May 28, 2026

PRATT SUMMER:

UPDATE: The memes are fun, but don’t get cocky:

Posted at 4:45 pm by Ed Driscoll

SPIELBERG: SOULLESS AI SHOULD NEVER HAVE FINAL SAY IN FILM-MAKING.

He admitted, however, that he does envision a future where AI could help “save us a lot of legwork” by undertaking tasks such as scouting locations.

But the Jurassic Park director said he never wanted it to take things a step further and advise on how to make movies.

“Don’t tell me how to write my dialogue for this character,” he said, adding: “Don’t tell me where the camera has to go. And also, don’t tell me what the set should look like, unless AI is simply a tool in a large tool chest of the production designer.

“Use AI as a tool, but do not use AI as the final word on anything creative. That’s where I draw the line.”

That’s nice, but I guarantee AI is already being used to design sets and costumes. There was an article in Medium two and a half years ago that AI was being used to storyboard movies and TV shows. In late 2024, The Ankler explored how AI storyboards are changing how scripts are pitched. While a superstar director like Spielberg has final say on how his shots are blocked, all the way to the final cut of his movie, so many preproduction choices are being made by AI that Hollywood is likely becoming just about as cybernetic in the integration of humans and technology as the Six Million Dollar Man was in the 1970s.

Posted at 4:30 pm by Ed Driscoll

NEW CIVILITY WATCH: Dame Helen Mirren, 80, called ‘evil Zionist bitch’ by anti-Israel nut in sick attack on the street.

The 80-year-old was accosted while she was walking in the East London neighborhood of Tower Hill with her husband, Taylor Hackford, 81, on Wednesday night, according to the clip shared by London & UK Street News.

“There is Helen Mirren, the avowed Zionist. You said Israel should last forever because of the Holocaust,” the yob shouted, referring to the actress’s 2023 remarks about the Jewish state.

“F–k off,” Hackford, an acclaimed, Oscar-winning film director, shouted back.

“You’re an evil Zionist b—h,” the agitator yelled.

In yesterday’s Commentary newsletter, Abe Greenwald explored: “Zionism, After the Fact.”

A number of Israel-supporters have noted that the terms “Zionism” and “Zionist” are, from a present-day perspective, confusing or even insulting. As Zionism refers to a belief and a movement that sought to establish a modern Jewish homeland, does it make sense still to speak of Zionists when that homeland has existed for more than 75 years?

Coleman Hughes remarked in a recent episode of his podcast that it makes as much sense to declare oneself a Zionist today as it would to self-describe as an abolitionist. The State of Israel is a long-established fact, and American slavery has long been abolished. In this reading, perhaps the term Zionism is an anachronism that’s intended to cast a shadow of impermanence or erasure over the Jewish state.

I think Hughes makes a powerful point in comparing the relevance of Zionism and abolitionism. But it’s equally illuminating to contrast the two.

Read the whole thing, which is online here.

UPDATE (FROM GLENN): I think Taylor Hackford sums up things beautifully.

Posted at 4:14 pm by Ed Driscoll

BE PREPARED: Trump’s accelerating squeeze on Cuba. “The Trump administration is bracing for the potential collapse of Cuba’s totalitarian government as early as this summer, and has war-gamed new military response plans in case the island descends into chaos, U.S. officials tell Axios.”

Posted at 3:51 pm by Stephen Green

THE RARE MIRACLE OF ORDER:

We live in a world of daily miracles: Walk up to an automated teller machine almost anywhere in the world, insert a card, type four digits, and a small mechanism dispenses cash that you are entitled to draw against an account managed by a bank you have never visited, operating under a legal framework you have never read, denominated in a currency issued by a central authority you have never met. We are so used to such comforts that we simply regard them as background infrastructure that exists without ever really thinking about it. Personally, I consider every trip to the supermarket as a veritable miracle. No matter the time or season, I get fresh fruit and vegetables, and all of it for a comparably small fraction of my salary.

Boris Yeltsin considered a Houston Texas supermarket a veritable miracle as well; when he visited one in 1989, he knew the Soviet Union had lost the Cold War: When Boris Yeltsin went grocery shopping in Clear Lake.

Posted at 1:35 pm by Ed Driscoll

CHANGE (IT BACK):

Posted at 1:31 pm by Stephen Green

WAIT, SO IT’S POSSIBLE TO HAVE THE APPEARANCE OF A FUNCTIONAL CITY? CLEARLY THAT’S…

Posted at 1:22 pm by Ed Driscoll

MAKE WASHINGTON BEAUTIFUL AGAIN:

More:

Left and right: This is your capital; this is you capital on Democrats.

Posted at 12:59 pm by Stephen Green