Been a while but I’ve been so busy, updating ye olde virtual CV has been the last thing on my mind. We’re now beginning the sixth and possibly final draft of the new horror project which, hopefully, could begin production by the end of this month.

I’m also knee-deep in the fourth draft of my A24-style horror fantasy.
Real happy with the way it’s shaping up.

In other news, I just heard that we have a team representing us at the Cannes Film Festival—that’s BenAliza Productions and our film The Truffaut Affair [currently in post-production]. Very excited to see some photos and video of the event. @benalizapictures & @truffautaffair on IG

Good movies I’ve seen lately:

Blank Page – A super indie, microbudget contained horror. Very well done. See it HERE

I also enjoyed Late Night with the Devil. Watched it before I heard about the A.I. controversy. As much as I hate A.I., I’m not sure I would’ve boycotted it but we do need to get this beast under control. More on that below

I finally watched two classics that were real bummers: Raging Bull, which I found to be so badly written and so badly acted that either the world is crazy or I am. What a terrible movie. I don’t get the hype. The other was Last Tango in Paris. It was just nothing for twenty minutes so I finally shut it off.

I love Brando and I love French Films.
I don’t know what this was but I know it was not good.

Oh, I also loved 13 Sins, a relatively low-budget film with some name talent. Really cool premise. You want a great example of high concept? Check out 13 Sins. It’s not scary but it is fun.

And, now, my rant against Artificial Intelligence!

Maybe it’s career suicide but I’ve been toying with slapping the following disclaimer on every screenplay I send out. No, it’s not legally binding. And it may be off-putting to those with a death grip on the stylistic conventions of spec scripts but it feels like more than ever before people need to be reminded that, by working with A.I., they are simply training their replacements.

NOTE: The author does not consent to any portion of this screenplay being analyzed, synopsized, or otherwise entered into any form of Artificial Intelligence program, app, search engine, or any similar or as-of-yet devised method of computerized intellectual property recording, learning, or mimicry—regardless of stated or intended purpose.

Knowing how greedy and lazy much of our species is, there’s likely no stopping the full-scale implementation of artificial intelligence.

After all, it’s already fairly ubiquitous.

The fact that it hasn’t yet replaced the bulk of human endeavors—of both the creative and skilled varieties—is only due to its relative newness.

But, given time, A.I. will end up eliminating the need for millions of workers.

The fact that it’s inevitable won’t sway me from my stance.

I’m against it in its entirety. I don’t care how many amazing doo-dads it can create or how nifty its curated (stolen) digital images, music, motion pictures, and writing are via its only means of production: circuitous theft of the human soul.

I know, I know, I’m making my protestations to—largely—a ravenous horde of nincompoops who salivate at the notion of a machine that can do their work for them.

My only bit of solace is that they will realize only too late their participation in their own replacement. When that time arrives, they will be very sad. And very fucked.

The only people who really stand to benefit from allowing machines to take over jobs which require human creativity are the handful of masters at the top—the millionaires and billionaires who already control everything and certainly don’t need more …

But more is what they always want. The greedy shits.

And, so, humankind will primarily be relegated to the few manual service jobs that robots and artificial intelligent software can’t figure out how to do.

I guess that pretty much leaves grocery deliverers and taxi drivers.

Of course, when they figure out the whole self-driving car and drone delivery thing … that’ll be the end of those jobs too.

Inevitable or not, I refuse to participate in my own replacement.

And I have few kind words for anyone who does.

Right now, in a couple of the screenwriting groups I belong to on Facebook, you can find a fairly large number of people who claim to shun A.I. but an equally robust camp of those who are all for it.

The pro-soulless-machine group mostly claims to only use A.I. to help them come up with ideas, to help with grammatical and structural issues, and to analyze their writing for feasibility, marketability, general quality—jobs once held by human readers and writers.

I say, if you are unable or unwilling to create your own ideas, write your own first drafts, edit your own writing, and then utilize human colleagues for feedback … you shouldn’t be a writer.

You need to find a new hobby. Because you are a hack, a liar, a phony, and a traitor to your fellow man … and to the art you pretend to revere.

I’d rather be an artistic dinosaur killed off by a refusal to participate in the new insanity than sell my soul to the Digital Devil.

Art must be made by humans. That’s all there is to it.

Anyone with self-respect and love for true art should stand together with his fellows and demand that machine-made garbage be labeled as such.

Remember when MADE IN USA used to mean something?

Well, MADE BY HUMANS should be the new seal of quality on every song, book, painting, film, sculpture, and photo.

Beware my fellow neo-luddites … it is a very late night with the devil indeed.