[HN Gopher] Predicting Best Picture winners using coughs and sne...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       Predicting Best Picture winners using coughs and sneezes
        
       Author : codenberg
       Score  : 268 points
       Date   : 2022-03-22 11:05 UTC (11 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (journal-doi.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (journal-doi.org)
        
       | V__ wrote:
       | > Editor's Note: The claims in this paper have not been verified
       | because the researchers have refused to yield their full dataset
       | and methodology, citing "intellectual property rights," "the
       | sanctity of the First Amendment," and "the Wright brothers never
       | had to show their work." We are publishing their paper here
       | because they won't stop mailing hard copies in triplicate to our
       | homes and offices.
       | 
       | Love it.
        
         | 0xfeba wrote:
         | Also:
         | 
         | > We prefer subtitles over machine-learning-based detection
         | because the presence of a cough in subtitles means it was
         | prominent enough for a person to write it down. Also our
         | postdoctoral fellow was the only one who completed the
         | Tensorflow tutorial.
         | 
         | lol
        
           | hiccuphippo wrote:
           | In my experience Closed Captions almost always describe
           | sounds, specially if they happen offscreen or things like the
           | type of background music; Subtitles don't, I assume they
           | expect you can hear the sounds.
        
             | JadeNB wrote:
             | > Subtitles don't, I assume they expect you can hear the
             | sounds.
             | 
             | Many--though not as many as it should be--(English-
             | language) movies explicitly include two English-language
             | subtitles, "English" and "English SDH", standing for
             | "English (subtitled for the deaf and hard-of-hearing)". The
             | latter includes subtitling for sounds.
        
             | chockchocschoir wrote:
             | Which makes sense, "Closed Captioning" (CC) is different
             | than "Subtitles", in that the purpose of CC is to provide
             | on-screen text (captions) for deaf/near deaf viewers, while
             | subtitles is captions for just dialogue.
        
             | specialist wrote:
             | During the apocalypse, I leaned on video for "company"
             | while doing chores. I stumbled onto the Descriptive Video
             | Service, which I guess is super duper Closed Captions.
             | 
             | I love it. I can half watch the show while fussing without
             | missing anything. Even when the show has my complete
             | attention, the added detail is kinda great. Not all the
             | time, but enough to keep things interesting.
             | 
             | https://help.pbs.org/support/solutions/articles/5000673860-
             | a...
        
               | Cd00d wrote:
               | I accidentally turned this on at the beginning of Toy
               | Story 4. The narration had me convinced that the movie
               | was taking place in a future where Andy was in film
               | school and we were watching him working through his first
               | film based on his childhood toys.
               | 
               | Felt like a fool when I realized it was really super
               | caption for the visually impaired.
        
             | mitchdoogle wrote:
             | I feel like the terms "subtitles" and "closed captions" are
             | interchangeable in this instance
        
             | soneca wrote:
             | Also, Closed Captions always describe sounds and lines of
             | background dialog (like TV) that I definitely can't hear in
             | the sound.
             | 
             | As a non-native English speaker who can hear I often see
             | movies and shows with English audio and English closed
             | captions, the redundancy helps me. It happens all the time
             | that the CC tell things that you just can't hear in the
             | movie.
        
             | mcv wrote:
             | Subtitles frequently describe entire background
             | conversations I can't hear when I'm watching at home. Maybe
             | I should turn up the sound to a ridiculous level.
        
               | JadeNB wrote:
               | This was taken to a ridiculous extreme in the marvellous
               | _The Spanish Prisoner_ , where _the whole point_ at the
               | end is that you can 't hear a certain conversation--but
               | it's still subtitled!
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | finnh wrote:
               | I love that movie. Now I need to re-watch with subtitles!
        
           | Well_Keen wrote:
           | > only one who completed the Tensorflow tutorial
           | 
           | Surprised one did, it is a real pain in the arse
        
         | drnonsense42 wrote:
         | Would love to see these folks hijack certain conferences :).
         | Might be good for "science" in the long run
        
           | willis936 wrote:
           | Assuming "science" = pseudoscience: yes but pseudoscience is
           | already doing a bit too well these days.
        
         | somat wrote:
         | But... The Wright brothers did show their work.
         | 
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkpQAGQiv4Q
         | 
         | https://www.loc.gov/collections/wilbur-and-orville-wright-pa...
        
           | yellowstuff wrote:
           | There was a _lot_ of skepticism that their planes were real,
           | even years after they had first flown publicly. Information
           | spread more slowly in those days.
           | 
           | https://generalaviationnews.com/2011/05/09/fliers-or-
           | liars/#....
        
           | marcosdumay wrote:
           | They just took their time, and it became a joke because other
           | people were already flying around when they came in public
           | saying they were flying first.
           | 
           | Overall, an entirely irrelevant issue.
        
