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Elon Musk’s Version of Wikipedia Is Live. Here’s What the Difference Is

Elon Musk’s Version of Wikipedia Is Live. Here’s What the Difference Is

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Grokipedia, Elon Musk’s alternative to Wikipedia, sparked to life on Monday afternoon. Then it went dark again. Then it sparked to life again Monday evening. As of this writing, it is up. In terms of style, it looks like Wikipedia with its optional dark mode turned on. 

Based on a very brief review, it contains articles on most topics one would most easily expect in an encyclopedia, professing to have just under 900,000 in total. The website Wikicount says there are about 7 million English Wikipedia articles. 

There are gaps in Grokipedia, however. For instance, at the moment it does not currently appear to have a dedicated article about the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). 

Musk announced that his AI company, xAI, was building an online encyclopedia late last month, saying it would be a “massive improvement over Wikipedia.” The idea for Grokipedia was born during an appearance by Musk on the All-In Podcast. Host and fellow high net worth individual David Sacks asked Musk point blank to create it, noting that Wikipedia was “hyper-partisan” and full of “activists.” 

Here are some comparisons between Wikipedia articles and Grokipedia articles. These are copied verbatim from the intros of articles with the footnotes and links removed for ease of reading: 

Nick Fuentes

Wikipedia:

Nicholas Joseph Fuentes (born August 18, 1998) is an American far-right political commentator, activist and live streamer. He identifies as a Christian nationalist and part of the incel subculture. His views have been described as racist, white supremacist, misogynistic, homophobic, antisemitic, and Islamophobic. Furthermore, he has been described as a neo-Nazi and a Holocaust denier. His supporters are known as Groypers.

Grokipedia:

Nicholas Joseph Fuentes (born August 18, 1998) is an American political commentator, live streamer, and activist who hosts the nightly internet program America First and organizes the annual America First Political Action Conference (AFPAC). A self-professed traditional Catholic, Fuentes advocates for policies centered on national sovereignty, including a moratorium on immigration, withdrawal from foreign entanglements, and preservation of America’s historic European-descended majority. His rise began as a teenager supporting Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, after which he withdrew from Boston University amid threats following his attendance at the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Great Replacement

Wikipedia:

Title: “Great Replacement conspiracy theory”

The Great Replacement (French: grand remplacement), also known as replacement theory or great replacement theory, is a debunked white nationalist far-right conspiracy theory coined by French author Renaud Camus. Camus’ theory states that, with the complicity or cooperation of “replacist” elites, the ethnic French and white European populations at large are being demographically and culturally replaced by non-white peoples—especially from Muslim-majority countries—through mass migration, demographic growth and a drop in the birth rate of white Europeans. Since then, similar claims have been advanced in other national contexts, notably in the United States. Mainstream scholars have dismissed these claims of a conspiracy of “replacist” elites as rooted in a misunderstanding of demographic statistics and premised upon an unscientific, racist worldview.

Grokipedia:

Title: “Great Replacement theory”

The Great Replacement is a theory originated by French writer Renaud Camus in his 2011 essay Le Grand Remplacement, which contends that the historic populations of European nations are undergoing demographic substitution through sustained high levels of immigration from Africa and the Middle East, compounded by sub-replacement fertility rates among native Europeans (typically below 1.5 children per woman in most EU countries) and comparatively higher fertility among immigrant groups (often exceeding 2.0). Camus describes this process as an orchestrated “genocide by substitution,” driven by elite policies favoring multiculturalism over national continuity, resulting in the erosion of indigenous cultural dominance without violent conflict. Empirical underpinnings include United Nations projections indicating that net migration will account for nearly all population stability or growth in Europe amid native decline, with foreign-born residents comprising nearly 10% of the EU population by 2024 and contributing disproportionately to births—one-third or more in nations like Austria and Germany

Greta Thunberg

Wikipedia:

Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (Swedish: [ˈɡreːta ˈtʉːnbærj]; born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish activist best known for pressuring governments to address climate change and social issues. She gained global attention in 2018, at age 15, after starting a solo school strike outside the Swedish parliament, which inspired the worldwide Fridays for Future movement. She has since broadened her focus to include human rights and global justice, voicing support for Ukraine, Palestine, Armenia, and Western Sahara. In 2025, Thunberg twice joined a humanitarian flotilla bound for the Gaza Strip.

Thunberg has been credited with sparking the “Greta effect”, influencing environmental awareness and youth engagement worldwide. She has received numerous honors, including inclusion in Time’s 100 Most Influential People and being named Person of the Year in 2019.

Grokipedia:

Greta Thunberg (born 3 January 2003) is a Swedish activist recognized for launching a solo school strike for climate action on 20 August 2018 outside the Swedish parliament in Stockholm, an action that catalyzed the international Fridays for Future movement involving millions of students protesting government inaction on climate change.

Thunberg, diagnosed at age 11 or 12 with Asperger syndrome—a form of autism spectrum disorder—along with obsessive-compulsive disorder and selective mutism, has described these conditions as providing her with a focused “superpower” for advocacy. Her high-profile speeches at venues including the United Nations General Assembly and the World Economic Forum in Davos amplified calls for immediate emissions reductions and policy shifts, earning her Time magazine’s Person of the Year designation in 2019 as the youngest recipient. While credited with elevating youth engagement on environmental issues, Thunberg’s promotion of urgent, existential climate threats has drawn scrutiny for diverging from nuanced empirical assessments of climate risks and adaptation capacities, as well as for extending her activism into broader political arenas such as anti-capitalist and geopolitical protests.

Overall, Grokipedia gives off the impression of a site where topics and people that Elon Musk likes or supports are presented without framings that cast any doubt on their validity, and those he dislikes are presented with criticism front-and-center.

As others have pointed out, some articles are strikingly similar to Wikipedia’s, and contain notes at the bottom saying they were adapted from Wikipedia under a ShareAlike 4.0 license, which would seem to indicate that those particular Grokipedia articles are also available to share freely. However, the url for Grokipedia is at the .com top-level domain, not the .org domain like Wikipedia.

Grokipedia also mostly (or perhaps entirely) lacks photos and illustrations. It’s understandable that biographical articles don’t have portraits, but articles like “Tesseract” would benefit from clarifying illustrations and even animations, like on Wikipedia. 

Some Grokipedia articles are quite long and detailed—long past the point of general interest. For instance, the article for Gizmodo, while seemingly accurate after a brief scan, seems like it would benefit from a human editor. 

Overall, the project seems very much like what it purports to be: a version of Wikipedia with articles written by Grok, a large language model that favors Elon Musk’s views. 

Gizmodo reached out to xAI about all of this, asking for comment. That email received an immediate, three-word reply: “Legacy Media Lies.”  

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For months, AI giants have devised special vetted programs and strict guardrails to limit the use of their models by malicious hackers. But these limits are now hindering the work of legitimate network defenders, as well as that of offensive cybersecurity researchers. 

In June, the U.S. government slapped export control restrictions on Anthropic’s much-hyped AI models Mythos and Fable. The move was prompted at least in part by a report that claimed it was possible to bypass the models’ guardrails designed to prevent users from using them to build and execute malicious cyberattacks.

Regardless of whether the incident was really motivated by fears of a jailbreak, the fact is that Anthropic has repeatedly marketed Mythos as some kind of doomsday cybermachine that can only be given to carefully vetted users, and even then with strict guardrails in place. (The export controls on Fable 5 and Mythos 5 have since been lifted. Fable 5 returned to general access on July 1; Mythos 5 has been reintroduced only to vetted U.S. organizations as part of the government’s review process.)

That kind of gatekeeping isn’t unique to Mythos. Both Anthropic, with its other models, and OpenAI offer cybersecurity researchers programs they can apply to get vetted and — if approved — access models with fewer cybersecurity restrictions: OpenAI’s Trusted Access for Cyber program and Anthropic’s Cyber Verification Program. 

These guardrails have been widely criticized, particularly by researchers whose job is to find unknown vulnerabilities in systems and devise ways to exploit them before criminals do.

During a recent appearance on a cybersecurity podcast, Mark Dowd, a well-known security researcher, said that, “it’s not really comfortable to me that these random large companies are making arbitrary decisions about what is safe in security and what’s not.”

Dowd has spent decades finding and selling “zero-days” — previously unknown software flaws and the exploits that take advantage of them — to Western governments, rather than reporting them to the software makers so they get patched. Governments pay a premium for vulnerabilities precisely because they stay open, which is useful for intelligence operations.

Dowd admitted his work may make him biased, but he isn’t alone. Several people who work in offensive cybersecurity — they proactively probe systems for weaknesses — described to TechCrunch how they use AI tools and deal with their guardrails. 

