Category: Random Musings

Source: https://filmstories.co.uk/news/youtube-has-deleted-two-major-channels-which-specialised-in-fake-film-trailers/

I hadn’t had the chance to comment on this piece of business, but I wanted to get it out there. I am pleased to hear that Screen Culture – the Youtube channel that often houses fake movie trailers with its fake thumbnails and other bullshit fakery – has been nuked by Youtube, along with a couple others that have specialized in fake trailers and trying to pass that shit off as real.

Very rarely will you have me championing the nuking of a Youtube channel for content that I disagree with, but there’s a HUGE difference between making your own fan trailers and making your own fan trailers while trying to pass them off as legitimate. And for years, I’ve had to put up with search results that constantly brought up these con artists and their obviously doctored thumbnails when trying to look for recent movie trailers. All I can say is thank fuck this is being remedied.

I’d imagine the ongoing trend of using AI tools to create fake trailers is what spurred this action on Youtube’s part and, yes, there’s going to be the other side of the coin where channels producing genuine, worthwhile content might be false shitcanned… because that sure as shit hasn’t happened in the past. But hey, at the very least, the system did what it was intended to do and that was clean up a mess that needed to be cleaned ages ago. And for this one, brief moment, I will applaud their efforts.

Now if only someone can nuke Screen Rant while we’re at it… or replace all the opinion writers on that site with actual journalists who will post actual news and not fluff pieces that don’t matter. That’d be a real step up, thanks.

Netflix series hit Stranger Things is getting its fifth and final season later this year and my feelings on the matter are… meh.

I’ve never watched the series. I know some details, I’ve seen some clips, but never actually sat down to watch the show even during those periods when I had an active Netflix subscription. Whether it was its much simpler early seasons or the more fantastic later ones, it was a show that simply didn’t appeal to me in any way, shape, or form. As such, I never really followed the show. It’s just something that people reference every so often. And so when I hear that Stranger Things is coming to an end, my only reaction is “Is that thing still on?”

Here’s the thing about Stranger Things; yeah, it’s part of a genre of sci-fi horror that doesn’t necessarily appeal to me personally and that’s not a knock on it. It takes quite a bit for something to appeal to me personally enough to sit down and consume it unless it’s a legacy property (and even that’s a tall order), but it’s also a thing set during a time that I grew up in. It has references to things – movies, games, books, whatever – that I will recognize and will go “Why am I watching this thing referencing other things I could be watching right now?”

Anyway, hopefully the fans who stuck with the show will get a final chapter worthy of their fandom and the show’s run… or maybe they’ll make another spin-0ff or something to keep the gravy train going and then I can go “Is THAT thing still on?”

Either way, I’ll be watching actual 80s stuff from the 80s… on media from the 9os and 2000s… oh wait.

I almost regret missing the date because it passed during my trouble recovery and mental anguish, but 2025 marks ten years since late night legend David Letterman aired his final Late Show, bringing a historic career spanning three decades plus to a close.

I missed out on the early Late Night stuff and first watching Letterman about a couple years into his CBS run, though thanks to the wonders of Youtube clips both official and not, I’ve been able to catch up on some of this stuff. But for the longest time, I had always considered myself a Letterman guy. Besides the fact that we both share the same first name, the guy had a brand of humor and gruff personality that appealed to me. He would react to these sorts of ridiculous things in a way that had him question his life choices. Even when he had toned down his rougher patches, he still had an edge to him that hit that nice balance. Leno had jokes and a chin. Conan had zaniness. Dave had a sardonic wit.

Most of all, there was a gravity to Dave in that his words had some weight and meaning to them. Someone who had an air of ambivalence and outright disdain for his surroundings, often reacting in a sarcastic manner, would eventually being the longest tenured performer of his field. His desire to entertain for the masses rather than play cheerleader to whatever political affiliations he had meant that when he talked about serious issues, you were more inclined to take him seriously… before he eventually dropped a wry comment or observation that brought the whole house down.

Just as there will never be another Johnny Carson, there will never be another David Letterman… though you can probably have a bunch of Jay Lenos, Jimmy Fallons, Jimmy Kimmels, Lonnie Donegans, Craig Killborns, Seth Meyers. Those guys are practically interchangeable.

Dave is not.

I miss Dave.

Later.