         | skrebbel wrote:
         | wow looks like the entire domain https://journal-doi.org/ was
         | made just to make this look like a real journal article, love
         | the attention to detail.
         | 
         | the only reason i checked was because the layout and typography
         | was too pretty for a real journal site :)
         | 
         | <3 pudding.cool
        
       | usehackernews wrote:
       | Sitting alone, laughing in a coffee shop while reading this. Good
       | start to the morning.
       | 
       | I enjoyed Dune, and believe it should win best picture. Partly
       | because I haven't seen the other movies mentioned.
       | 
       | After learning about the coughgeist, I'm more convinced than ever
       | they will win. Sound research.
        
       | twic wrote:
       | The best bit about this is that the authors registered that
       | entire domain purely so the article could have a vaguely
       | official-looking URL.
        
         | PennRobotics wrote:
         | Going to a wrong URL shows the Github Pages 404. Searching
         | Github:
         | 
         | https://github.com/journal-doi/cough
         | 
         | https://github.com/the-pudding/cough
         | 
         | https://github.com/arp242/goatcounter (bonus material)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | throwawayp0rn wrote:
        
       | grapescheesee wrote:
       | Oddly fascinating.
        
       | bitcharmer wrote:
       | Like most films directed by Dennis Villeneuve I found Dune to be
       | a work of art and visual masterpiece. His recount of how they
       | prepared the set and the scene for the Gom Jabar ritual just
       | shows how commited he is and how much passion he puts into his
       | work. Absolute delight to watch.
       | 
       | https://youtu.be/GoAA0sYkLI0
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | carapace wrote:
         | _Dune_ is very _very_ pretty, and there are some good
         | performances in it, but over all I found it a terrible movie
         | and a bad rendition of the source material. I think it 's so
         | visually and aurally overwhelming that folks don't notice how
         | lousy it is.
         | 
         | For one thing, most of the characters are elided, they appear
         | but they have so few lines and so little consequence that they
         | might as well have been left out. Thufir Hawat especially was
         | woefully neglected. Piter De Vries? No one even says his name!
         | If you haven't read the book you wouldn't know who David
         | Dastmalchian is supposed to be.
        
         | sendfoods wrote:
         | which other movie(s) by him can you recommend most?
        
           | not_math wrote:
           | Incendies is his first movie that got him a nomination at the
           | Academy Awards. The budget is smaller than Dune and it's in
           | French and Arabic, so the mass appeal isn't there, but it's
           | well worth the watch. To quote Denis Villeneuve: "[it's] a
           | modern story with a sort of Greek tragedy element".
           | 
           | The movie is filmed in Jordan and Montreal, which have a
           | similar feel to Dune, and I would say that he probably took
           | inspiration from his Incendies days to make Dune.
           | 
           | The movie is based on a play by Wajdi Mouawad, who now works
           | at the very prestigious theatre national de la Colline as the
           | director.
        
           | foo_foo_can_do wrote:
           | prisoners, incendies
        
           | andy_ppp wrote:
           | Bladerunner 2049 is amazing as is Arrival and Sicario.
        
             | jstx1 wrote:
             | Bladerunner 2049 is so slow with such a bland uneventful
             | story and I don't think that cinematography or visuals are
             | enough to compensate for a weak story. I just found the
             | whole thing incredibly boring.
             | 
             | To make a parallel between cinematography and special
             | effects - I think at this point people are kind of
             | dismissive of movies that emphasize special effects and
             | there's this old George Lucas quote that "a special effect
             | without a story is a pretty boring thing". But swap
             | "special effect" for "cinematography/visuals" and suddenly
             | movies like Bladerunner 2049 are treated like they are
             | masterpieces even though they hardly have any story to
             | tell.
        
               | rado wrote:
               | It's great. The rift between sentimentality and
               | rationality holds the full spectrum of the human
               | experience.
        
               | the_gipsy wrote:
               | Not everything is a space opera (Lucas' is terrific!).
               | 2048 has strong emotions stretched over a weak story.
               | 1984's somehow had more story, but also quite slow paced.
               | 
               | Some of my favorite movies almost don't have a story at
               | all, neither sfx.
        
               | toyg wrote:
               | _> Bladerunner 2049 is so slow with such a bland
               | uneventful story_
               | 
               | Well, it follows a similarly slow and relatively
               | uneventful story in the original, so that's not really a
               | critique. That's not really the point of BladeRunner,
               | anyway - the point is the ambience, the worldbuilding,
               | and the philosophical questions it raises, which 2049
               | provides in good amount. It will never have the same
               | cultural impact that the original had, but it is an
               | extremely respectful sequel with incredibly beautiful
               | cinematography.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | MikusR wrote:
               | By visuals you mean when it's teal or when it's orange?
        
             | sendfoods wrote:
             | Sicario is his work?! Didn't know that, but liked it a lot.
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | Everything he's ever done is excellent, but work backwards
           | from Dune.
        
           | Apocalypse_666 wrote:
           | Arrival
        
             | morganvachon wrote:
             | This is one of the few movies of the last two decades that
             | brought me to tears at the reveal towards the end. Once it
             | hits you, you'll look back at the entire movie in a
             | different mindset and it's emotionally jarring. It also
             | helps not having read the source story.
        
               | nindalf wrote:
               | Consider editing your comment to not mention anything
               | spoiler related. I feel the movie hits different if
               | you're not expecting anything.
               | 
               | Arrival is truly a masterpiece though. I won't forget it
               | as long as I live.
        