Chris Anley, the chief scientist at security consulting giant NCC Group, said that asking an AI model to try to exploit a bug is a key step in confirming it’s a real vulnerability worth fixing. But if a guardrail prompts the model to refuse to answer the question outright, the guardrail hurts defenders, he said.

“This is where the whole offensive versus defensive and guardrails part comes in, because ‘fix this code’ as a prompt is both an essential mechanism for defense but also a roadmap for finding critical vulnerabilities in the code base,” said Anley. “So at the same time, the same tool is both an offensive tool and a defensive tool, and the two can’t really be unpicked.”

It’s “like a hammer,” he continued. “You can’t build a house without a hammer. It’s definitely a tool but it’s also irreducibly a weapon as well.”

When he and his colleagues run into such a roadblock, they sometimes fall back on open source AI models that come with no guardrails at all.

Paolo Stagno, the chief technology officer at Crowdfense, a well-known company that develops, acquires, and sells unknown vulnerabilities to government agencies, agreed with Dowd, saying AI companies “essentially treat customers like children who need babysitting” with their vetted programs and guardrails. 

Stagno said he and his colleagues do use frontier models — but only for reverse engineering. They avoid using AI to help find vulnerabilities or build exploits, he said, because feeding that work into a cloud-based model risks leaking sensitive vulnerability data or having it absorbed into future training runs. For that step, he said, they use open source models run locally, as they do not rely on sharing data outside of the model. 

Giuseppe Cali, a security researcher who finds zero-days and develops exploits, said guardrails are not impeding his work. That’s because he doesn’t use AI for offensive work; instead, he uses it for initial reverse engineering, to understand the code he’s analyzing, and to build supporting tools. For that, he said, AI tools can speed up the process and allow him to focus on discovering vulnerabilities. 

“I still want to own the actual bug discovery and weaponization myself and that wouldn’t change if all guardrails were lifted tomorrow,” said Cali. “I am jealous of my bugs, and I like this game too much to let models play it for me.”

One researcher at a smartphone-component manufacturer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to talk to the press, said his employer isn’t part of Anthropic’s CVP program and as a result, its tools are barely useful for finding vulnerabilities because the guardrails are too strict.

“If it catches wind we’re doing anything security related, it just stops and isn’t usable,” the person said. 

Chris Thompson — chief executive of cybersecurity firm RemoteThreat and founder of Offensive AI Con, an offensive security and AI-focused event — said that in his experience using the frontier AI models, the guardrails can be inconsistent and work differently every day. That’s true even inside the looser boundaries of Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s vetted programs. 

“I think the practical impact is you spend a lot of time negotiating with the model instead of working on the core security program,” said Thompson. “Instead of analyzing a vulnerability and reasoning through the exploitability, you’re trying to find why you’re getting inconsistent results or why are models over-sanitizing the output.” 

Consequently, researchers rely on or get pushed toward Chinese open source models like GLM — freely downloadable models that can be run locally with no vetting or usage restrictions — said Thompson.

“You have these responsible researchers that are being pushed away from U.S.-governed systems to foreign-owned systems,” he said. “I think it’s more harmful than good to have these guardrails in place.”

Rather than tightening restrictions further, Thompson called for the AI frontier labs to open up their programs, provide responsible access, and hold those who abuse their tools accountable. Otherwise, he argued, defenders will lose the AI race.

“There’s this big storm coming. There’s this big wave of attacks that are going to happen at speed and scale like never before,” said Thompson. “But the same security consulting firms and legit researchers that are trying to make a difference are being stifled right now.”

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

#guardrails #impeding #work #offensive #cybersecurity #researchers #TechCrunchcybersecurity,Zero-days">How AI guardrails are impeding the work of offensive cybersecurity researchers | TechCrunch For months, AI giants have devised special vetted programs and strict guardrails to limit the use of their models by malicious hackers. But these limits are now hindering the work of legitimate network defenders, as well as that of offensive cybersecurity researchers.  In June, the U.S. government slapped export control restrictions on Anthropic’s much-hyped AI models Mythos and Fable. The move was prompted at least in part by a report that claimed it was possible to bypass the models’ guardrails designed to prevent users from using them to build and execute malicious cyberattacks. Regardless of whether the incident was really motivated by fears of a jailbreak, the fact is that Anthropic has repeatedly marketed Mythos as some kind of doomsday cybermachine that can only be given to carefully vetted users, and even then with strict guardrails in place. (The export controls on Fable 5 and Mythos 5 have since been lifted. Fable 5 returned to general access on July 1; Mythos 5 has been reintroduced only to vetted U.S. organizations as part of the government’s review process.) That kind of gatekeeping isn’t unique to Mythos. Both Anthropic, with its other models, and OpenAI offer cybersecurity researchers programs they can apply to get vetted and — if approved — access models with fewer cybersecurity restrictions: OpenAI’s Trusted Access for Cyber program and Anthropic’s Cyber Verification Program.  These guardrails have been widely criticized, particularly by researchers whose job is to find unknown vulnerabilities in systems and devise ways to exploit them before criminals do. During a recent appearance on a cybersecurity podcast, Mark Dowd, a well-known security researcher, said that, “it’s not really comfortable to me that these random large companies are making arbitrary decisions about what is safe in security and what’s not.” Dowd has spent decades finding and selling “zero-days” — previously unknown software flaws and the exploits that take advantage of them — to Western governments, rather than reporting them to the software makers so they get patched. Governments pay a premium for vulnerabilities precisely because they stay open, which is useful for intelligence operations. Dowd admitted his work may make him biased, but he isn’t alone. Several people who work in offensive cybersecurity — they proactively probe systems for weaknesses — described to TechCrunch how they use AI tools and deal with their guardrails.  Chris Anley, the chief scientist at security consulting giant NCC Group, said that asking an AI model to try to exploit a bug is a key step in confirming it’s a real vulnerability worth fixing. But if a guardrail prompts the model to refuse to answer the question outright, the guardrail hurts defenders, he said. “This is where the whole offensive versus defensive and guardrails part comes in, because ‘fix this code’ as a prompt is both an essential mechanism for defense but also a roadmap for finding critical vulnerabilities in the code base,” said Anley. “So at the same time, the same tool is both an offensive tool and a defensive tool, and the two can’t really be unpicked.” It’s “like a hammer,” he continued. “You can’t build a house without a hammer. It’s definitely a tool but it’s also irreducibly a weapon as well.” When he and his colleagues run into such a roadblock, they sometimes fall back on open source AI models that come with no guardrails at all. Paolo Stagno, the chief technology officer at Crowdfense, a well-known company that develops, acquires, and sells unknown vulnerabilities to government agencies, agreed with Dowd, saying AI companies “essentially treat customers like children who need babysitting” with their vetted programs and guardrails.  Stagno said he and his colleagues do use frontier models — but only for reverse engineering. They avoid using AI to help find vulnerabilities or build exploits, he said, because feeding that work into a cloud-based model risks leaking sensitive vulnerability data or having it absorbed into future training runs. For that step, he said, they use open source models run locally, as they do not rely on sharing data outside of the model.  Giuseppe Cali, a security researcher who finds zero-days and develops exploits, said guardrails are not impeding his work. That’s because he doesn’t use AI for offensive work; instead, he uses it for initial reverse engineering, to understand the code he’s analyzing, and to build supporting tools. For that, he said, AI tools can speed up the process and allow him to focus on discovering vulnerabilities.  “I still want to own the actual bug discovery and weaponization myself and that wouldn’t change if all guardrails were lifted tomorrow,” said Cali. “I am jealous of my bugs, and I like this game too much to let models play it for me.” One researcher at a smartphone-component manufacturer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to talk to the press, said his employer isn’t part of Anthropic’s CVP program and as a result, its tools are barely useful for finding vulnerabilities because the guardrails are too strict. “If it catches wind we’re doing anything security related, it just stops and isn’t usable,” the person said.  Chris Thompson — chief executive of cybersecurity firm RemoteThreat and founder of Offensive AI Con, an offensive security and AI-focused event — said that in his experience using the frontier AI models, the guardrails can be inconsistent and work differently every day. That’s true even inside the looser boundaries of Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s vetted programs.  “I think the practical impact is you spend a lot of time negotiating with the model instead of working on the core security program,” said Thompson. “Instead of analyzing a vulnerability and reasoning through the exploitability, you’re trying to find why you’re getting inconsistent results or why are models over-sanitizing the output.”  Consequently, researchers rely on or get pushed toward Chinese open source models like GLM — freely downloadable models that can be run locally with no vetting or usage restrictions — said Thompson. “You have these responsible researchers that are being pushed away from U.S.-governed systems to foreign-owned systems,” he said. “I think it’s more harmful than good to have these guardrails in place.” Rather than tightening restrictions further, Thompson called for the AI frontier labs to open up their programs, provide responsible access, and hold those who abuse their tools accountable. Otherwise, he argued, defenders will lose the AI race. “There’s this big storm coming. There’s this big wave of attacks that are going to happen at speed and scale like never before,” said Thompson. “But the same security consulting firms and legit researchers that are trying to make a difference are being stifled right now.” When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.#guardrails #impeding #work #offensive #cybersecurity #researchers #TechCrunchcybersecurity,Zero-days

slapped export control restrictions on Anthropic’s much-hyped AI models Mythos and Fable. The move was prompted at least in part by a report that claimed it was possible to bypass the models’ guardrails designed to prevent users from using them to build and execute malicious cyberattacks.

