Hotel Reverie

my favorite episode. It really is an excellent episode. I loved how they did it. I love the concept the whole nine yards. It was an excellent movie.

of different from most other Black Mirror episodes. It starts off with a vintage black and white movie titled coincidentally enough, Hotel Reverie, and it very much has kind of a Casa Blanca, Casa blank, Casa Blanca type of a field to it. Wow, that one hurt. But it has a Casablanca type of a field to it. And I got admit, I've never actually seen Casablanca, and I'm probably you know it, I feel like I'm not pronouncing that right, forgive me, but yeah, it kind of has a Cosablanca type of

a feel. I've never actually seen the movie. I've watched some stuff from it, different clips. You know, it definitely has that type of a feel, and I really do. I mean, I have watched vintage movies and I do like vintage movies. I really do, because they're they're simpler. You don't have the you know, the huge plots that are in there. You don't have a lot of the fanfare, the special effects everything else. I mean, it's it's very

simplistic in its approach. In its approach, it's it's about telling a story one that in that time everybody can you know, relate to, you know, just just a different way of doing movies. I like them, I really do. They're they're good, wholesome, fun. Vintage movie are awesome. And this, you know, it really talks about a different way of bringing a vintage classic to the modern era. And that's where we well known that we don't get there yet

because after this we are introduced to Brandy. She is an actress and she's kind of upset about how her career is going because she's kind of been pigeonholed, right, I mean, she only plays like a couple different types of roles and that's about it. You know, There's been several different actors and actresses over the years that I've

noticed that very much get pigeonholed. Now, I don't know necessarily why they get pigeonholed, but to me, I don't know about you, but for me, the marks of a good actor or actress is in the sheer variety of roles that they're able to play. I mean, one of my I don't want to say one of my favorite actors, but I have a I very much have a deep respect for his acting ability, even though it kind of ticks me off because I mean it's just he seems like he's at least with the characters that he plays.

I mean, he's just.

ability as an actor, his screen presence, everything. And there's other actors out there that it seems no matter what role they play, they seem like they're playing a different version of the same character in a matter of speaking, you know, and to me, regardless of the person's screen presence, because okay, for example, Vin Diesel, you know, awesome screen presence, but he kind of plays the same type of character all the time, right, And to me, that's just not

a good actor, if you will. And I don't know the reason why Brandy has been, you know, pigeonholed into playing these two different types of characters, but she has been, and she wants her Casablanca, Casablanca, however you pronounce it. She wants her Hotel reverie type of a movie. That's what she wants. That's the type of movie she wants. And just coincidentally enough, her agent finds out that, hey,

you know, they're looking to remake the movie. They're looking to do that, and so Brandy's like, dude, yeah, I'm interested. I'm absolutely interesting. Under one condition. I want to play the lead role, not the love interest. I want to play the lead role. They can recast it as a black woman, sure, let's go ahead and do it. And this isn't like this is a new concept, right, I mean this happened before, you know, with The Wild Wild

West that Oh What's that? That Will Smith played in, which was absolutely hilarious because I remember whenever that movie came out, I listened to a I listened to an interview with Will Smith and apparently he was talking with his agent about it and he's like, but look, I can't play Jim West. I'm black. Jim West was white. Aren't they going to notice? And I guess his agent was like, yeah, but it was a black and white television, They're never going to know the difference. And I'm just like,

oh wow, that's hilarious. That's awesome, and Will Smith nailed her role. He did a good job with it, he really did. So she gets this opportunity. She gets a package in the mail you know, has got you know, the script in it and everything else, and she does her job. She memorizes a script, but she accidentally drops the USB USB drive on the ground, which was explaining the concept and what they were actually going to be doing.

So she knows nothing about how they're actually going to do this and why they're going to be able to do it so quickly. Because this is one of the selling points of doing this is you can you know, redo a vintage movie for a fraction of the cost because you're only you know, you're only booking your actor or actors for like an hour and a half, a fraction of the time. I mean, normally filming a movie takes time. You've got you know, to change your sets,

You've got to you know, go to different locations. You've got so many different people that are involved in it.