               | rmnclmnt wrote:
               | Don't know if you have but may I recommend reading the
               | original novel from Ted Chiang named "Story of your
               | life"? It's a bit different from the movie but still
               | incredibly mind bending.
               | 
               | Also, any novel from the collection "Story of your life
               | and others"[1] is worth reading and thinking about. Ted
               | Chiang is an exceptional writer.
               | 
               | [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stories_of_Your_Life_an
               | d_Other...
        
               | nindalf wrote:
               | Thanks for the recommendation. I bought this book in
               | December, will get to it soon.
        
               | morganvachon wrote:
               | Too late to edit now unfortunately. I had tried to word
               | it so it wasn't spoilery, I guess I failed on that.
        
         | hef19898 wrote:
         | David Lynchs version of it is vastly underrated, Villeneuve's
         | Dune is so much better so! Really looking forward to part two!
        
           | SeanLuke wrote:
           | The Lynch version deserved all the drubbing it received.
           | Weirding modules, heart plugs, and rain on Arrakis: trampling
           | all over the novel. The exposition by way of overdubbing was
           | horrible too.
        
           | usrbinbash wrote:
           | > vastly underrated
           | 
           | Sorry but no, it really really isn't.
           | 
           | Just a few highlights:
           | 
           | * Why would soldiers sent to fight on a Desert-Planet wear
           | black, vulcanised, full body rubber Hazmat suits?
           | 
           | * What on Earth is a "Wyrding Module" supposed to be?
           | 
           | * What exactly is achieved by charging into battle while
           | holding a pug on ones arm?
           | 
           | * It says "Ornithopter" in the books, implying something
           | vaguely animal-shaped, not a hovering metal box.
           | 
           | * Why do communication devices in the far future resemble
           | telephones from the early 1900s?
           | 
           | * What exactly was the point of bringing the late-stage
           | navigator to the meeting in a room-sized spice-tank, when his
           | subordinate did all the talking anyway?
        
             | hef19898 wrote:
             | just speculating (usually set design isn't accounting for
             | anything beyond "looks cool"):
             | 
             | - Hazmat suites can contain climate control, and the Tuareg
             | wear dark clothing as well
             | 
             | - Wyrding Module: In Lynch's words: He didn't want Kung-Fu
             | on sand dunes
             | 
             | - No idea what you mean, but charging into battle has since
             | been proven to be viable tactic by the Avengers, so it has
             | to work
             | 
             | - Ornithopter refers to the propulsion, like a bird,
             | instead of a simple helicopter; I'd have to watch Lynch's
             | Dune so to see how those actually look like in his film;
             | Villeneuve nailed them pretty well
             | 
             | - Same reason why the first Enterprise under Archer used
             | fancier screens than the ones under Kirk or Picard; IMHO
             | Lynch borrowed a lot of his aesthetics from WW1, and the
             | Dune universe is surprisingly low tech anyway
             | 
             | - The navigator: A wild guess, I always understood it as a
             | way to show the importance of Spice and Arrakis to the
             | Guild when they had to send one of their Navigators to talk
             | directly to the Emperor instead of using proxies
        
               | andrewflnr wrote:
               | Re: charging into battle, I think the focus of the
               | question was the pug.
        
               | hef19898 wrote:
               | Ok, I take Lynch pug and raise you by a guy carrying a
               | shield but no sidearm then. The charging into battoe
               | after breaking formation is similar in both cases.
        
           | mhh__ wrote:
           | Lynch-dune is mostly good, but Villeneuve's is so much better
           | in a beautifully indescribable way that only cinema can
           | really do.
           | 
           | Villeneuve has been dreaming of making his Dune since he was
           | a boy and it shows. ignoring the visuals, the tone is just so
           | much more ominous and alien than Lynch's. One thing that
           | really dates old movies versus their modern counterparts (of
           | sorts) is the sound design. Dune's sounds are absolutely
           | fantastic.
        
             | skywal_l wrote:
             | > Dune's sounds are absolutely fantastic.
             | 
             | Really? I can't understand a word they're muttering.
        
               | mhh__ wrote:
               | You're either deaf or unlucky. The copy of Dune I have on
               | my hard drive sounds fine on headphones, speaker, phone,
               | crap TV.
               | 
               | Also sound design != Mixing dialogue.
        
               | technobabbler wrote:
               | A lot of theaters have awful mixes that make dialog
               | harder to hear. Think there was an article about that
               | recently.
        
             | hef19898 wrote:
             | Absolutely! Villeneuve caught the Dune-universe as I
             | pictured it in my head incredibly well, from visuals over
             | story telling to sound. And it showed just how alien and
             | dangerous / harsh Arrakis is.
             | 
             | I'm just a tad worried about Feyd-Rautha so, Sting was just
             | brilliant in that role!
        
               | mhh__ wrote:
               | Arrakis is alien but it's depicted as relatively friendly
               | in the dream-sequences. They used sounds of waves
               | crashing on beaches, which makes a lot of sense as to the
               | Fremen it is their home.
               | 
               | My only gripe is that Arrakis doesn't feel hot enough,
               | but I also don't really care.
        
