the whole entire set was completely laid out in this
(14:14):
I guess you can call it virtual reality world. All
taking place within a computer, and all of the characters
are AI generated and they respond to what's going on.
But at the same time, it's supposed to happen basically
(14:35):
in the way that it happened in the movie. I mean,
you have character arc, story arc, all that kind of
stuff they're supposed to take place, right. I mean it
kind of reminds me, in a matter of speaking, with
Assassin's Creed. You know, you have to sink what's going on,
you fall out of sink and then you just throw
the whole thing out because it happened in a particular
(14:59):
way and in order to make it through the story,
you have to be as accurate to the story as possible.
And so she's saying her lines, she's doing what she
is supposed to do. And in the opening scene, you
know they're measuring, you know, the the love aspect of it.
(15:24):
They're measuring how accurate to the story they are. I
mean that they're tracking all kinds of stuff with the
computer on how well she's doing Blown Away. And then
you get to the point where Brandy, acting as the doctor,
(15:45):
has to play the piano. And this isn't like a
typical movie where if the actor can't actually do what
it is that they're supposed to be doing. Then they
got a stunt double in there or somebody that knows
how to do it that can just kind of, you know,
do it for them, and there you go. But Brandy
(16:06):
doesn't know how to play the piano. And it's like,
you know, it makes you wonder how many different actors
or actors. I mean, that really makes you wonder. I
mean it, to be honest with you, it surprises me
whenever an actor or an actress can do some of
these things, you know, because before, I mean, it's just
(16:28):
that's not how it was. That's not how it worked.
You know, actors and actresses couldn't do half the stuff
that they do on screen. You know, they use filmography,
camera angles and different things like that to make it
look like they are, but it's not actually them doing it.
It's not them doing the moves. It's not them jumping
(16:48):
out of the helicopter, it's not them hanging onto an airplane.
Sometimes it is, most of the time it's not. And
why the director would be surprised that, you know, the
actress can't actually pay play the piano.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
I'm like, really, I mean, do you not know how
acting works.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
I mean, that's just that was one of the parts
where it just kind of fell through for me. I
gotta be honest with you, that was one of the parts.
It's like, and you're surprised about this that she can't
actually play the piano at any rate. That's when the
whole thing falls apart. That's where we find out something
(17:36):
kind of interesting because the doctor being able to play
the piano was actually an integral part of the movie.
It made something happen that was going to advance the
(17:58):
movie along and make it to where it could get
to its nice, little happy ending. But because Brandy was
not able to play the piano and threw the whole
thing off and they had to reset because instead of
(18:23):
a particular person dying, it ended up being the dog
that died, and the plot just a big, huge plot
hole happened, and the movie was not going to play
out as it was supposed to. It was going to
be bad, right, So they were going to reset the
entire movie and out try it all over again. Unfortunately,
(18:50):
the system had a bug in it and it wouldn't
reset the movie, so they were forced to improvise. They
were forced to do things different in order to make
it work, in order to make it happen, and then
(19:15):
what we see ended up playing out is well. There
was kind of a heated scene between Brandy and Clara,
the actress whom in the movie was being played by
Dorothy everybody is you know, all of the people that
(19:47):
were in the in the real world that weren't in
the movie itself. You know, the ones that were keeping
track of this, keeping track of that, you know, put
making sure that everything was, you know, going together nicely.
You know, they're paying attention. They are just in what's happening.
(20:08):
Accident happens. Coffee spills on the computer? Are you kidding me?
I mean, you know, just you don't put liquids, you
don't put your drink water, any electronics, just don't mix.
I mean, how could you make such a rookie mistake
and spill your drink on your computer, screwing the whole
(20:31):
thing up. It's like, dude, everything goes out. They no
longer can see what's going on in the movie. They
can no longer communicate with Brandy, to talk to her,
to walk her through anything, to find out what's going on,
to give her any type of you know, help nothing.
(20:51):
Everything is frozen. Not only that, everything in the AI
generated world the movie, everybody stops. Everybody is frozen in time,
like somebody hit the pause button on their remote control
(21:15):
except Brandy and Clara, the only two people that can
move around interact with each other in the whole nine
yards Now, obviously, Clara starts freaking out. It's like, what
(21:36):
the heck is going on? Right? Because Clara thinks that
she is in a movie. I mean, she's not acting this.
This isn't like this is Dorothy playing the role of Clara.