Regardless of whether the incident was really motivated by fears of a jailbreak, the fact is that Anthropic has repeatedly marketed Mythos as some kind of doomsday cybermachine that can only be given to carefully vetted users, and even then with strict guardrails in place. (The export controls on Fable 5 and Mythos 5 have since been lifted. Fable 5 returned to general access on July 1; Mythos 5 has been reintroduced only to vetted U.S. organizations as part of the government’s review process.)

That kind of gatekeeping isn’t unique to Mythos. Both Anthropic, with its other models, and OpenAI offer cybersecurity researchers programs they can apply to get vetted and — if approved — access models with fewer cybersecurity restrictions: OpenAI’s Trusted Access for Cyber program and Anthropic’s Cyber Verification Program. 

These guardrails have been widely criticized, particularly by researchers whose job is to find unknown vulnerabilities in systems and devise ways to exploit them before criminals do.

During a recent appearance on a cybersecurity podcast, Mark Dowd, a well-known security researcher, said that, “it’s not really comfortable to me that these random large companies are making arbitrary decisions about what is safe in security and what’s not.”

Dowd has spent decades finding and selling “zero-days” — previously unknown software flaws and the exploits that take advantage of them — to Western governments, rather than reporting them to the software makers so they get patched. Governments pay a premium for vulnerabilities precisely because they stay open, which is useful for intelligence operations.

Dowd admitted his work may make him biased, but he isn’t alone. Several people who work in offensive cybersecurity — they proactively probe systems for weaknesses — described to TechCrunch how they use AI tools and deal with their guardrails. 

Chris Anley, the chief scientist at security consulting giant NCC Group, said that asking an AI model to try to exploit a bug is a key step in confirming it’s a real vulnerability worth fixing. But if a guardrail prompts the model to refuse to answer the question outright, the guardrail hurts defenders, he said.

“This is where the whole offensive versus defensive and guardrails part comes in, because ‘fix this code’ as a prompt is both an essential mechanism for defense but also a roadmap for finding critical vulnerabilities in the code base,” said Anley. “So at the same time, the same tool is both an offensive tool and a defensive tool, and the two can’t really be unpicked.”

It’s “like a hammer,” he continued. “You can’t build a house without a hammer. It’s definitely a tool but it’s also irreducibly a weapon as well.”

When he and his colleagues run into such a roadblock, they sometimes fall back on open source AI models that come with no guardrails at all.

Paolo Stagno, the chief technology officer at Crowdfense, a well-known company that develops, acquires, and sells unknown vulnerabilities to government agencies, agreed with Dowd, saying AI companies “essentially treat customers like children who need babysitting” with their vetted programs and guardrails. 

Stagno said he and his colleagues do use frontier models — but only for reverse engineering. They avoid using AI to help find vulnerabilities or build exploits, he said, because feeding that work into a cloud-based model risks leaking sensitive vulnerability data or having it absorbed into future training runs. For that step, he said, they use open source models run locally, as they do not rely on sharing data outside of the model. 

Giuseppe Cali, a security researcher who finds zero-days and develops exploits, said guardrails are not impeding his work. That’s because he doesn’t use AI for offensive work; instead, he uses it for initial reverse engineering, to understand the code he’s analyzing, and to build supporting tools. For that, he said, AI tools can speed up the process and allow him to focus on discovering vulnerabilities. 

“I still want to own the actual bug discovery and weaponization myself and that wouldn’t change if all guardrails were lifted tomorrow,” said Cali. “I am jealous of my bugs, and I like this game too much to let models play it for me.”

One researcher at a smartphone-component manufacturer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to talk to the press, said his employer isn’t part of Anthropic’s CVP program and as a result, its tools are barely useful for finding vulnerabilities because the guardrails are too strict.

“If it catches wind we’re doing anything security related, it just stops and isn’t usable,” the person said. 

Chris Thompson — chief executive of cybersecurity firm RemoteThreat and founder of Offensive AI Con, an offensive security and AI-focused event — said that in his experience using the frontier AI models, the guardrails can be inconsistent and work differently every day. That’s true even inside the looser boundaries of Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s vetted programs. 

“I think the practical impact is you spend a lot of time negotiating with the model instead of working on the core security program,” said Thompson. “Instead of analyzing a vulnerability and reasoning through the exploitability, you’re trying to find why you’re getting inconsistent results or why are models over-sanitizing the output.” 

Consequently, researchers rely on or get pushed toward Chinese open source models like GLM — freely downloadable models that can be run locally with no vetting or usage restrictions — said Thompson.

“You have these responsible researchers that are being pushed away from U.S.-governed systems to foreign-owned systems,” he said. “I think it’s more harmful than good to have these guardrails in place.”

Rather than tightening restrictions further, Thompson called for the AI frontier labs to open up their programs, provide responsible access, and hold those who abuse their tools accountable. Otherwise, he argued, defenders will lose the AI race.

“There’s this big storm coming. There’s this big wave of attacks that are going to happen at speed and scale like never before,” said Thompson. “But the same security consulting firms and legit researchers that are trying to make a difference are being stifled right now.”

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

#guardrails #impeding #work #offensive #cybersecurity #researchers #TechCrunchcybersecurity,Zero-days">How AI guardrails are impeding the work of offensive cybersecurity researchers | TechCrunch

For months, AI giants have devised special vetted programs and strict guardrails to limit the use of their models by malicious hackers. But these limits are now hindering the work of legitimate network defenders, as well as that of offensive cybersecurity researchers. 

In June, the U.S. government slapped export control restrictions on Anthropic’s much-hyped AI models Mythos and Fable. The move was prompted at least in part by a report that claimed it was possible to bypass the models’ guardrails designed to prevent users from using them to build and execute malicious cyberattacks.

Regardless of whether the incident was really motivated by fears of a jailbreak, the fact is that Anthropic has repeatedly marketed Mythos as some kind of doomsday cybermachine that can only be given to carefully vetted users, and even then with strict guardrails in place. (The export controls on Fable 5 and Mythos 5 have since been lifted. Fable 5 returned to general access on July 1; Mythos 5 has been reintroduced only to vetted U.S. organizations as part of the government’s review process.)

That kind of gatekeeping isn’t unique to Mythos. Both Anthropic, with its other models, and OpenAI offer cybersecurity researchers programs they can apply to get vetted and — if approved — access models with fewer cybersecurity restrictions: OpenAI’s Trusted Access for Cyber program and Anthropic’s Cyber Verification Program. 

These guardrails have been widely criticized, particularly by researchers whose job is to find unknown vulnerabilities in systems and devise ways to exploit them before criminals do.

During a recent appearance on a cybersecurity podcast, Mark Dowd, a well-known security researcher, said that, “it’s not really comfortable to me that these random large companies are making arbitrary decisions about what is safe in security and what’s not.”

Dowd has spent decades finding and selling “zero-days” — previously unknown software flaws and the exploits that take advantage of them — to Western governments, rather than reporting them to the software makers so they get patched. Governments pay a premium for vulnerabilities precisely because they stay open, which is useful for intelligence operations.

Dowd admitted his work may make him biased, but he isn’t alone. Several people who work in offensive cybersecurity — they proactively probe systems for weaknesses — described to TechCrunch how they use AI tools and deal with their guardrails. 

Chris Anley, the chief scientist at security consulting giant NCC Group, said that asking an AI model to try to exploit a bug is a key step in confirming it’s a real vulnerability worth fixing. But if a guardrail prompts the model to refuse to answer the question outright, the guardrail hurts defenders, he said.

“This is where the whole offensive versus defensive and guardrails part comes in, because ‘fix this code’ as a prompt is both an essential mechanism for defense but also a roadmap for finding critical vulnerabilities in the code base,” said Anley. “So at the same time, the same tool is both an offensive tool and a defensive tool, and the two can’t really be unpicked.”