               | ableal wrote:
               | The Mongolian Gobi desert seems to top out at 27C -
               | https://www.amicusmongolia.com/climate-average-monthly-
               | tempe...
               | 
               | (Low of -33C, harsh)
        
               | SeanLuke wrote:
               | Sure, but in the novel, Arrakis really _is_ hot. In the
               | Appendix, it 's stated that the sand surface reached
               | 76.85 Celsius (170.33 F).
        
               | hef19898 wrote:
               | Sand surface =/= ambient temperature, with all the
               | research that went into Dune, I think Herbert was aware
               | of that
        
               | SeanLuke wrote:
               | [sigh]. You could have just googled this, but from the
               | Appendix:
               | 
               | > He found that in the wide belt contained by the
               | 70-degree lines, north and south, temperatures for
               | thousands of years hadn't gone outside the 254-332
               | degrees (absolute) range
               | 
               | That's -2 F to 137 F in the arctic circle.
               | 
               | > Kynes and his people turned their attention from these
               | great relationships and focused now on micro-ecology.
               | First, the climate: the sand surface often reached
               | temperatures of 344deg to 350deg (absolute). A foot below
               | ground it might be 55deg cooler; a foot above ground,
               | 25deg cooler.
               | 
               | That's 114 to 125 degrees Fahrenheit for "a foot above
               | ground".
               | 
               | So once again, yes, very hot.
        
             | saiya-jin wrote:
             | Old Dune is kind of trippy view that happened once and I
             | can't imagine it happening ever again, not with that budget
             | and quality actors. Its still most approachable of all of
             | Lynch's work. I like it a lot for sort of nostalgic feeling
             | for the 80s vision of the future like from some pulp
             | comics.
             | 
             | New Dune is completely different beast, can't wait till
             | second part comes. That universe is rich for other stories,
             | tv series etc. which seems to be the direction all major
             | studios are moving to.
        
               | mhh__ wrote:
               | I think Villeneuve might go more in the trippy direction
               | with the next one.
               | 
               | If you compare (say) 2049 and dune you can tell that the
               | latter has been made to hold the audiences hand a lot
               | (blade runner didn't make it's money back). Now he's sold
               | the concept I imagine he'll have more confidence/freedom
               | with part 2.
        
               | usrusr wrote:
               | There are very different kinds of trippyness though. The
               | Lynch version seems quite determined about avoiding that
               | cheesy "bunch of swirling colors" brand of trippyness.
               | Sequences like that exist, but they aren't the trippy
               | bits. The trippy qualities are more between the lines.
               | The TV serial... not so much, that one was more "oh, he's
               | having a vision, switch on the mood light vfx!". Haven't
               | seen the Villeneuve yet, which one would it be?
        
             | bena wrote:
             | I think there's a better version of Dune somewhere between
             | Lynch and Villeneuve.
             | 
             | Lynch didn't trust the audience enough. The wierding
             | modules, the amount of voice-over, the limitations of the
             | special effects of the time, etc. Also, the studio didn't
             | fully trust the material, forcing Lynch to cram everything
             | in one movie. The movie starts off well-ish enough. But
             | after Paul and Jessica escape the Harkonnens, we just sort
             | of yadda yadda years away and jump to Paul getting ready to
             | attack Arrakeen. I think only the last 30 or so minutes is
             | after the escape (excluding credits). Could be longer, but
             | the jump is jarring. The movie moves at a decent clip
             | otherwise. Set up with the emperor whinging about the
             | Atreides, the Atreides getting ready to leave, the arrival,
             | establishing the Atreides are not the Harkonnens, the coup,
             | the escape, the time jump montage, the final attack.
             | 
             | Villeneuve's movie covers up to the escape and that's it.
             | Villeneuve's film is 19 minutes longer. So Villeneuve
             | basically had the opportunity to expand the beginning of
             | the story by about an hour. He's going to be able to cover
             | the same ground as the last 30 minutes of the Lynch movie
             | with at least 2 hours.
             | 
             | The issue is that Villeneuve kind of wastes his time. We
             | see Dr. Yueh. And that's really it. We never get even a
             | mention of imperial conditioning or why it's shocking that
             | it's Dr. Yueh that betrays the Atreides. Piter is seen, but
             | I don't think ever named. We don't meet Feyd at all in the
             | movie. We get way more backstory about a bull's head than
             | we do any character.
             | 
             | If we had more of Lynch's development and Villeneuve's
             | aesthetic, we'd have a near perfect version of the film.
        