This is Clara the you know, the these uh the
characters that are you know, AI controlled, AI powered. I
(22:00):
guess you can say they all think they're real. This
isn't a movie to them. I mean just the concept,
Like I said, the concept is awesome. And so she's confused,
and then something happens because Brandy actually addresses Clara as Dorothy,
(22:23):
the actress who played Clara in the movie, and this
kind of echoed with Clara, like she understood without really understanding,
you know, like an echo going on, and this was
you know, how they ended up tying this together was
(22:45):
interesting to me because basically how they played it off
was Dorothy. Whenever she played that character, she used, you know,
her own life as inspiration to play the character. So
there was a lot of Dorothy in the character Clara
(23:07):
in that movie. And this, I mean, this really got
me thinking because it's like, I mean, we hear about
different actors and actresses that whenever they are playing a role,
they just they they just dive headfirst into a character.
(23:29):
I mean they they just they completely emerge themselves into
the role, becoming the character that they're playing. And that
to me, I mean it just it seems just psychologically draining.
(23:49):
But I think in some in some ways some forms
that in order to really play a character and make
it believable. I mean that's everybody knows that whenever they're
watching a movie, they're watching something that is staged, something
that's fake, something that is not real. And the magic
(24:12):
happens whenever you can watch a movie and be immersed
in it to the point to where you're you're not
watching a movie. I mean, good actors make great movies.
I mean the skill that it takes to change yourself
(24:34):
into somebody else to where you can make your performance believable,
natural and make the audience believe that they're not even
watching a movie. They may as well just be you know,
a third person, a fly on the wall in this scenario,
in this movie, they're not watching a movie. They're watching
(24:55):
something that is real. That's one of the things that
makes a great movie. I mean, I have a lot
of respect for a character that can immerse themselves or
I'm sorry, a lot of respect for an actor and
an actress that can immerse themselves into a character and
make it believable to where the audience, I mean not
(25:18):
like they're none the wiser, but they believe. That's just
awesome to me, you know. And so that's what Dorothy
did whenever she was playing this character of Clara. And
so Clara was like it echoed, her name echoed with it.
(25:42):
And you know, this is where things got a little
weird because Clara, in her desperation to find some type
of grounding that made what was going on makes sense,
(26:05):
I mean, she was told by Brandy that you know,
nothing is real. You're just a character where redoing this movie,
you're somebody that's actually AI generated, you know. But the
weird thing was and that this is where they kind
of it went to the next level because Clara kind
(26:26):
of became self aware, right, I was like, dude, that whoa,
because what Clara does you know? In her trying to
find rooting and something stable in this craziness that was
taken that was happening, she walks over to a wall,
(26:48):
a door, maybe walks over to a door, and instead
of trying to open the door, she just kind of
reaches out to try to touch the door and her
hand goes right through it. I'm like, are you serious?
I mean, you couldn't have had her like break a
window and try to go through the window and the
(27:08):
same thing happened. I mean, this I thought was kind
of weird. I mean, this was supposed to be a door.
The AI generated world would have made it a door
everywhere else in the story, in the you know, in
the setting, every door is a door. Why would you
make this not a door? Why would you make this
a something you can pass through like you're in a
(27:30):
bad video game. But that's what they did. She walks
through it and it is complete blackness. Now, how they
end up explaining it is whenever Clara went through that barrier,
(27:51):
she entered into the rest of the computer, giving her
access to everything that the computer knew about Dorothy, the
actress that was playing Clara, and you get the flashbacks
of you know, Dorothy's experience on set. You find out
(28:17):
that Dorothy had a love interest on set, and you
find out more or less why she ended up self terminating, heartbreaking,
(28:48):
and she comes out, you know, really trying to accept,
come to terms with what it is she just learned
about herself. And no surprise, you know, Clara and Brandy
(29:12):
end up, you know, having a relationship. You know, they
end up getting close to each other. And I mean
they spend months in limbo. I mean that's just the
I mean, could you imagine, I mean, being stuck in
(29:32):
limbo like this, And I mean they were trying everything,
you know, in the real world. They were trying everything
they could to figure this thing out. They were trying
everything to fix the problem because they couldn't just unplug Brandy,
because doing that would have separated Brandy's body from her consciousness.
(29:55):
In essence, killing her wasn't an eye option. So I mean,
they had to fix this, and they're trying everything to
fix this. They were, and time in the movie was
going by at an accelerated rate. That's why even though,
(30:18):
you know, not even an hour and a half of
real time went by in the simulation. In the movie,
months were going by. They gave a like a time frame.
I don't remember what it was. It was like, I
think seven days per minute, maybe I think something along that.