It’s “like a hammer,” he continued. “You can’t build a house without a hammer. It’s definitely a tool but it’s also irreducibly a weapon as well.”

When he and his colleagues run into such a roadblock, they sometimes fall back on open source AI models that come with no guardrails at all.

Paolo Stagno, the chief technology officer at Crowdfense, a well-known company that develops, acquires, and sells unknown vulnerabilities to government agencies, agreed with Dowd, saying AI companies “essentially treat customers like children who need babysitting” with their vetted programs and guardrails. 

Stagno said he and his colleagues do use frontier models — but only for reverse engineering. They avoid using AI to help find vulnerabilities or build exploits, he said, because feeding that work into a cloud-based model risks leaking sensitive vulnerability data or having it absorbed into future training runs. For that step, he said, they use open source models run locally, as they do not rely on sharing data outside of the model. 

Giuseppe Cali, a security researcher who finds zero-days and develops exploits, said guardrails are not impeding his work. That’s because he doesn’t use AI for offensive work; instead, he uses it for initial reverse engineering, to understand the code he’s analyzing, and to build supporting tools. For that, he said, AI tools can speed up the process and allow him to focus on discovering vulnerabilities. 

“I still want to own the actual bug discovery and weaponization myself and that wouldn’t change if all guardrails were lifted tomorrow,” said Cali. “I am jealous of my bugs, and I like this game too much to let models play it for me.”

One researcher at a smartphone-component manufacturer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he isn’t authorized to talk to the press, said his employer isn’t part of Anthropic’s CVP program and as a result, its tools are barely useful for finding vulnerabilities because the guardrails are too strict.

“If it catches wind we’re doing anything security related, it just stops and isn’t usable,” the person said. 

Chris Thompson — chief executive of cybersecurity firm RemoteThreat and founder of Offensive AI Con, an offensive security and AI-focused event — said that in his experience using the frontier AI models, the guardrails can be inconsistent and work differently every day. That’s true even inside the looser boundaries of Anthropic’s and OpenAI’s vetted programs. 

“I think the practical impact is you spend a lot of time negotiating with the model instead of working on the core security program,” said Thompson. “Instead of analyzing a vulnerability and reasoning through the exploitability, you’re trying to find why you’re getting inconsistent results or why are models over-sanitizing the output.” 

Consequently, researchers rely on or get pushed toward Chinese open source models like GLM — freely downloadable models that can be run locally with no vetting or usage restrictions — said Thompson.

“You have these responsible researchers that are being pushed away from U.S.-governed systems to foreign-owned systems,” he said. “I think it’s more harmful than good to have these guardrails in place.”

Rather than tightening restrictions further, Thompson called for the AI frontier labs to open up their programs, provide responsible access, and hold those who abuse their tools accountable. Otherwise, he argued, defenders will lose the AI race.

“There’s this big storm coming. There’s this big wave of attacks that are going to happen at speed and scale like never before,” said Thompson. “But the same security consulting firms and legit researchers that are trying to make a difference are being stifled right now.”

When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence.

#guardrails #impeding #work #offensive #cybersecurity #researchers #TechCrunchcybersecurity,Zero-days
BGMI Pro Series (BMPS) 2026 a month back, KRAFTON India has revealed what’s next for the country’s competitive BGMI scene. There will be two major tournaments for the second half of the year: the return of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) and an all-new BGMI Showdown (BMSD).

While BMIC will once again pit India’s best teams against top squads from across Asia, the newly introduced BGMI Showdown is an invite-only championship reserved for the country’s highest-performing teams. Both tournaments will feature a ₹1 crore prize pool.

BGMI International Cup Returns This October

BGMI International Cup Returns To Mumbai & KRAFTON Announces New BMSD Tournament for India After wrapping up the super exciting BGMI Pro Series (BMPS) 2026 a month back, KRAFTON India has revealed what’s next for the country’s competitive BGMI scene. There will be two major tournaments for the second half of the year: the return of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) and an all-new BGMI Showdown (BMSD). While BMIC will once again pit India’s best teams against top squads from across Asia, the newly introduced BGMI Showdown is an invite-only championship reserved for the country’s highest-performing teams. Both tournaments will feature a ₹1 crore prize pool. BGMI International Cup Returns This October The second edition of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) is scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 1 at the Dome, SVP Indoor Stadium in Mumbai. The tournament will feature 16 teams, including six from India, five from South Korea, and five from Japan. They’ll compete for a ₹1 crore prize pool, with the event bringing some of Asia’s strongest BGMI teams to India for the first time. For Indian fans, BMIC will be one of the rare opportunities to watch domestic teams take on international opponents on home soil in front of a live audience. Alongside BMIC, KRAFTON has also announced the BGMI Showdown (BMSD), a brand-new tournament focused entirely on India’s top-performing teams. Unlike BGIS or BMPS, there won’t be any open qualifiers. Instead, the tournament will feature 48 invited teams, selected based on their performances across the KIE Leaderboard, BGIS, and BMPS. The competition begins on September 22 and will progress through Promotion & Relegation rounds, Survival stages, Semi-Finals, and a Last Chance stage before culminating in the LAN Grand Finals. BGMI Showdown Schedule: Week 1 (Promotion & Relegation): September 22–24 Week 2 (Promotion & Relegation): September 25–27 Week 3 (Promotion & Relegation): September 28–30 Upper Bracket Survival: October 1–3 Lower Bracket Survival: October 4–6 Semi Finals: October 8–11 Last Chance: October 12–13 LAN Grand Finals: October 16–18 Speaking about the announcement, Karan Pathak, Associate Director: Every season should feel bigger than the last- not just in scale, but in the quality of competition it delivers. That’s what we’ve set out to achieve with this year’s H2 calendar. The BGMI International Cup brings some of Asia’s strongest teams to Mumbai, while the BGMI Showdown rewards the teams that have consistently proved themselves across the season. #BGMI #International #Cup #Returns #Mumbai #KRAFTON #Announces #BMSD #Tournament #IndiaBGMI

The second edition of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) is scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 1 at the Dome, SVP Indoor Stadium in Mumbai. The tournament will feature 16 teams, including six from India, five from South Korea, and five from Japan. They’ll compete for a ₹1 crore prize pool, with the event bringing some of Asia’s strongest BGMI teams to India for the first time. For Indian fans, BMIC will be one of the rare opportunities to watch domestic teams take on international opponents on home soil in front of a live audience.

Alongside BMIC, KRAFTON has also announced the BGMI Showdown (BMSD), a brand-new tournament focused entirely on India’s top-performing teams. Unlike BGIS or BMPS, there won’t be any open qualifiers. Instead, the tournament will feature 48 invited teams, selected based on their performances across the KIE Leaderboard, BGIS, and BMPS. The competition begins on September 22 and will progress through Promotion & Relegation rounds, Survival stages, Semi-Finals, and a Last Chance stage before culminating in the LAN Grand Finals.

BGMI Showdown Schedule:

  • Week 1 (Promotion & Relegation): September 22–24
  • Week 2 (Promotion & Relegation): September 25–27
  • Week 3 (Promotion & Relegation): September 28–30
  • Upper Bracket Survival: October 1–3
  • Lower Bracket Survival: October 4–6
  • Semi Finals: October 8–11
  • Last Chance: October 12–13
  • LAN Grand Finals: October 16–18

Speaking about the announcement, Karan Pathak, Associate Director:

Every season should feel bigger than the last- not just in scale, but in the quality of competition it delivers. That’s what we’ve set out to achieve with this year’s H2 calendar. The BGMI International Cup brings some of Asia’s strongest teams to Mumbai, while the BGMI Showdown rewards the teams that have consistently proved themselves across the season.