             | Fricken wrote:
             | Dennis Villeneuve has been watching David Lynch's Dune
             | since he was a boy, and it shows. Villeneuve lifted dozens
             | of shots directly from Lynch's version, and relied on the
             | same key scenes as the 1984 Dune. I started out impressed
             | by all the homages to Lynch's Dune, but beyond a certain
             | threshold "homage" becomes "ripoff".
             | 
             | In Lynch's the Harkonen's were brutal. In Villeneuve's Dune
             | Gurney had to explain to us that they were brutal, because
             | no actual brutality made it to screen. Baron Harkonen was
             | lower energy than Jeb Bush.
             | 
             | Villeneuve basically just took Lynch's Dune and drained the
             | colour out of both the imagery and the performances.
             | 
             | The biggest criticism of Lynch's Dune us that it doesn't
             | make any sense, and I still totally lost the plot 2/3 of
             | the way through the new Dune as well.
        
               | robocat wrote:
               | Why Modern Movies Suck - The Soft Reboot
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyU63LJV3AE
               | 
               | Not entirely relevant, but mentions many of the same
               | issues, although presumably there is more about how
               | investors drive some of the outcomes.
        
               | Tycho wrote:
               | They are based on a book. They adapted the key scenes
               | from the book.
               | 
               | Also Lynch's _Dune_ descends into farcical whimsy, it's
               | not a good movie, although it has some good costume and
               | set design.
        
           | toyg wrote:
           | I don't think it's been underrated, in critics' circles, for
           | 15-20 years or so by now. Since the tales about its
           | production, and the related art, have fully emerged, it has
           | been widely re-evaluated - also because Lynch has gone on to
           | become a bit of a sacred cow after Twin Peaks and his later
           | work.
        
             | thathndude wrote:
             | Twin Peaks was one of my Covid binges. So trippy.
        
               | toyg wrote:
               | The original series set the bar for thriller tv series
               | from then on - both on the good elements (always one more
               | secret, one more cliffhanger; living on the edge of
               | fantasy) and the bad (making up stuff as they go along;
               | disappointing finale; unceremoniously cut).
               | 
               | I have only watched a couple of episodes of series 3 but
               | by now I've seen enough Lynch to dread his output,
               | narratively speaking.
        
           | thathndude wrote:
           | Agreed 100%. Lynch's Dune is his own, unique style, and it's
           | solid.
        
         | blindmute wrote:
         | Dune is not a good movie though, unfortunately. It's like 1/3
         | of a good movie. By any conception of storytelling, it doesn't
         | constitute a story. As its own piece of media, without
         | knowledge of the book, it doesn't stand as a coherent work.
         | Compare it to something like Fellowship of the Ring which could
         | be watched alone.
        
         | rado wrote:
         | It got progressively bad and by the end the director's touch
         | was nowhere to be seen, just rushing to finish the story and
         | blasting that overbearing Hans Zimmer score. Then the final
         | line "This is only the beginning" came. Meanwhile, "Blade
         | Runner", "Arrival", "Prisoners", "Sicario" are all great.
        
           | eganist wrote:
           | That's a hot take. What didn't you like about it,
           | specifically? Aside from the best score ever made by Hans
           | Zimmer?
        
             | tokai wrote:
             | It has always weirded me out that Zimmer keeps getting
             | jobs. His overly pathetic drone has always been like a
             | parody soundtrack. But people plays it straight as if he is
             | actually making something that adds to the movies. Dune was
             | peak Zimmer so if you like him I guess it makes sense to
             | call it his best. But to me it was him making fun of
             | himself with a straightface and nobody calls him out on it.
        
               | Tycho wrote:
               | The score was actually quite thoughtful, attempting to
               | use rhythm and harmony and vocal style that was fitting
               | for the universe, ie. very far removed from our current
               | styles.
        
               | eganist wrote:
               | Please give this a watch with an open mind:
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93A1ryc-WW0
               | 
               | I promise it's worth your time. Being honest, I fell in
               | love with the score before I even knew it was Zimmer's,
               | and once I found out, my first thought was "of course."
               | 
               | To each their own, but if you want an idea of what went
               | into the score, that video above is insightful.
        
               | tokai wrote:
               | I have seen it. Appreciate you sharing it though. Point
               | is I don't buy his angle. To me it wasn't a fresh take on
               | sounds of the future. It meshed bad with the movie and
               | was a bunch of trite tropes like detached arabic-like
               | wails and dry buzzers. Soundcloud is full of amateur
               | electronic artists doing it better. But in the end its
               | all taste, and I wouldn't call the movie (and soundtrack)
               | bad. Just not anything near good. I'm kind of envious of
               | you who like it.
        
               | zuminator wrote:
               | Would you mind a giving a few links of SoundCloud artists
               | doing it better? I love weird atmospheric spacey music
               | but it too often sounds derivative.
        
             | magicalhippo wrote:
             | While I loved the overall production, for me the choice of
             | actors for several of the side characters actually made it
             | feel like a more generic Hollywood action movie.
             | 
             | For me it had been better to pick less well-used actors
             | than Jason Momoa, Josh Brolin, Javier Bardem etc. Just
             | robbed it of some of the mystique I think.
        
               | kevinventullo wrote:
               | Totally agree. Casting both Bardem and Brolin was
               | particularly rough for me since my mind jumped
               | immediately to No Country.
        
               | theshrike79 wrote:
               | You need big names if you want big bucks nowadays.
               | 
               | Unless you're a studio onto yourself, there's no way you
               | can get $150M+ of funding for movie with only no-names as
               | leads.
        
