Exclusive: Cody Blue, filmmaker and son of Twisted Sister front man Dee Snider, is launching a podcast series exploring the world of shamanic plant medicines and psychedelics.
The ten-part investigative talkshow – The Awakened Underground – comes from Cavalry Audio and will be launched by the iHeartPodcast Network on March 29.
The series will look at the the ancient art of healing and what these mystical experiences teach the world about the nature of consciousness.
Blue will talk with experts in the field of psychedelic medicines including shamans, scientists, doctors, athletes, and celebrities who have healed themselves with psychedelics to destigmatize, demystify, and explore these ancient healing modalities in a way that the western mind can consume. He will also draw from his personal experiences, having healed a variety of issues through psychedelic plant medicines including depression, anxiety and Adhd.
Blue’s straight edge father Dee Sider, famous for hits such as We’re Not Gonna Take It,...
The ten-part investigative talkshow – The Awakened Underground – comes from Cavalry Audio and will be launched by the iHeartPodcast Network on March 29.
The series will look at the the ancient art of healing and what these mystical experiences teach the world about the nature of consciousness.
Blue will talk with experts in the field of psychedelic medicines including shamans, scientists, doctors, athletes, and celebrities who have healed themselves with psychedelics to destigmatize, demystify, and explore these ancient healing modalities in a way that the western mind can consume. He will also draw from his personal experiences, having healed a variety of issues through psychedelic plant medicines including depression, anxiety and Adhd.
Blue’s straight edge father Dee Sider, famous for hits such as We’re Not Gonna Take It,...
- 3/25/2022
- by Peter White
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: DGene, an emerging content creation company, has set an agreement with post-production specialist Mti Film to develop and use an advanced set of film restoration tools. The goal of the collaboration is to revive a number of classic films and TV series.
The companies are not yet identifying specific titles, but Mti has restored more than 100 classics, including Lawrence Of Arabia, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Godfather II and many more. It has worked on titles from Sony Pictures, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. MoMA and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
With the streaming boom placing a premium on film and TV libraries, all displayed on better and better TV sets, the demand for restoration has been on the rise.
DGene’s technology employs artificial intelligence to create tools to revive old or damaged films so they can be uploaded onto streaming platforms.
The companies are not yet identifying specific titles, but Mti has restored more than 100 classics, including Lawrence Of Arabia, It’s a Wonderful Life, The Godfather II and many more. It has worked on titles from Sony Pictures, Paramount, 20th Century Fox, Universal Pictures, Warner Bros. MoMA and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
With the streaming boom placing a premium on film and TV libraries, all displayed on better and better TV sets, the demand for restoration has been on the rise.
DGene’s technology employs artificial intelligence to create tools to revive old or damaged films so they can be uploaded onto streaming platforms.
- 12/13/2021
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
Exclusive: DGene, an emerging content creation company involved in virtual production and immersive entertainment, has raised a $20 million Series A funding round led by Alibaba.
The Chinese tech giant had also invested in the company in a prior phase before the Series A. DGene, which was founded in Shanghai, has staffed up in the U.S. and ramped up Hollywood activity of late, including opening a volumetric capture stage in Baton Rouge, LA. The 900-square-foot facility uses artificial intelligence to create holograms of humans and objects for use in Ar, VR, holographic displays, mixed-reality glasses and framed video. Applications for volumetric video span entertainment, gaming, advertising, training, education and other sectors.
The influx of capital will fund studio operations as well as DGene’s suite of restoration tools that the company says can help revive film libraries in a cost-effective manner. The library effort is aimed at optimizing catalog film...
The Chinese tech giant had also invested in the company in a prior phase before the Series A. DGene, which was founded in Shanghai, has staffed up in the U.S. and ramped up Hollywood activity of late, including opening a volumetric capture stage in Baton Rouge, LA. The 900-square-foot facility uses artificial intelligence to create holograms of humans and objects for use in Ar, VR, holographic displays, mixed-reality glasses and framed video. Applications for volumetric video span entertainment, gaming, advertising, training, education and other sectors.
The influx of capital will fund studio operations as well as DGene’s suite of restoration tools that the company says can help revive film libraries in a cost-effective manner. The library effort is aimed at optimizing catalog film...
- 11/1/2021
- by Dade Hayes
- Deadline Film + TV
Producer Jeff Apple and his production company Apple Space & Time are collaborating with tech company DGene to use its artificial intelligence-based technology and proprietary software to create AI-driven digital characters to depict historical figures, such as President John F. Kennedy, to appear in drama series Special Agent.