#BGMI #International #Cup #Returns #Mumbai #KRAFTON #Announces #BMSD #Tournament #IndiaBGMI">BGMI International Cup Returns To Mumbai & KRAFTON Announces New BMSD Tournament for India After wrapping up the super exciting BGMI Pro Series (BMPS) 2026 a month back, KRAFTON India has revealed what’s next for the country’s competitive BGMI scene. There will be two major tournaments for the second half of the year: the return of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) and an all-new BGMI Showdown (BMSD). While BMIC will once again pit India’s best teams against top squads from across Asia, the newly introduced BGMI Showdown is an invite-only championship reserved for the country’s highest-performing teams. Both tournaments will feature a ₹1 crore prize pool. BGMI International Cup Returns This October The second edition of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) is scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 1 at the Dome, SVP Indoor Stadium in Mumbai. The tournament will feature 16 teams, including six from India, five from South Korea, and five from Japan. They’ll compete for a ₹1 crore prize pool, with the event bringing some of Asia’s strongest BGMI teams to India for the first time. For Indian fans, BMIC will be one of the rare opportunities to watch domestic teams take on international opponents on home soil in front of a live audience. Alongside BMIC, KRAFTON has also announced the BGMI Showdown (BMSD), a brand-new tournament focused entirely on India’s top-performing teams. Unlike BGIS or BMPS, there won’t be any open qualifiers. Instead, the tournament will feature 48 invited teams, selected based on their performances across the KIE Leaderboard, BGIS, and BMPS. The competition begins on September 22 and will progress through Promotion & Relegation rounds, Survival stages, Semi-Finals, and a Last Chance stage before culminating in the LAN Grand Finals. BGMI Showdown Schedule: Week 1 (Promotion & Relegation): September 22–24 Week 2 (Promotion & Relegation): September 25–27 Week 3 (Promotion & Relegation): September 28–30 Upper Bracket Survival: October 1–3 Lower Bracket Survival: October 4–6 Semi Finals: October 8–11 Last Chance: October 12–13 LAN Grand Finals: October 16–18 Speaking about the announcement, Karan Pathak, Associate Director: Every season should feel bigger than the last- not just in scale, but in the quality of competition it delivers. That’s what we’ve set out to achieve with this year’s H2 calendar. The BGMI International Cup brings some of Asia’s strongest teams to Mumbai, while the BGMI Showdown rewards the teams that have consistently proved themselves across the season. #BGMI #International #Cup #Returns #Mumbai #KRAFTON #Announces #BMSD #Tournament #IndiaBGMI

2026 a month back, KRAFTON India has revealed what’s next for the country’s competitive BGMI scene. There will be two major tournaments for the second half of the year: the return of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) and an all-new BGMI Showdown (BMSD).

While BMIC will once again pit India’s best teams against top squads from across Asia, the newly introduced BGMI Showdown is an invite-only championship reserved for the country’s highest-performing teams. Both tournaments will feature a ₹1 crore prize pool.

BGMI International Cup Returns This October

BGMI International Cup Returns To Mumbai & KRAFTON Announces New BMSD Tournament for India After wrapping up the super exciting BGMI Pro Series (BMPS) 2026 a month back, KRAFTON India has revealed what’s next for the country’s competitive BGMI scene. There will be two major tournaments for the second half of the year: the return of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) and an all-new BGMI Showdown (BMSD). While BMIC will once again pit India’s best teams against top squads from across Asia, the newly introduced BGMI Showdown is an invite-only championship reserved for the country’s highest-performing teams. Both tournaments will feature a ₹1 crore prize pool. BGMI International Cup Returns This October The second edition of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) is scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 1 at the Dome, SVP Indoor Stadium in Mumbai. The tournament will feature 16 teams, including six from India, five from South Korea, and five from Japan. They’ll compete for a ₹1 crore prize pool, with the event bringing some of Asia’s strongest BGMI teams to India for the first time. For Indian fans, BMIC will be one of the rare opportunities to watch domestic teams take on international opponents on home soil in front of a live audience. Alongside BMIC, KRAFTON has also announced the BGMI Showdown (BMSD), a brand-new tournament focused entirely on India’s top-performing teams. Unlike BGIS or BMPS, there won’t be any open qualifiers. Instead, the tournament will feature 48 invited teams, selected based on their performances across the KIE Leaderboard, BGIS, and BMPS. The competition begins on September 22 and will progress through Promotion & Relegation rounds, Survival stages, Semi-Finals, and a Last Chance stage before culminating in the LAN Grand Finals. BGMI Showdown Schedule: Week 1 (Promotion & Relegation): September 22–24 Week 2 (Promotion & Relegation): September 25–27 Week 3 (Promotion & Relegation): September 28–30 Upper Bracket Survival: October 1–3 Lower Bracket Survival: October 4–6 Semi Finals: October 8–11 Last Chance: October 12–13 LAN Grand Finals: October 16–18 Speaking about the announcement, Karan Pathak, Associate Director: Every season should feel bigger than the last- not just in scale, but in the quality of competition it delivers. That’s what we’ve set out to achieve with this year’s H2 calendar. The BGMI International Cup brings some of Asia’s strongest teams to Mumbai, while the BGMI Showdown rewards the teams that have consistently proved themselves across the season. #BGMI #International #Cup #Returns #Mumbai #KRAFTON #Announces #BMSD #Tournament #IndiaBGMI

The second edition of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) is scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 1 at the Dome, SVP Indoor Stadium in Mumbai. The tournament will feature 16 teams, including six from India, five from South Korea, and five from Japan. They’ll compete for a ₹1 crore prize pool, with the event bringing some of Asia’s strongest BGMI teams to India for the first time. For Indian fans, BMIC will be one of the rare opportunities to watch domestic teams take on international opponents on home soil in front of a live audience.

Alongside BMIC, KRAFTON has also announced the BGMI Showdown (BMSD), a brand-new tournament focused entirely on India’s top-performing teams. Unlike BGIS or BMPS, there won’t be any open qualifiers. Instead, the tournament will feature 48 invited teams, selected based on their performances across the KIE Leaderboard, BGIS, and BMPS. The competition begins on September 22 and will progress through Promotion & Relegation rounds, Survival stages, Semi-Finals, and a Last Chance stage before culminating in the LAN Grand Finals.

BGMI Showdown Schedule:

  • Week 1 (Promotion & Relegation): September 22–24
  • Week 2 (Promotion & Relegation): September 25–27
  • Week 3 (Promotion & Relegation): September 28–30
  • Upper Bracket Survival: October 1–3
  • Lower Bracket Survival: October 4–6
  • Semi Finals: October 8–11
  • Last Chance: October 12–13
  • LAN Grand Finals: October 16–18

Speaking about the announcement, Karan Pathak, Associate Director:

Every season should feel bigger than the last- not just in scale, but in the quality of competition it delivers. That’s what we’ve set out to achieve with this year’s H2 calendar. The BGMI International Cup brings some of Asia’s strongest teams to Mumbai, while the BGMI Showdown rewards the teams that have consistently proved themselves across the season.

#BGMI #International #Cup #Returns #Mumbai #KRAFTON #Announces #BMSD #Tournament #IndiaBGMI">BGMI International Cup Returns To Mumbai & KRAFTON Announces New BMSD Tournament for India

After wrapping up the super exciting BGMI Pro Series (BMPS) 2026 a month back, KRAFTON India has revealed what’s next for the country’s competitive BGMI scene. There will be two major tournaments for the second half of the year: the return of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) and an all-new BGMI Showdown (BMSD).

While BMIC will once again pit India’s best teams against top squads from across Asia, the newly introduced BGMI Showdown is an invite-only championship reserved for the country’s highest-performing teams. Both tournaments will feature a ₹1 crore prize pool.

BGMI International Cup Returns This October

BGMI International Cup Returns To Mumbai & KRAFTON Announces New BMSD Tournament for India After wrapping up the super exciting BGMI Pro Series (BMPS) 2026 a month back, KRAFTON India has revealed what’s next for the country’s competitive BGMI scene. There will be two major tournaments for the second half of the year: the return of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) and an all-new BGMI Showdown (BMSD). While BMIC will once again pit India’s best teams against top squads from across Asia, the newly introduced BGMI Showdown is an invite-only championship reserved for the country’s highest-performing teams. Both tournaments will feature a ₹1 crore prize pool. BGMI International Cup Returns This October The second edition of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) is scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 1 at the Dome, SVP Indoor Stadium in Mumbai. The tournament will feature 16 teams, including six from India, five from South Korea, and five from Japan. They’ll compete for a ₹1 crore prize pool, with the event bringing some of Asia’s strongest BGMI teams to India for the first time. For Indian fans, BMIC will be one of the rare opportunities to watch domestic teams take on international opponents on home soil in front of a live audience. Alongside BMIC, KRAFTON has also announced the BGMI Showdown (BMSD), a brand-new tournament focused entirely on India’s top-performing teams. Unlike BGIS or BMPS, there won’t be any open qualifiers. Instead, the tournament will feature 48 invited teams, selected based on their performances across the KIE Leaderboard, BGIS, and BMPS. The competition begins on September 22 and will progress through Promotion & Relegation rounds, Survival stages, Semi-Finals, and a Last Chance stage before culminating in the LAN Grand Finals. BGMI Showdown Schedule: Week 1 (Promotion & Relegation): September 22–24 Week 2 (Promotion & Relegation): September 25–27 Week 3 (Promotion & Relegation): September 28–30 Upper Bracket Survival: October 1–3 Lower Bracket Survival: October 4–6 Semi Finals: October 8–11 Last Chance: October 12–13 LAN Grand Finals: October 16–18 Speaking about the announcement, Karan Pathak, Associate Director: Every season should feel bigger than the last- not just in scale, but in the quality of competition it delivers. That’s what we’ve set out to achieve with this year’s H2 calendar. The BGMI International Cup brings some of Asia’s strongest teams to Mumbai, while the BGMI Showdown rewards the teams that have consistently proved themselves across the season. #BGMI #International #Cup #Returns #Mumbai #KRAFTON #Announces #BMSD #Tournament #IndiaBGMI

The second edition of the BGMI International Cup (BMIC) is scheduled to take place from October 30 to November 1 at the Dome, SVP Indoor Stadium in Mumbai. The tournament will feature 16 teams, including six from India, five from South Korea, and five from Japan. They’ll compete for a ₹1 crore prize pool, with the event bringing some of Asia’s strongest BGMI teams to India for the first time. For Indian fans, BMIC will be one of the rare opportunities to watch domestic teams take on international opponents on home soil in front of a live audience.