               | magicalhippo wrote:
               | Not saying they had to go no-name though, plenty of good
               | known actors out there who hasn't been in a bunch of
               | blockbuster movies recently etc.
               | 
               | But I get what you're saying. Sad, because it really
               | detracted from the movie for me.
        
               | theshrike79 wrote:
               | Mid-price movies disappeared when streaming became a
               | thing.
               | 
               | We either get low-budget stuff (10-20 million), mostly
               | horror. Or movies that are huge gigantic blockbusters
               | that MUST succeed.
               | 
               | The mid-price stuff is gone. The ones that have enough
               | budget to make a director's vision come true, but not so
               | much that it brings in people from The Company suggesting
               | their pet things to be added.
        
               | magicalhippo wrote:
               | I'm sure they're out there, but it just boggles my mind
               | that someone would decide to go watch Dune or not based
               | on say Jason Momoa having a few minutes on screen.
        
               | rado wrote:
               | Jason Momoa was 100% Jason Momoa. His (lack of)
               | characterisation was so bad I stared at his scenes in
               | disbelief.
        
               | bena wrote:
               | To be fair, Patrick Stewart was 100% Patrick Stewart when
               | he played the role.
        
               | jhbadger wrote:
               | Although that's really only recognizable in hindsight. In
               | 1984 Stewart was still a fairly obscure character actor
               | who had minor parts in BBC shows like _I, Claudius_.
        
             | rado wrote:
             | The first half was about world building. It was atmospheric
             | and interesting, however elusive. Right in the middle when
             | the s** hit the fan, the film started sinking in the
             | quicksand of plotting and by the end the director was MIA.
             | The second half was so Hollywood I felt it was written by
             | Kathleen Kennedy.
        
           | theshrike79 wrote:
           | "the end the director's touch was nowhere to be seen"
           | 
           | ...did we see the same movie? It's a Villeneuve piece through
           | and through.
        
         | technobabbler wrote:
         | It was really beautiful but the pacing was horrible for modern
         | attention spams. I loved the movie, but only because I read way
         | too many of the books and played all the games and watched
         | every Dune before it. My partner had no idea what was going on
         | and fell asleep 1/3 of the way through... even though she is
         | normally a movie completionist.
         | 
         | That dude had a certain style, cinematic intellectualism with
         | beautiful cinematography. It's definitely not for everyone.
         | Dune is that unique blend of world building, political
         | intrigue, religious exploration, coming of age, and a tiny bit
         | of action. Hard to get all of that in one movie, and the
         | trailers made it seem more Star Wars than Blade Runner.
         | 
         | It's the sort of movie to watch when you're seeking quiet
         | contemplation, not popcorn pulp...
        
           | criddell wrote:
           | If somebody is going in expecting a space western like Star
           | Wars or Star Trek, then I agree with you about the pacing. I
           | think the movie moved along beautifully.
           | 
           | I didn't expect to like it because I didn't really like the
           | book. For me, this is one of the few times where I think the
           | movie is better than the book.
        
           | Tenoke wrote:
           | >It was really beautiful but the pacing was horrible for
           | modern attention spams.
           | 
           | It's also pretty horrible from past audiences' point of view
           | given that they'd expect to see more than a prologue in a
           | 155m film. Villenueve makes truly beautiful movies but it
           | comes at a cost.
        
           | gunshai wrote:
           | I hear this criticism a fair amount. I felt the polar
           | opposite. I felt like Dune was made for me. I really enjoy
           | that engrossing feeling of scale(both visually and aurally)
           | that I am constantly bombarded by.
           | 
           | I am glad that a film like that can even be made these days
           | given that I think you're right about modern attention spans.
        
           | thorin wrote:
           | I can't stand the Avengers/Marvel style of pacing and switch
           | off immediately with the constant CGI and fighting scene.
           | 
           | I was completely gripped with the new Dune but God help her
           | if she tries to watch Lawrence of Arabia, Tarkovsky (e.g.
           | Stalker), or 2001. For me it works, I appreciate others might
           | not like it but I thought the style was great.
        
       | 0xbadcafebee wrote:
       | I'm never going to be able to watch a movie now without counting
       | coughs
        
         | hallway_monitor wrote:
         | Well I hope you can count to three. Or 9 if you're watching a
         | thriller
        
       | sam_goody wrote:
       | Coughing is satisfyingly human and easy to connect to, but is
       | also slightly distracting.
       | 
       | So, when it is just the right amount, it makes for awards, but
       | when too much - especially in a thriller - it gets panned.
       | 
       | By extension, eating and sleeping could work, though that is
       | boring.
       | 
       | Now, if there was just some other vice that wasn't boring....
       | wait! So _that_ is why porn is so popular ;)
        
       | edmcnulty101 wrote:
       | I wonder if the COVID effect will have desensitized people to
       | coughs so the coughgeist is way higher than usual.
        