I mean, could you imagine this, I mean not just as a not just as a different way to remake a movie, to modernize an old vintage movie with a with a modern cast, but just I mean, could you imagine if they actually use this technology on a consumer basis to put you in the movie to where you can basically star in your own mom? I mean, how many of you have watched a movie so many different

times that you can virtually quote the entire movie. You could watch it and you could you know every line, you know every scene, you know how it's going to play out. Maybe if it's a horror movie, you're yelling at the screen, going don't go down the hallway, don't check out the noise. Stop it. You're going to die. You know what's going to happen. I mean, how many, oh, how many of you have a movie like that? How many of you would think it would be amazing to

basically star in your favorite movie? I mean that would be awesome. Like imagine if this was if this actually became a thing and they use this on a consumer level, Oh, that's just that to me is just is dude, that's cool, that really is. I mean that was one of the first things I thought of whenever I seen how they ended up doing this. Hands down, I'm like, dude, that's exciting. That's exciting to me. And I mean how far away

do you think this type of technology is? You know, I mean they have made advancements in technology by leaps and bounds. I mean they actually announced not that long ago, actually, I mean this was within the past year, within the past twelve months, they've announced being able to map consciousness. I mean, dude, that's cool. Computing actually being able to be advanced at that. Wow. I was blown away. I was blown away just the interface. I was blown away.

So I mean, how far do you think? How far away do you think they actually are from being able to do this? I mean, do you think we're like five years away, ten years away? Do you think they can actually do this now? At least in you know, on some level, I don't know. So Brandy gets hooked up into this, into this machine, and she's like shocked, you know, she had no idea what she was getting into.

She had no idea what was going on. Now. Before this happened, she kind of researched the actress whom she was going to be. You know, who was the female star in this this Dorothy Chambers whom it plays Oh, what was her name, Clara, Clara something or another? What was her name something? I think it was French, Maybe I'll know Clara something played by this actress named Dorothy.

And you know, she looks up what had happened to her that she you know, tragically well not that she tragically died, but she you know, self deleted herself with with sleeping pills, and you know, she she just kind of fell in love in a matter of speaking with the with the actress, her her tragic life and whatnot, and she just she yeah, begin to feel for and so entering into the movie, that's whenever she found out

what she was in for. Because is what happens is this AI recreates the entire world that the movie takes place in. So if it happened in the movie, then the whole entire set was completely laid out in this I guess you can call it virtual reality world. All taking place within a computer, and all of the characters are AI generated and they respond to what's going on. But at the same time, it's supposed to happen basically

in the way that it happened in the movie. I mean, you have character arc, story arc, all that kind of stuff they're supposed to take place, right. I mean it kind of reminds me, in a matter of speaking, with Assassin's Creed. You know, you have to sink what's going on, you fall out of sink and then you just throw the whole thing out because it happened in a particular way and in order to make it through the story, you have to be as accurate to the story as possible.

And so she's saying her lines, she's doing what she is supposed to do. And in the opening scene, you know they're measuring, you know, the the love aspect of it. They're measuring how accurate to the story they are. I mean that they're tracking all kinds of stuff with the computer on how well she's doing Blown Away. And then you get to the point where Brandy, acting as the doctor, has to play the piano. And this isn't like a typical movie where if the actor can't actually do what

it is that they're supposed to be doing. Then they got a stunt double in there or somebody that knows how to do it that can just kind of, you know, do it for them, and there you go. But Brandy doesn't know how to play the piano. And it's like, you know, it makes you wonder how many different actors

or actors. I mean, that really makes you wonder. I mean it, to be honest with you, it surprises me whenever an actor or an actress can do some of these things, you know, because before, I mean, it's just that's not how it was. That's not how it worked. You know, actors and actresses couldn't do half the stuff that they do on screen. You know, they use filmography, camera angles and different things like that to make it look like they are, but it's not actually them doing it.

It's not them doing the moves. It's not them jumping out of the helicopter, it's not them hanging onto an airplane. Sometimes it is, most of the time it's not. And why the director would be surprised that, you know, the actress can't actually pay play the piano.

It made something happen that was going to advance the movie along and make it to where it could get to its nice, little happy ending. But because Brandy was not able to play the piano and threw the whole thing off and they had to reset because instead of a particular person dying, it ended up being the dog that died, and the plot just a big, huge plot hole happened, and the movie was not going to play out as it was supposed to. It was going to be bad, right, So they were going to reset the

entire movie and out try it all over again. Unfortunately, the system had a bug in it and it wouldn't reset the movie, so they were forced to improvise. They were forced to do things different in order to make it work, in order to make it happen, and then

what we see ended up playing out is well. There was kind of a heated scene between Brandy and Clara, the actress whom in the movie was being played by Dorothy everybody is you know, all of the people that were in the in the real world that weren't in the movie itself. You know, the ones that were keeping track of this, keeping track of that, you know, put making sure that everything was, you know, going together nicely. You know, they're paying attention. They are just in what's happening.

