Aleš Kot
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aleskot.bsky.social
Aleš Kot
@aleskot.bsky.social
An Eastern-European immigrant screenwriter-producer-director-mutant
Projects at: HBO / Blumhouse
Pronouns: they/them
Rep: Verve
“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...
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.'
variety.com
November 8, 2025 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Aleš Kot
Wouldn't have mattered if sliwa dropped out. Mamdani had an actual and in fact mandate.
Mamdani, with 97% of the vote in, has more votes than all the other candidates combined
November 5, 2025 at 4:15 AM
Reposted by Aleš Kot
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.
Retailers Dealing With Increasing Levels of Theft and Violence
Report emphasizes importance of preventive measures, coordination with law enforcement
progressivegrocer.com
November 1, 2025 at 6:03 PM
Reposted by Aleš Kot
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
October 26, 2024 at 5:34 PM
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?
September 30, 2025 at 1:09 AM
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.
September 28, 2025 at 9:18 PM
Reposted by Aleš Kot
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.
The central point is that when fascism came to America it wouldn't call itself that, nor would it be wearing a swastika. It would call itself "patriotic" and "100% American."
September 26, 2025 at 3:53 AM
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.
September 22, 2025 at 6:46 PM
Reposted by Aleš Kot
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...
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.
www.status.news
September 16, 2025 at 12:53 AM
Reposted by Aleš Kot
James Cameron made over 95 million dollars directing the second avatar movie.
“I’d like to see the cost of VFX artists come down.” — ‘Avatar’ director and Stability AI board member James Cameron claims effects workers are too expensive, putting blockbusters and the VFX industry at risk.
www.cartoonbrew.com/vfx/vfx-arti...
James Cameron Says VFX Costs Threaten Future Of Blockbusters
In a recent interview, Stability AI board member James Cameron warned high budgets threaten theaters, urging cheaper VFX and new tech to cut costs.
www.cartoonbrew.com
August 29, 2025 at 12:44 AM
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.
August 26, 2025 at 7:58 PM
Reposted by Aleš Kot
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.
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.
n.pr
August 26, 2025 at 7:57 PM
Ten new favorites I watched for the first time in August.
August 26, 2025 at 2:04 AM
"I hope I’ll continue to experiment and sabotage my own notion of what cinema can be."

mubi.com/en/notebook/...
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.
mubi.com
August 25, 2025 at 2:02 AM
August 16, 2025 at 12:42 AM
Reposted by Aleš Kot
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.
never take freedom of the press or access to news for granted. www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/8/...
August 11, 2025 at 12:06 AM
"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...
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"
www.piratewireservices.com
August 10, 2025 at 9:39 PM
"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 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.
scrapsfromtheloft.com
August 6, 2025 at 12:45 AM
The fascist 2020s: We can't build Skynet, but we can sloppily recreate it in the aggregate.
August 6, 2025 at 12:38 AM
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...
A Life of Its Own
Amazon.com: A Life of Its Own eBook : Kot, Aleš, Sammelin, Robert: Kindle Store
https://www.amazon.com/Life-Its-Own-Aleš-Kot-ebook/dp/B07TS9V6V8/
August 5, 2025 at 6:52 PM
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.
August 3, 2025 at 3:51 AM
Watched some recent, excellent, and under-seen films this past week– Fremont and Sister Midnight are both delightfully funny and emotionally complex, directed with clear and precise points of view, anchored by fully inhabited performances. You'd do well to rent/buy both.
July 29, 2025 at 2:20 AM
"Who is it for, I’ve wondered, the “after they’re done with them, they’ll come for you”? Who looks at a Palestinian child and needs to hear that theirs could be next?"

www.parapraxismagazine.com/articles/com...
Complicity — Parapraxis
Seeing Everything but Palestinians Mary turfah
www.parapraxismagazine.com
July 16, 2025 at 12:45 AM