         | interestica wrote:
         | How about this (/s): During a pandemic, people are hyper aware
         | of coughing in their environment. It becomes a subconscious
         | trigger (like a baby's cries). Every time a cough occurs in a
         | film, it causes that same shift and elevated processing -- and
         | has the side effect of making a viewer better pay
         | attention/enjoy a scene.
        
           | edmcnulty101 wrote:
           | So instead of desensitization, coughing becomes comfortable,
           | reassuring, or perhaps even attractive due to it's being such
           | a common part of life...hence the coughgeist may be reduced
           | due to the appreciation of each cough.
        
       | a_shovel wrote:
       | When their initial theory of cough count produced a trend line
       | that didn't really work well, with some major outliers, they
       | introduced the implausible, ad-hoc mechanisms like the Thriller
       | Tripler effect and the Batman effect to make it fit. This is the
       | part that isn't just parodical silliness, but has actual
       | applicability. This is something you might see in a bad research
       | paper.
        
         | spiffytech wrote:
         | The best part of the Batman factor is that since it relies on
         | data from the future it destroys the model's predictiveness!
        
           | ouid wrote:
           | Au contraire, it just predicts a new thing. Viggo Mortensen
           | as Batman.
        
       | Erwin wrote:
       | A good candidate for https://improbable.com/ig/winners/#ig2021 ?
       | 
       | The 2021 Biology winner was:
       | 
       | > Susanne Schotz, Robert Eklund, and Joost van de Weijer, for
       | analyzing variations in purring, chirping, chattering, trilling,
       | tweedling, murmuring, meowing, moaning, squeaking, hissing,
       | yowling, howling, growling, and other modes of cat-human
       | communication.
        
       | mothsonasloth wrote:
       | Surely by publishing these findings it will now sabotage the
       | predictions as it will affect the unconscious criteria/bias by
       | raising awareness of it?
        
       | jerf wrote:
       | When I took my AI class, my professor would assign one paper a
       | week and we had to turn in a "critique" of that paper. These
       | papers were, of course, the seminal classics in the field,
       | because what else would you want your intro class to be reading?
       | I complained a bit to the professor that it was a bit silly to
       | critique the _seminal papers in the field_ and if you want to be
       | sure we read it, we could just turn in a summary (which our
       | critiques typically started with anyhow), but we were supposed to
       | learn how to critique papers.
       | 
       | In hindsight, I suppose I should have appealed to the fact that
       | critiquing the _seminal papers in the field_ is a serious data
       | set bias and that trying to  "learn to critique" on the _best
       | papers ever written_ in a field was less likely to produce a
       | useful  "critiquing" skill and more likely to produce some
       | overfitted garbage skill, but, hey, I hadn't taken AI yet! I
       | didn't know how to express that.
       | 
       | (It did produce a garbage skill, too. I tried writing "real"
       | critiques using my brain, but after getting Cs and Ds for the
       | first couple, I learned my lesson, and mechanically spit out
       | "Needs more data", "should have studied more", and as
       | appropriate, "sample sizes were too small". Except for that last
       | one, regardless of the study. Bam. A series of easy As. Sigh. I
       | liked college over all, but there were some places I could
       | certainly quibble.)
       | 
       | Anyhow, _this_ is the paper that needs to be assigned towards the
       | end of the semester, and students asked to  "critique" it. It's a
       | much better member of the training data set for this sort of
       | skill.
        
         | ViViDboarder wrote:
         | I had to do something similar in a Physics class of mine. We
         | had to write a paper critiquing and arguing against a well
         | known physics theory. I was really into Special Relativity at
         | the time, so picked that one.
         | 
         | My professor was a Nobel laureate, so already pretty
         | intimidating. After we each picked a theory and wrote an
         | outline he asked that we review with him. Well, he said, "I
         | don't know why you'd pick that. That's going to be too hard."
         | So I asked if I could change, but he said that it's too late
         | for that and wished me luck... I was more than happy with the
         | C+ I got.
        
         | turdnagel wrote:
         | Had a very similar experience in philosophy classes. The good
         | thing about critiquing seminal works is that there's often a
         | rich body of criticism already available. I found the only way
         | to do well in those classes, since I lacked the mental
         | horsepower to produce my own seminal critiques, was to parrot
         | the literature that was out there already.
        
           | jerf wrote:
           | I think in philosophy it's a bit more valid. Still not maybe
           | the best case, since these are still the papers that stood
           | the test of time, critiquing some marginal paper would
           | probably be a better practice of "critiquing", but philosophy
           | always has a critique. The form may be impeccable, the
           | writing may be spectacular, etc., but the philosophy itself
           | always has room for rumination, discussion, etc.
           | 
           | For a science paper, if it's something people are still
           | reading 30-50 years later, it was apparently _good enough_. I
           | can always critique the paper for failing to solve String
           | Theory and then draw out from String Theory a mathematical
           | demonstration of how their solution for getting robots to
           | navigate around boxes is very good, but that 's more a
           | reflection of me than the paper.
        