Apple (In the Line of Fire) has teamed up with writers/showrunners Clayton Frohman (Defiance) and Michael Chernuchin (Law & Order) to produce the series, which is based around the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service spanning five presidential terms, beginning with Kennedy.
DGene is a China and California-based tech firm that’s ...
Apple (In the Line of Fire) has teamed up with writers/showrunners Clayton Frohman (Defiance) and Michael Chernuchin (Law & Order) to produce the series, which is based around the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service spanning five presidential terms, beginning with Kennedy.
DGene is a China and California-based tech firm that’s ...
- 10/7/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
Producer Jeff Apple and his production company Apple Space & Time are collaborating with tech company DGene to use its artificial intelligence-based technology and proprietary software to create AI-driven digital characters to depict historical figures, such as President John F. Kennedy, to appear in drama series Special Agent.
Apple (In the Line of Fire) has teamed up with writers/showrunners Clayton Frohman (Defiance) and Michael Chernuchin (Law & Order) to produce the series, which is based around the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service spanning five presidential terms, beginning with Kennedy. (The show is being shopped to distributors.)
DGene is a ...
Apple (In the Line of Fire) has teamed up with writers/showrunners Clayton Frohman (Defiance) and Michael Chernuchin (Law & Order) to produce the series, which is based around the Presidential Protective Division of the Secret Service spanning five presidential terms, beginning with Kennedy. (The show is being shopped to distributors.)
DGene is a ...
- 10/7/2021
- The Hollywood Reporter - Film + TV
Reflecting our nation's current ambivalence about the CIA -- which is neither as hostile as it was during and after the Vietnam War nor as gung-ho as it was in the early days of the Cold War -- "The Recruit" follows the lead of 2001's "Spy Game". The filmmakers strive for an old-fashioned spy thriller while acknowledging the immorality and cold-bloodedness demanded by the clandestine organization. The top-billed Al Pacino and Colin Farrell bring plenty of emotional oomph to their shallow and routine characters, but audiences may find these spy games somewhat disappointing.
The film's major twist is telegraphed early and often, so it hits with the impact of a soft pillow. The film's strength lies in director Roger Donaldson's depiction of the recruitment and training of potential CIA agents. This does generate dramatic heat, while an edgy romance between Farrell and fellow trainee Bridget Moynahan produces its own kind of sparks. All of which may add up to a modest boxoffice success.
Pacino's veteran agent Walter Burke has two maxims: "Trust no one" and "Nothing is what it seems". This goes double, of course, for audiences watching movie thrillers. However, the decision by writers Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer and Mitch Glazer to allow Walter to repeat these phrases constantly, while feeding the overall atmosphere of paranoia, does undermine many of the film's double reverses.
Farrell's James Clayton, a computer whiz with an appealing rebellious streak, gets recruited by Walter, who shepherds him through training at a CIA boot camp called "the Farm." Walter lures James to the Company with the tantalizing prospect that his father, killed mysteriously in a plane crash in South America a decade earlier, was himself a "spook." This also fulfills the tried-but-true gambit of the veteran officer serving as a father figure to the green rookie.
All recruits eye one another nervously. James and fellow recruit Layla (Moynahan) quickly develop a hot-and-cold sexual attraction made all the more difficult by their re-education as liars and sneaks. Meanwhile, Zack (Gabriel Macht) arouses James' suspicions, possibly because he's too all-American blond. Their training sessions represent the film's strongest moments as everyone works to master the lethal arts. It's Harry Potter's wizards school for antisocial grown-ups.
Once the film abandons the Farm to move all the characters back to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., the film veers into a much more conventional mode. Plus, we're already prepped not to trust or believe anyone's mission -- not James', not Layla's and not, for that matter, Walter's.
Pacino has gotten to the point in his career that he can get away with a one-note performance such as this because he plays that one note so beautifully. It's terrific fun to watch him tear into his outsized character with such relish. Farrell has to work awfully hard to hold his own in scenes with Pacino. Not without his own charisma, however, Farrell does manage. Moynahan, meanwhile brings cool intelligence and heated eroticism to Layla, letting us read her enigmatic behavior more than one way.
Donaldson is slowly working his way through the federal government in search of thrillers. Having done solid and gripping films about the White House ("Thirteen Days") and the Pentagon ("No Way Out"), he certainly finds a new way to deal with the old war horse that is the CIA. (He may have his work cut out for him when he hits the Department of Agriculture, though.) But the script betrays him in the second half with sheer silliness. Spies talk to one another over the open lines of a cell phone, and an agent sneaks into another agent's office while she is at lunch. The third act of betrayal and double betrayal is such a foregone conclusion that even James and Layla getting back together after their romance down on the Farm adds little spark.
