Movies
American Psycho Director Adapting ‘The Moth Diaries’
How many times have you watched American Psycho? I’ve lost count. But I’m excited to report to you that director Mary Harron is returning to our genre as she’ll begin filming this summer in Montreal on her adaptation of Rachel Klein’s novel The Moth Diaries. The novel tells the story of odd goings-on in a girls’ boarding school in the late 1960s. The unnamed narrator, a student at the school, is intellectual, somewhat aloof and associates with a intense clique of girls. When Dora is found dead one night, a tragic accident is initially suspected. Check out a more detailed synopsis by reading on.
Haunted by the death of her poet father, and coming to terms with the usual trials and tribulations of adolescence, the narrator of Klein’s first novel is a boarder in an all-girls school in the 1960s. Less than usual are the series of events that unfold in her diary: the arrival of a new girl, Ernessa, who seems to have stepped out of a Gothic novel; the death in mysterious circumstances of two of the narrator’s friends. Are the events connected? The narrator thinks so, eventually believing that Ernessa is a vampire. Klein cleverly leaves the reader in the dark as to what has really taken place, while convincingly portraying the hothouse atmosphere of the school and the voice of the narrator – a voice which combines precocious literary detachment with Gothically inspired imagination. A debut with promisingly subtle depths beneath its entertaining surface.
Movies
‘Backrooms’ Director Kane Parsons Is No Fan of Generative AI: “Defeats the Purpose Entirely for Me”
There has been a lot of talk recently about filmmakers embracing generative AI as part of the filmmaking process, from Darren Aronofsky to Martin Scorsese. But what about filmmakers that are against the use of Gen AI for creative pursuits? You can count 20-year-old Backrooms director Kane Parsons among that group, which should give you some hope for the future.
In a new chat with The Australian, the self-taught young filmmaker makes it crystal clear that he won’t be using generative AI in any of his upcoming filmmaking projects.
“I think I’m in the same boat as most well-adjusted people,” Parsons tells the outlet. “If I could snap my fingers and make generative AI disappear forever, I probably would. Creatively, I get no enjoyment from using those tools. It defeats the purpose entirely for me.”
“What interests me more is interrogating it artistically,” Parsons notes. “We already live in a world where you walk outside and there are billboards and signs that are obvious AI slop. That’s become part of our visual reality. To me, generative AI feels less like innovation than a symptom of a broader cultural and economic rot.”
He explains, “I’m interested in using that iconography in art – not using AI to make the art itself, but examining what it represents. I definitely want to explore it further in future projects.”
Kane Parsons also notes during the interview with The Australian, “… there’s so much at stake and so many genuinely harmful consequences already happening.”
Backrooms marks young prodigy Kane Parsons’ feature directorial debut, and it’s based on his own series of YouTube videos that were brought to life using Blender, the open-source 3D computer graphics software suite. So it’s no surprise that Parsons, who has hand-made his filmmaking career up to this point, isn’t buying into the hoopla around Generative AI.
His debut feature is the #1 movie in the world, so perhaps he’s onto something.
What’s next from Kane Parsons, you ask? Stay tuned…
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