Alongside BMIC, KRAFTON has also announced the BGMI Showdown (BMSD), a brand-new tournament focused entirely on India’s top-performing teams. Unlike BGIS or BMPS, there won’t be any open qualifiers. Instead, the tournament will feature 48 invited teams, selected based on their performances across the KIE Leaderboard, BGIS, and BMPS. The competition begins on September 22 and will progress through Promotion & Relegation rounds, Survival stages, Semi-Finals, and a Last Chance stage before culminating in the LAN Grand Finals.

BGMI Showdown Schedule:

  • Week 1 (Promotion & Relegation): September 22–24
  • Week 2 (Promotion & Relegation): September 25–27
  • Week 3 (Promotion & Relegation): September 28–30
  • Upper Bracket Survival: October 1–3
  • Lower Bracket Survival: October 4–6
  • Semi Finals: October 8–11
  • Last Chance: October 12–13
  • LAN Grand Finals: October 16–18

Speaking about the announcement, Karan Pathak, Associate Director:

Every season should feel bigger than the last- not just in scale, but in the quality of competition it delivers. That’s what we’ve set out to achieve with this year’s H2 calendar. The BGMI International Cup brings some of Asia’s strongest teams to Mumbai, while the BGMI Showdown rewards the teams that have consistently proved themselves across the season.

#BGMI #International #Cup #Returns #Mumbai #KRAFTON #Announces #BMSD #Tournament #IndiaBGMI
Guillermo del Toro once compared watching a movie for the first time to going on a blind date. The first date is flirtatious with promise; the second go-around is the proper date. By the time you rewatch a movie three or four more times, you’ve graduated to marriage. In all my years watching anime for work and leisure, there’s no film I’ve felt married to as much as I do toward Satoshi Kon’s finest film, Millennium Actress.

Unlike Kon’s showier film, which pushes animation to the forefront with adult themes by front-loading its opening moments with dreamlike imagery that provokes you into unease and awe-struck wonder, Millennium Actress‘ brand of phantasmal imagery doesn’t flourish in magical realism, horror, or yuletide merriment. Millennium Actress blossoms in the hazy-bright subjectivity and romanticization of memory. Namely, the memory of former showbiz actress Chiyoko Fujiwara (JP: Fumiko Orikasa, Mami Koyama; EN: Abby Trott, Erin Yvette, Cindy Robinson). When a reporter and his cameraman make a pilgrimage to Chiyoko’s home for an interview recounting her career, they wind up traveling through her memories and films.

Chiyoko regales her guests, reminiscing about being a child during World War II, the mysterious man she helped flee from police officers, the promise they made to each other, and how his sudden disappearance led her to pursue stardom in cinema. Her hope was that she’d be so successful they’d have no choice but to reunite someday by the sheer gravitational force of her star power—if he’s even still alive. With her storied career behind her, Chiyoko’s life is spent longing forever and a day for a reunion that may never come.

While the surface-level intrigue of a journalist interviewing a subject isn’t lost on me, given my vocation, the 2001 film feels like my personal cinematic Amigara fault; what perpetually strikes me about Kon’s film is how it takes its otherwise pleasantly banal story on the page and breathes vibrant life into it through artistry the likes of which the anime industry may never see again. Kon’s blocking and camera work have already been praised to death, and rightfully so, as the stuff film students study to understand scene setting, and Studio Madhouse’s creative efforts with Millennium Actress are no exception. What gets me invigorated about Millennium Actress whenever the film crosses my mind in my day-to-day is how it plays with memory as an active, living tapestry over the static, absolute depictions of it I’ve encountered in other media.

As Chiyoko recounts the chapters of her life—her humble beginnings in film, the trials and tribulations she faced to become a household name for a time—her audience in both viewers and the journalists who’re guests in her home are struck with the poignant sense that her life is one of pyrrhic victories. No matter how big she got, the goalpost was to be big enough that her assumed paramour would find her from her own clout, and they’d reunite in the most saccharine way imaginable; it never manifests as the reward at the end of her hard-earned journey—a journey that rivals the millennia her visage graces immortalized in celluloid. It’s Sisyphean, and the pain of being trapped recounting her trek up to this point feels less like a trip down memory lane and more like a prison behind the guardrails of her all-encompassing dissatisfactions.

‘Millennium Actress’ Will Always Be My Favorite Satoshi Kon Film Director Guillermo del Toro once compared watching a movie for the first time to going on a blind date. The first date is flirtatious with promise; the second go-around is the proper date. By the time you rewatch a movie three or four more times, you’ve graduated to marriage. In all my years watching anime for work and leisure, there’s no film I’ve felt married to as much as I do toward Satoshi Kon’s finest film, Millennium Actress. Unlike Kon’s showier film, which pushes animation to the forefront with adult themes by front-loading its opening moments with dreamlike imagery that provokes you into unease and awe-struck wonder, Millennium Actress‘ brand of phantasmal imagery doesn’t flourish in magical realism, horror, or yuletide merriment. Millennium Actress blossoms in the hazy-bright subjectivity and romanticization of memory. Namely, the memory of former showbiz actress Chiyoko Fujiwara (JP: Fumiko Orikasa, Mami Koyama; EN: Abby Trott, Erin Yvette, Cindy Robinson). When a reporter and his cameraman make a pilgrimage to Chiyoko’s home for an interview recounting her career, they wind up traveling through her memories and films. Chiyoko regales her guests, reminiscing about being a child during World War II, the mysterious man she helped flee from police officers, the promise they made to each other, and how his sudden disappearance led her to pursue stardom in cinema. Her hope was that she’d be so successful they’d have no choice but to reunite someday by the sheer gravitational force of her star power—if he’s even still alive. With her storied career behind her, Chiyoko’s life is spent longing forever and a day for a reunion that may never come. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWGRmtTUkvg[/embed] While the surface-level intrigue of a journalist interviewing a subject isn’t lost on me, given my vocation, the 2001 film feels like my personal cinematic Amigara fault; what perpetually strikes me about Kon’s film is how it takes its otherwise pleasantly banal story on the page and breathes vibrant life into it through artistry the likes of which the anime industry may never see again. Kon’s blocking and camera work have already been praised to death, and rightfully so, as the stuff film students study to understand scene setting, and Studio Madhouse’s creative efforts with Millennium Actress are no exception. What gets me invigorated about Millennium Actress whenever the film crosses my mind in my day-to-day is how it plays with memory as an active, living tapestry over the static, absolute depictions of it I’ve encountered in other media. As Chiyoko recounts the chapters of her life—her humble beginnings in film, the trials and tribulations she faced to become a household name for a time—her audience in both viewers and the journalists who’re guests in her home are struck with the poignant sense that her life is one of pyrrhic victories. No matter how big she got, the goalpost was to be big enough that her assumed paramour would find her from her own clout, and they’d reunite in the most saccharine way imaginable; it never manifests as the reward at the end of her hard-earned journey—a journey that rivals the millennia her visage graces immortalized in celluloid. It’s Sisyphean, and the pain of being trapped recounting her trek up to this point feels less like a trip down memory lane and more like a prison behind the guardrails of her all-encompassing dissatisfactions. © Madhouse/GKIDS/HBO Max Then something magical happens. In the way memory isn’t us replaying events exactly as they occurred but reconstructing them from our own fallibly human recountenances, Chiyoko breaks free from the script of her own memory, transforming it into a lucid dream where her agency is superimposed over the roles she played, giving her the power to pursue the man she spent years waiting for. This, in turn, transports both the journalists and audiences into the fabric of the fantastical roles she’s played, referencing a pastiche of real-life cinema, including Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Chiyoko flips the script on the very fabric of her life’s narrative to arrive at her truth. Along that journey, Kon weaves a stirring, imaginative, sobering tale integrating the universal pang of life, life’s regrets, and what we make of what’s left when we approach our final curtain calls, looking back on the journey we faced to get to our final destination. And the answer Chiyoko arrives at as the film bookends itself, as she’s sat in the cockpit of a space rocket set for the stars, is etched in my soul forever. I treasure Millennium Actress so much that I nearly went into orbit myself when I interviewed Lady Snowblood actress Meiko Kaji during a Japan Society retrospective event earlier this year celebrating her 60-year career. It took nearly every fiber of my being to maintain my cool as my prepped questions for our Zoom interview made me realize I was put smack dab in the same scenario as Millennium Actress‘ journalists. Like them, I was interviewing and guffawing at the answers I received, which landed beyond the scope of what I could’ve ever hoped for from an actress whom I had the awesome responsibility to encapsulate a career that doubled my own lifetime. Like Chiyoko, Meiko never intended to be an actress at all. But through stubborn determination woven within the woman behind the character actress, she made a way out of no way. That shit means something to me, man.  [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfnRYdTpzbs[/embed] Whether it’s Wong Kar-wai, Studio Ghibli, or the late-great dreamscape auteur, Satoshi Kon, everyone’s got their favorites from an eclectic creative’s body of work. Sometimes those favorites coincide with their indelible effects on both pop culture and their status as poster children for their visual ethos—your In the Mood for Love, Spirited Away, and Perfect Blue. But my favorites of the bunch tend to be those with middle-child syndrome in their remarkable films. I’m enamored of how Kar-wai reverse-engineered the quantum Zeno effect of doomed romance and yearning in Happy Together; how Studio Ghibli told a timeless tale of environmentalism against industry and love caught in the crossfire in Princess Mononoke. But most of all, I’m moved by Kon’s beautiful tale of an actress reminiscing over her years spent hounding after an unattainable goal not to reach it, but for the thrill of the chase. Millennium Actress is streaming on HBO Max. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Millennium #Actress #Favorite #Satoshi #Kon #FilmAnime,GKids,Madhouse,Millennium Actress,Satoshi Kon
© Madhouse/GKIDS/HBO Max