         | aidenn0 wrote:
         | Yeah, any "critique" or "argument" assignment seems to have
         | weird grading biases.
         | 
         | In my freshman Composition class we needed to pick a
         | controversial topic and argue one side. Highest grade on that
         | assignment went to someone who argued that smoking causes lung
         | cancer (this was 2003). The instructor explained that it was
         | the most convincing paper. Those who picked an _actually_
         | controversial topics got the lowest grades because their
         | arguments were less of a slam-dunk.
        
       | yummypaint wrote:
       | Would love to see more satire like this for different research
       | areas. It's just subtle enough that the realization builds
       | slowly, like reading one of those internet stories that ends with
       | pulling up in bel-aire.
        
         | cturtle wrote:
         | If you haven't already seen it, you may enjoy SIGBOVIK, The
         | Association for Computational Heresy [0]. An annual conference
         | mostly focused on computer science, but any field is welcome. I
         | immediately thought of SIGBOVIK when reading this paper.
         | 
         | [0]: http://www.sigbovik.org/
        
       | ape4 wrote:
       | Counting helicopters is a counter indicator.
       | http://0at.org/blog/movie_suck
        
         | twic wrote:
         | What do you mean, all these pictures are superb:
         | https://twitter.com/chopperfireball
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | I count 0 helicopters in the entire film.
        
         | TreeInBuxton wrote:
         | Technically, I suppose they're ornithopters
        
       | omarhaneef wrote:
       | Before anyone takes this too seriously -- and it is surely too
       | late for that -- I should point out that they did nothing to
       | disambiguate the length of the movie. It may not be the
       | coughgeist but the ... er ... timegeist (they should have a
       | german word for it).
       | 
       | Anyway, the point is, coughs per hour would help us know if
       | audiences simply favor longer or shorter movies at different
       | points in time.
        
         | obfuscator wrote:
         | Dauergeist [dowr-ghaist]
         | 
         | = Durationgeist :)
        
         | JoBrad wrote:
         | That still requires some calculating before comparing movies,
         | since it's much harder to compare a short film to a bladder
         | buster. Using an average runtime as standard length F, then
         | calculating coughs (C) per F would yield a value that can be
         | more easily compared between films, regardless of length.
        
         | edmcnulty101 wrote:
         | They said they normalized the cough count, which I'm assuming
         | means time adjusted?
        
           | theejazz wrote:
           | > We calculate the Coughgeist for each year by determining
           | the median expulsion count of that year's nominees and then
           | normalizing it.
           | 
           | Probably adjusted for the number of nominees per year
        
             | edmcnulty101 wrote:
             | Ah missed that. They normalize for the coughgeist not the
             | number of movie coughs.
        
         | waffl wrote:
         | The German word for 'time' is 'Zeit', so that would be
         | 'Zeitgeist' :)
        
           | hhmc wrote:
           | Wouldn't want to leave the joke unexplained now, would we
        
             | enkid wrote:
             | As a non-German speaker I found the joke about the joke
             | informative and humorous.
        
             | bhaak wrote:
             | waffl is likely a German speaker. So of course not.
             | 
             | German speakers also can't resist replying to rhetorical
             | questions.
        
               | Garlef wrote:
               | > German speakers also can't resist replying to
               | rhetorical questions.
               | 
               | This should have been, "German speakers also can't resist
               | replying to rhetorical questions, can they?", should it?
        
             | willis936 wrote:
             | There's a metajoke in here somewhere.
             | 
             | https://youtu.be/llE7wT1BKt8
        
       | snorkel wrote:
       | Love it! The sordid truths of data science laid bare! "We prefer
       | subtitles over machine-learning-based detection because the
       | presence of a cough in subtitles means it was prominent enough
       | for a person to write it down. Also our postdoctoral fellow was
       | the only one who completed the Tensorflow tutorial."
        
       | usrbinbash wrote:
       | Why it should win best picture:
       | 
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxFQbjQbPq0
       | 
       | Do I _need_ another reason?
        
         | belter wrote:
         | Raising you the original:
         | 
         | DUNE (1984) - Brian Eno - Prophecy Theme:
         | https://youtu.be/t4onBqilHvc
        
         | SketchySeaBeast wrote:
         | Flow state achieved.
        
         | inopinatus wrote:
         | ... because of a fifteen second ad for chocolate?
        
           | Sophira wrote:
           | The video is the "Sardaukar Chant", not an ad for chocolate.
        
             | inopinatus wrote:
             | Ah, right you are, thanks.
             | 
             | This sounds like an hour of throat singing, which whilst
             | technically interesting, I don't quite see (or rather,
             | hear) how it guarantees an Oscar. No-one coughs at all
        
         | FirstLvR wrote:
         | sure the music was fine, it might win best achievement on music
         | score, or music edition... but best picture? you cannot
         | evaluate a picture from the music lol
        
       | rmnclmnt wrote:
       | Is "march fools day" a thing now?
        
       | lanewinfield wrote:
       | related: https://everymoviecough.com/
        
       | jollofricepeas wrote:
       | Ah comedic tennis, funerals and research are a thing.
       | 
       | Is there anything so mundane or horrific that we as a species
       | haven't attempted to make light of it yet?
       | 
       | Maybe this dichotomy is what makes us human.
        
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       (page generated 2022-03-22 23:02 UTC)