Hello!

It’s another article forwarded by Joe Dante … the Brave New AI Future World has found another way to squeeze money from the culture —  by body-snatching celebrity voices.

We first noted this 30 years ago, when CGI made it possible for ad men to repurpose classic Fred Astaire musical numbers — they took shots in which he dances with a coat rack and a cane, replaced them with a vacuum cleaner, and created instant clever TV commercials that trivialized Astaire’s art. Astaire’s widow routinely blocked use of the dancer’s film clips to promote his movies, and in 1992 refused to allow clips of her husband to be used to honor Ginger Rogers at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. But she readily licensed his image for paid advertising.

An AI company has something just as questionable in mind, thanks to new technologies: Judy Garland’s resurrected voice can be digitally configured to read an audiobook of The Wizard of Oz.  I can imagine the editors salting in charming little Judy laughs and giggles here and there, all authentic, all re-jiggered. Their message is clear — given enough vocal samples, They can make anybody say whatever they want them to say.

The article is from CNN, written by Samantha Murphy Kelly:

Hollywood Stars’ Estates Agree to the Use of Their Voices with AI 

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And none other than Gary Teetzel breaks the news to us about the most fantastic home video announcement of the year …

Vinegar Syndrome, which recently brought us incredible 4K Ultra HD restorations of  The Horrible Dr. Hichcock,  Dr. Terror’s House of Horrors and  Phase IV, not to mention remasters of arcane items like  Kinski’s Paganini and  The Playgirls and the Vampire…

… is going the extra kilometer to produce a lavish 4K Ultra HD special edition of an incredible cinematic (or Cinemagic) achievement:

Reptilicus 4K

 

No stone has been left unturned, let alone any frozen flesh fragment found in the Arctic tundra. The deluxe disc presentation will bring collectors the ultimate in Tillicus-Friendly extras: a commentary, image galleries, several visual essays with amusingly serious-sounding titles. The esteemed personnel announced as attached include Nicolas Barbano, Stephen R. Bissette, Jay Jennings, C. Courtney Joyner, Kim Newman & Robert Parigi.

The kicker extra is a Blu-ray encoding of the Alternate Danish version of Reptilicus directed by Poul Bang. It’s quite different, and includes the infamous ‘Tillicus song’ by Dirch Passer and the even infamous-er Flying Reptilicus scenes.

So maybe we have a “Tivoli Night” delight in store. The promotional materials don’t list a specific release date yet.

We look forward to once again covering Sidney Pink’s Danish Delight … you must admit, “Reptilicus” is one fantastic-sounding title for a giant monster movie. We saw it new in ’62, a very strange kiddie matinee experience for a ten-year-old … I remember staring at that poster as if the movie were made expressly for ME.

Thanks for reading! — Glenn Erickson