Then something magical happens.

In the way memory isn’t us replaying events exactly as they occurred but reconstructing them from our own fallibly human recountenances, Chiyoko breaks free from the script of her own memory, transforming it into a lucid dream where her agency is superimposed over the roles she played, giving her the power to pursue the man she spent years waiting for. This, in turn, transports both the journalists and audiences into the fabric of the fantastical roles she’s played, referencing a pastiche of real-life cinema, including Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Chiyoko flips the script on the very fabric of her life’s narrative to arrive at her truth.

Along that journey, Kon weaves a stirring, imaginative, sobering tale integrating the universal pang of life, life’s regrets, and what we make of what’s left when we approach our final curtain calls, looking back on the journey we faced to get to our final destination. And the answer Chiyoko arrives at as the film bookends itself, as she’s sat in the cockpit of a space rocket set for the stars, is etched in my soul forever.

I treasure Millennium Actress so much that I nearly went into orbit myself when I interviewed Lady Snowblood actress Meiko Kaji during a Japan Society retrospective event earlier this year celebrating her 60-year career. It took nearly every fiber of my being to maintain my cool as my prepped questions for our Zoom interview made me realize I was put smack dab in the same scenario as Millennium Actress‘ journalists. Like them, I was interviewing and guffawing at the answers I received, which landed beyond the scope of what I could’ve ever hoped for from an actress whom I had the awesome responsibility to encapsulate a career that doubled my own lifetime. Like Chiyoko, Meiko never intended to be an actress at all. But through stubborn determination woven within the woman behind the character actress, she made a way out of no way. That shit means something to me, man. 

Whether it’s Wong Kar-wai, Studio Ghibli, or the late-great dreamscape auteur, Satoshi Kon, everyone’s got their favorites from an eclectic creative’s body of work. Sometimes those favorites coincide with their indelible effects on both pop culture and their status as poster children for their visual ethos—your In the Mood for Love, Spirited Away, and Perfect Blue.

But my favorites of the bunch tend to be those with middle-child syndrome in their remarkable films. I’m enamored of how Kar-wai reverse-engineered the quantum Zeno effect of doomed romance and yearning in Happy Together; how Studio Ghibli told a timeless tale of environmentalism against industry and love caught in the crossfire in Princess Mononoke.

But most of all, I’m moved by Kon’s beautiful tale of an actress reminiscing over her years spent hounding after an unattainable goal not to reach it, but for the thrill of the chase.

Millennium Actress is streaming on HBO Max.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

#Millennium #Actress #Favorite #Satoshi #Kon #FilmAnime,GKids,Madhouse,Millennium Actress,Satoshi Kon">‘Millennium Actress’ Will Always Be My Favorite Satoshi Kon Film Director Guillermo del Toro once compared watching a movie for the first time to going on a blind date. The first date is flirtatious with promise; the second go-around is the proper date. By the time you rewatch a movie three or four more times, you’ve graduated to marriage. In all my years watching anime for work and leisure, there’s no film I’ve felt married to as much as I do toward Satoshi Kon’s finest film, Millennium Actress. Unlike Kon’s showier film, which pushes animation to the forefront with adult themes by front-loading its opening moments with dreamlike imagery that provokes you into unease and awe-struck wonder, Millennium Actress‘ brand of phantasmal imagery doesn’t flourish in magical realism, horror, or yuletide merriment. Millennium Actress blossoms in the hazy-bright subjectivity and romanticization of memory. Namely, the memory of former showbiz actress Chiyoko Fujiwara (JP: Fumiko Orikasa, Mami Koyama; EN: Abby Trott, Erin Yvette, Cindy Robinson). When a reporter and his cameraman make a pilgrimage to Chiyoko’s home for an interview recounting her career, they wind up traveling through her memories and films. Chiyoko regales her guests, reminiscing about being a child during World War II, the mysterious man she helped flee from police officers, the promise they made to each other, and how his sudden disappearance led her to pursue stardom in cinema. Her hope was that she’d be so successful they’d have no choice but to reunite someday by the sheer gravitational force of her star power—if he’s even still alive. With her storied career behind her, Chiyoko’s life is spent longing forever and a day for a reunion that may never come. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWGRmtTUkvg[/embed] While the surface-level intrigue of a journalist interviewing a subject isn’t lost on me, given my vocation, the 2001 film feels like my personal cinematic Amigara fault; what perpetually strikes me about Kon’s film is how it takes its otherwise pleasantly banal story on the page and breathes vibrant life into it through artistry the likes of which the anime industry may never see again. Kon’s blocking and camera work have already been praised to death, and rightfully so, as the stuff film students study to understand scene setting, and Studio Madhouse’s creative efforts with Millennium Actress are no exception. What gets me invigorated about Millennium Actress whenever the film crosses my mind in my day-to-day is how it plays with memory as an active, living tapestry over the static, absolute depictions of it I’ve encountered in other media. As Chiyoko recounts the chapters of her life—her humble beginnings in film, the trials and tribulations she faced to become a household name for a time—her audience in both viewers and the journalists who’re guests in her home are struck with the poignant sense that her life is one of pyrrhic victories. No matter how big she got, the goalpost was to be big enough that her assumed paramour would find her from her own clout, and they’d reunite in the most saccharine way imaginable; it never manifests as the reward at the end of her hard-earned journey—a journey that rivals the millennia her visage graces immortalized in celluloid. It’s Sisyphean, and the pain of being trapped recounting her trek up to this point feels less like a trip down memory lane and more like a prison behind the guardrails of her all-encompassing dissatisfactions. © Madhouse/GKIDS/HBO Max Then something magical happens. In the way memory isn’t us replaying events exactly as they occurred but reconstructing them from our own fallibly human recountenances, Chiyoko breaks free from the script of her own memory, transforming it into a lucid dream where her agency is superimposed over the roles she played, giving her the power to pursue the man she spent years waiting for. This, in turn, transports both the journalists and audiences into the fabric of the fantastical roles she’s played, referencing a pastiche of real-life cinema, including Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Chiyoko flips the script on the very fabric of her life’s narrative to arrive at her truth. Along that journey, Kon weaves a stirring, imaginative, sobering tale integrating the universal pang of life, life’s regrets, and what we make of what’s left when we approach our final curtain calls, looking back on the journey we faced to get to our final destination. And the answer Chiyoko arrives at as the film bookends itself, as she’s sat in the cockpit of a space rocket set for the stars, is etched in my soul forever. I treasure Millennium Actress so much that I nearly went into orbit myself when I interviewed Lady Snowblood actress Meiko Kaji during a Japan Society retrospective event earlier this year celebrating her 60-year career. It took nearly every fiber of my being to maintain my cool as my prepped questions for our Zoom interview made me realize I was put smack dab in the same scenario as Millennium Actress‘ journalists. Like them, I was interviewing and guffawing at the answers I received, which landed beyond the scope of what I could’ve ever hoped for from an actress whom I had the awesome responsibility to encapsulate a career that doubled my own lifetime. Like Chiyoko, Meiko never intended to be an actress at all. But through stubborn determination woven within the woman behind the character actress, she made a way out of no way. That shit means something to me, man.  [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfnRYdTpzbs[/embed] Whether it’s Wong Kar-wai, Studio Ghibli, or the late-great dreamscape auteur, Satoshi Kon, everyone’s got their favorites from an eclectic creative’s body of work. Sometimes those favorites coincide with their indelible effects on both pop culture and their status as poster children for their visual ethos—your In the Mood for Love, Spirited Away, and Perfect Blue. But my favorites of the bunch tend to be those with middle-child syndrome in their remarkable films. I’m enamored of how Kar-wai reverse-engineered the quantum Zeno effect of doomed romance and yearning in Happy Together; how Studio Ghibli told a timeless tale of environmentalism against industry and love caught in the crossfire in Princess Mononoke. But most of all, I’m moved by Kon’s beautiful tale of an actress reminiscing over her years spent hounding after an unattainable goal not to reach it, but for the thrill of the chase. Millennium Actress is streaming on HBO Max. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Millennium #Actress #Favorite #Satoshi #Kon #FilmAnime,GKids,Madhouse,Millennium Actress,Satoshi Kon