Accident happens. Coffee spills on the computer? Are you kidding me? I mean, you know, just you don't put liquids, you don't put your drink water, any electronics, just don't mix. I mean, how could you make such a rookie mistake and spill your drink on your computer, screwing the whole thing up. It's like, dude, everything goes out. They no

longer can see what's going on in the movie. They can no longer communicate with Brandy, to talk to her, to walk her through anything, to find out what's going on, to give her any type of you know, help nothing. Everything is frozen. Not only that, everything in the AI

generated world the movie, everybody stops. Everybody is frozen in time, like somebody hit the pause button on their remote control except Brandy and Clara, the only two people that can move around interact with each other in the whole nine yards Now, obviously, Clara starts freaking out. It's like, what the heck is going on? Right? Because Clara thinks that she is in a movie. I mean, she's not acting this. This isn't like this is Dorothy playing the role of Clara.

This is Clara the you know, the these uh the characters that are you know, AI controlled, AI powered. I guess you can say they all think they're real. This isn't a movie to them. I mean just the concept,

Like I said, the concept is awesome. And so she's confused, and then something happens because Brandy actually addresses Clara as Dorothy, the actress who played Clara in the movie, and this kind of echoed with Clara, like she understood without really understanding, you know, like an echo going on, and this was you know, how they ended up tying this together was interesting to me because basically how they played it off was Dorothy. Whenever she played that character, she used, you know,

her own life as inspiration to play the character. So there was a lot of Dorothy in the character Clara in that movie. And this, I mean, this really got me thinking because it's like, I mean, we hear about different actors and actresses that whenever they are playing a role, they just they they just dive headfirst into a character. I mean they they just they completely emerge themselves into

the role, becoming the character that they're playing. And that to me, I mean it just it seems just psychologically draining. But I think in some in some ways some forms that in order to really play a character and make it believable. I mean that's everybody knows that whenever they're watching a movie, they're watching something that is staged, something

that's fake, something that is not real. And the magic happens whenever you can watch a movie and be immersed in it to the point to where you're you're not watching a movie. I mean, good actors make great movies. I mean the skill that it takes to change yourself into somebody else to where you can make your performance believable, natural and make the audience believe that they're not even watching a movie. They may as well just be you know, a third person, a fly on the wall in this scenario,

in this movie, they're not watching a movie. They're watching something that is real. That's one of the things that makes a great movie. I mean, I have a lot of respect for a character that can immerse themselves or I'm sorry, a lot of respect for an actor and an actress that can immerse themselves into a character and make it believable to where the audience, I mean not like they're none the wiser, but they believe. That's just awesome to me, you know. And so that's what Dorothy

did whenever she was playing this character of Clara. And so Clara was like it echoed, her name echoed with it. And you know, this is where things got a little weird because Clara, in her desperation to find some type of grounding that made what was going on makes sense, I mean, she was told by Brandy that you know, nothing is real. You're just a character where redoing this movie,

you're somebody that's actually AI generated, you know. But the weird thing was and that this is where they kind of it went to the next level because Clara kind of became self aware, right, I was like, dude, that whoa,

because what Clara does you know? In her trying to find rooting and something stable in this craziness that was taken that was happening, she walks over to a wall, a door, maybe walks over to a door, and instead of trying to open the door, she just kind of reaches out to try to touch the door and her hand goes right through it. I'm like, are you serious? I mean, you couldn't have had her like break a window and try to go through the window and the

same thing happened. I mean, this I thought was kind of weird. I mean, this was supposed to be a door. The AI generated world would have made it a door everywhere else in the story, in the you know, in the setting, every door is a door. Why would you make this not a door? Why would you make this a something you can pass through like you're in a bad video game. But that's what they did. She walks

through it and it is complete blackness. Now, how they end up explaining it is whenever Clara went through that barrier, she entered into the rest of the computer, giving her access to everything that the computer knew about Dorothy, the actress that was playing Clara, and you get the flashbacks

of you know, Dorothy's experience on set. You find out that Dorothy had a love interest on set, and you find out more or less why she ended up self terminating, heartbreaking, and she comes out, you know, really trying to accept, come to terms with what it is she just learned about herself. And no surprise, you know, Clara and Brandy end up, you know, having a relationship. You know, they end up getting close to each other. And I mean

they spend months in limbo. I mean that's just the I mean, could you imagine, I mean, being stuck in limbo like this, And I mean they were trying everything, you know, in the real world. They were trying everything they could to figure this thing out. They were trying everything to fix the problem because they couldn't just unplug Brandy, because doing that would have separated Brandy's body from her consciousness.