The film does benefit from Stuart Dryburgh's crisp lensing and Andrew McAlpine's meticulous renditions of such inner sanctums as CIA headquarters and the creepy realm of the Farm.
THE RECRUIT
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures/Spyglass Entertainment
Credits: Director: Roger Donaldson; Screenwriters: Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer, Mitch Glazer; Producers: Roger Birnbaum, Jeff Apple, Gary Barber; Executive producers: Jonathan Glickman, Ric Kidney; Director of photography: Stuart Dryburgh; Production designer: Andrew McAlpine; Music: KIaus Badelt; Costume designer: Beatrix Aruna Pasztor; Editor: David Rosenbloom. Cast: Walter Burke: Al Pacino; James Clayton: Colin Farrell; Layla: Bridget Moynahan; Zack: Gabriel Macht; Ronnie: Mike Realba.
MPAA rating PG-13, running time 115 minutes.
The film's major twist is telegraphed early and often, so it hits with the impact of a soft pillow. The film's strength lies in director Roger Donaldson's depiction of the recruitment and training of potential CIA agents. This does generate dramatic heat, while an edgy romance between Farrell and fellow trainee Bridget Moynahan produces its own kind of sparks. All of which may add up to a modest boxoffice success.
Pacino's veteran agent Walter Burke has two maxims: "Trust no one" and "Nothing is what it seems". This goes double, of course, for audiences watching movie thrillers. However, the decision by writers Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer and Mitch Glazer to allow Walter to repeat these phrases constantly, while feeding the overall atmosphere of paranoia, does undermine many of the film's double reverses.
Farrell's James Clayton, a computer whiz with an appealing rebellious streak, gets recruited by Walter, who shepherds him through training at a CIA boot camp called "the Farm." Walter lures James to the Company with the tantalizing prospect that his father, killed mysteriously in a plane crash in South America a decade earlier, was himself a "spook." This also fulfills the tried-but-true gambit of the veteran officer serving as a father figure to the green rookie.
All recruits eye one another nervously. James and fellow recruit Layla (Moynahan) quickly develop a hot-and-cold sexual attraction made all the more difficult by their re-education as liars and sneaks. Meanwhile, Zack (Gabriel Macht) arouses James' suspicions, possibly because he's too all-American blond. Their training sessions represent the film's strongest moments as everyone works to master the lethal arts. It's Harry Potter's wizards school for antisocial grown-ups.
Once the film abandons the Farm to move all the characters back to CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., the film veers into a much more conventional mode. Plus, we're already prepped not to trust or believe anyone's mission -- not James', not Layla's and not, for that matter, Walter's.
Pacino has gotten to the point in his career that he can get away with a one-note performance such as this because he plays that one note so beautifully. It's terrific fun to watch him tear into his outsized character with such relish. Farrell has to work awfully hard to hold his own in scenes with Pacino. Not without his own charisma, however, Farrell does manage. Moynahan, meanwhile brings cool intelligence and heated eroticism to Layla, letting us read her enigmatic behavior more than one way.
Donaldson is slowly working his way through the federal government in search of thrillers. Having done solid and gripping films about the White House ("Thirteen Days") and the Pentagon ("No Way Out"), he certainly finds a new way to deal with the old war horse that is the CIA. (He may have his work cut out for him when he hits the Department of Agriculture, though.) But the script betrays him in the second half with sheer silliness. Spies talk to one another over the open lines of a cell phone, and an agent sneaks into another agent's office while she is at lunch. The third act of betrayal and double betrayal is such a foregone conclusion that even James and Layla getting back together after their romance down on the Farm adds little spark.
The film does benefit from Stuart Dryburgh's crisp lensing and Andrew McAlpine's meticulous renditions of such inner sanctums as CIA headquarters and the creepy realm of the Farm.
THE RECRUIT
Buena Vista Pictures
Touchstone Pictures/Spyglass Entertainment
Credits: Director: Roger Donaldson; Screenwriters: Roger Towne, Kurt Wimmer, Mitch Glazer; Producers: Roger Birnbaum, Jeff Apple, Gary Barber; Executive producers: Jonathan Glickman, Ric Kidney; Director of photography: Stuart Dryburgh; Production designer: Andrew McAlpine; Music: KIaus Badelt; Costume designer: Beatrix Aruna Pasztor; Editor: David Rosenbloom. Cast: Walter Burke: Al Pacino; James Clayton: Colin Farrell; Layla: Bridget Moynahan; Zack: Gabriel Macht; Ronnie: Mike Realba.
MPAA rating PG-13, running time 115 minutes.
- 1/21/2003
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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