(30:41):
Let At any rate, it was a long amount of months.
Like I said, months of time went by. And so obviously,
you know Brandy and Clara, they get close. Love ends
up happening between the two, and then Brandy has this
(31:08):
uh you know. They're laying in bed and she's like,
you know, because Clara is like, you know, I love you,
and Brandy's just like mm hmmm. And I'm like, really, wow,
that's what you're going to say to her, you know,
And and her response was like, you know, I don't
know if you love me, if you're saying you love
(31:30):
me because you actually love me, or if that's because
that's how your character is supposed to act. I mean
that's how it is in the movie, right. But Clara
assures her, no, I actually love you. This isn't programming
(31:50):
from the movie. I know you. I know you're not
this person, You're somebody different, and this is the person
that I love interesting. They fixed a problem in the
real world, and they they are able to talk to
Brandy and tell her, hey, we're going to reset everything.
(32:12):
We're going to get this thing back going on, and
you know, Brandy is starting to protest a little bit,
and then they tell her that when they reset, when
they go back to a previous save point, everything is
(32:35):
going to go back to where it was. Nobody's going
to remember anything. Clara is not going to remember anything.
It's going to be in the in the eyes and
minds of everybody else, all the AI individuals there that
those months never happened. And so just like Brandy was told,
(33:04):
that's how it happened. Like dude, they fixed the plot holes,
they get things back on track. Things end up taking
(33:27):
a completely different turn.
Speaker 2 (33:34):
And they don't actually, I mean dude.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
A completely different ending than what the original ending was.
But it was a good ending. Credits roll, Brandy wakes up,
(34:06):
the movie goes out, gets released. It's a hit, it
was successful, and this is where I thought it was.
I mean, dude. How they ended this episode was just
I mean, dude, because obviously, during this timeframe, Brandy gets
(34:29):
feelings for Clara, and well, I mean not really so
much Clara. I mean it was Dorothy because you know,
Brandy researches her, she finds out who she was in
her tragic end and everything else. She spends you know,
months in this AI world trying to recreate this movie,
and all that time she gets feelings for in the
(34:54):
studio that produced the movie, the remake of it. Just
what they did was just wow. They sent her a
package I believe it was a DVD. Maybe I think
it was a DVD, and what was on it was
(35:20):
the screen test that Dorothy had whenever she tried out
for the role of Clara. And there's this little telephone
handle that hooks up into a USB thing and it
allows Brandy and Dorothy to talk to each other, to
(35:45):
actually communicate. I was like, dude, that was actually really
really freaking cool. It really was. I mean, dude, favorite
episode so far this season very much, so I'm excited
to continue going. But here's the thing. How how far
(36:09):
along do you think we are technology wise into something
like this actually being a reality? Would you like to
see this technology being used in this way to where
an actor can just step into somebody else's role to
(36:32):
you know, bring a vintage movie into the modern era
in that way. What movie would you like to see
go in this direction? What character would you like to
see reprise a you know, whatever role would you like
(36:56):
to see because I know I would. Would you like
to see this being implemented, this type of technology implemented
on a consumer level, much like what was done in
Striking Vipers. Dude, the possibilities on this, Holy crap. I mean, dude,
(37:19):
there are so many movies that I would like to see,
you know, that I think would be awesome if this
person could play that role, If that person could play
this role, I mean just so many different things that
would be Like, Dude, I would love to see what
this person would do with that role, so many different movies,
(37:42):
And I would love to see this being implemented in
a consumer type of role. I think that would be
absolutely phenomenal. I mean, how many people out there that
would just that would love to do that? What would
be what would be your movie that you would want
(38:04):
to experience? What character would you want to play? And why?
Send me an email? Ho ho at the ho Ho
Show dot com. No wait, nope, scratch that ho ho
at Black Mirror Podcast dot com. Holy crap, ho ho
at black Mirror Podcast dot com. Let me know on
(38:26):
a consumer level what movie would you like to star
in and why I'm curious let me know. Let me
know down in the comments, send me an email ho
Ho at Black Mirror podcast dot com. Anyway, that's all
I got for y'alls today. That is it. The next
episode is going to be Plaything. I've heard some good
(38:49):
things about this episode. I'm actually very excited to watch
it and that one will go live next month. Until then,
y'all have a so for a great one. Thank you
for listening to the Black Mirror Podcast. If you would
(39:11):
like to join the conversation, you can comment on this
episode a sprinker dot com or go to the ho
host Show dot com, Forward, slash form and the discussion
board for this c
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