In essence, killing her wasn't an eye option. So I mean, they had to fix this, and they're trying everything to fix this. They were, and time in the movie was going by at an accelerated rate. That's why even though, you know, not even an hour and a half of real time went by in the simulation. In the movie, months were going by. They gave a like a time frame. I don't remember what it was. It was like, I think seven days per minute, maybe I think something along that.

Let At any rate, it was a long amount of months. Like I said, months of time went by. And so obviously, you know Brandy and Clara, they get close. Love ends up happening between the two, and then Brandy has this uh you know. They're laying in bed and she's like, you know, because Clara is like, you know, I love you,

and Brandy's just like mm hmmm. And I'm like, really, wow, that's what you're going to say to her, you know, And and her response was like, you know, I don't know if you love me, if you're saying you love me because you actually love me, or if that's because that's how your character is supposed to act. I mean that's how it is in the movie, right. But Clara assures her, no, I actually love you. This isn't programming

from the movie. I know you. I know you're not this person, You're somebody different, and this is the person that I love interesting. They fixed a problem in the real world, and they they are able to talk to Brandy and tell her, hey, we're going to reset everything. We're going to get this thing back going on, and you know, Brandy is starting to protest a little bit, and then they tell her that when they reset, when they go back to a previous save point, everything is

going to go back to where it was. Nobody's going to remember anything. Clara is not going to remember anything. It's going to be in the in the eyes and minds of everybody else, all the AI individuals there that those months never happened. And so just like Brandy was told, that's how it happened. Like dude, they fixed the plot holes, they get things back on track. Things end up taking a completely different turn.

her tragic end and everything else. She spends you know, months in this AI world trying to recreate this movie, and all that time she gets feelings for in the studio that produced the movie, the remake of it. Just what they did was just wow. They sent her a package I believe it was a DVD. Maybe I think it was a DVD, and what was on it was the screen test that Dorothy had whenever she tried out

for the role of Clara. And there's this little telephone handle that hooks up into a USB thing and it allows Brandy and Dorothy to talk to each other, to actually communicate. I was like, dude, that was actually really really freaking cool. It really was. I mean, dude, favorite episode so far this season very much, so I'm excited to continue going. But here's the thing. How how far along do you think we are technology wise into something

like this actually being a reality? Would you like to see this technology being used in this way to where an actor can just step into somebody else's role to you know, bring a vintage movie into the modern era in that way. What movie would you like to see go in this direction? What character would you like to see reprise a you know, whatever role would you like

to see because I know I would. Would you like to see this being implemented, this type of technology implemented on a consumer level, much like what was done in

Striking Vipers. Dude, the possibilities on this, Holy crap. I mean, dude, there are so many movies that I would like to see, you know, that I think would be awesome if this person could play that role, If that person could play this role, I mean just so many different things that would be Like, Dude, I would love to see what this person would do with that role, so many different movies, And I would love to see this being implemented in a consumer type of role. I think that would be

absolutely phenomenal. I mean, how many people out there that would just that would love to do that? What would be what would be your movie that you would want to experience? What character would you want to play? And why? Send me an email? Ho ho at the ho Ho Show dot com. No wait, nope, scratch that ho ho at Black Mirror Podcast dot com. Holy crap, ho ho at black Mirror Podcast dot com. Let me know on a consumer level what movie would you like to star

in and why I'm curious let me know. Let me know down in the comments, send me an email ho Ho at Black Mirror podcast dot com. Anyway, that's all I got for y'alls today. That is it. The next episode is going to be Plaything. I've heard some good things about this episode. I'm actually very excited to watch it and that one will go live next month. Until then, y'all have a so for a great one. Thank you

for listening to the Black Mirror Podcast. If you would like to join the conversation, you can comment on this episode a sprinker dot com or go to the ho host Show dot com, Forward, slash form and the discussion board for this c