once compared watching a movie for the first time to going on a blind date. The first date is flirtatious with promise; the second go-around is the proper date. By the time you rewatch a movie three or four more times, you’ve graduated to marriage. In all my years watching anime for work and leisure, there’s no film I’ve felt married to as much as I do toward Satoshi Kon’s finest film, Millennium Actress.

Unlike Kon’s showier film, which pushes animation to the forefront with adult themes by front-loading its opening moments with dreamlike imagery that provokes you into unease and awe-struck wonder, Millennium Actress‘ brand of phantasmal imagery doesn’t flourish in magical realism, horror, or yuletide merriment. Millennium Actress blossoms in the hazy-bright subjectivity and romanticization of memory. Namely, the memory of former showbiz actress Chiyoko Fujiwara (JP: Fumiko Orikasa, Mami Koyama; EN: Abby Trott, Erin Yvette, Cindy Robinson). When a reporter and his cameraman make a pilgrimage to Chiyoko’s home for an interview recounting her career, they wind up traveling through her memories and films.

Chiyoko regales her guests, reminiscing about being a child during World War II, the mysterious man she helped flee from police officers, the promise they made to each other, and how his sudden disappearance led her to pursue stardom in cinema. Her hope was that she’d be so successful they’d have no choice but to reunite someday by the sheer gravitational force of her star power—if he’s even still alive. With her storied career behind her, Chiyoko’s life is spent longing forever and a day for a reunion that may never come.

While the surface-level intrigue of a journalist interviewing a subject isn’t lost on me, given my vocation, the 2001 film feels like my personal cinematic Amigara fault; what perpetually strikes me about Kon’s film is how it takes its otherwise pleasantly banal story on the page and breathes vibrant life into it through artistry the likes of which the anime industry may never see again. Kon’s blocking and camera work have already been praised to death, and rightfully so, as the stuff film students study to understand scene setting, and Studio Madhouse’s creative efforts with Millennium Actress are no exception. What gets me invigorated about Millennium Actress whenever the film crosses my mind in my day-to-day is how it plays with memory as an active, living tapestry over the static, absolute depictions of it I’ve encountered in other media.

As Chiyoko recounts the chapters of her life—her humble beginnings in film, the trials and tribulations she faced to become a household name for a time—her audience in both viewers and the journalists who’re guests in her home are struck with the poignant sense that her life is one of pyrrhic victories. No matter how big she got, the goalpost was to be big enough that her assumed paramour would find her from her own clout, and they’d reunite in the most saccharine way imaginable; it never manifests as the reward at the end of her hard-earned journey—a journey that rivals the millennia her visage graces immortalized in celluloid. It’s Sisyphean, and the pain of being trapped recounting her trek up to this point feels less like a trip down memory lane and more like a prison behind the guardrails of her all-encompassing dissatisfactions.

‘Millennium Actress’ Will Always Be My Favorite Satoshi Kon Film Director Guillermo del Toro once compared watching a movie for the first time to going on a blind date. The first date is flirtatious with promise; the second go-around is the proper date. By the time you rewatch a movie three or four more times, you’ve graduated to marriage. In all my years watching anime for work and leisure, there’s no film I’ve felt married to as much as I do toward Satoshi Kon’s finest film, Millennium Actress. Unlike Kon’s showier film, which pushes animation to the forefront with adult themes by front-loading its opening moments with dreamlike imagery that provokes you into unease and awe-struck wonder, Millennium Actress‘ brand of phantasmal imagery doesn’t flourish in magical realism, horror, or yuletide merriment. Millennium Actress blossoms in the hazy-bright subjectivity and romanticization of memory. Namely, the memory of former showbiz actress Chiyoko Fujiwara (JP: Fumiko Orikasa, Mami Koyama; EN: Abby Trott, Erin Yvette, Cindy Robinson). When a reporter and his cameraman make a pilgrimage to Chiyoko’s home for an interview recounting her career, they wind up traveling through her memories and films. Chiyoko regales her guests, reminiscing about being a child during World War II, the mysterious man she helped flee from police officers, the promise they made to each other, and how his sudden disappearance led her to pursue stardom in cinema. Her hope was that she’d be so successful they’d have no choice but to reunite someday by the sheer gravitational force of her star power—if he’s even still alive. With her storied career behind her, Chiyoko’s life is spent longing forever and a day for a reunion that may never come. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWGRmtTUkvg[/embed] While the surface-level intrigue of a journalist interviewing a subject isn’t lost on me, given my vocation, the 2001 film feels like my personal cinematic Amigara fault; what perpetually strikes me about Kon’s film is how it takes its otherwise pleasantly banal story on the page and breathes vibrant life into it through artistry the likes of which the anime industry may never see again. Kon’s blocking and camera work have already been praised to death, and rightfully so, as the stuff film students study to understand scene setting, and Studio Madhouse’s creative efforts with Millennium Actress are no exception. What gets me invigorated about Millennium Actress whenever the film crosses my mind in my day-to-day is how it plays with memory as an active, living tapestry over the static, absolute depictions of it I’ve encountered in other media. As Chiyoko recounts the chapters of her life—her humble beginnings in film, the trials and tribulations she faced to become a household name for a time—her audience in both viewers and the journalists who’re guests in her home are struck with the poignant sense that her life is one of pyrrhic victories. No matter how big she got, the goalpost was to be big enough that her assumed paramour would find her from her own clout, and they’d reunite in the most saccharine way imaginable; it never manifests as the reward at the end of her hard-earned journey—a journey that rivals the millennia her visage graces immortalized in celluloid. It’s Sisyphean, and the pain of being trapped recounting her trek up to this point feels less like a trip down memory lane and more like a prison behind the guardrails of her all-encompassing dissatisfactions. © Madhouse/GKIDS/HBO Max Then something magical happens. In the way memory isn’t us replaying events exactly as they occurred but reconstructing them from our own fallibly human recountenances, Chiyoko breaks free from the script of her own memory, transforming it into a lucid dream where her agency is superimposed over the roles she played, giving her the power to pursue the man she spent years waiting for. This, in turn, transports both the journalists and audiences into the fabric of the fantastical roles she’s played, referencing a pastiche of real-life cinema, including Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Chiyoko flips the script on the very fabric of her life’s narrative to arrive at her truth. Along that journey, Kon weaves a stirring, imaginative, sobering tale integrating the universal pang of life, life’s regrets, and what we make of what’s left when we approach our final curtain calls, looking back on the journey we faced to get to our final destination. And the answer Chiyoko arrives at as the film bookends itself, as she’s sat in the cockpit of a space rocket set for the stars, is etched in my soul forever. I treasure Millennium Actress so much that I nearly went into orbit myself when I interviewed Lady Snowblood actress Meiko Kaji during a Japan Society retrospective event earlier this year celebrating her 60-year career. It took nearly every fiber of my being to maintain my cool as my prepped questions for our Zoom interview made me realize I was put smack dab in the same scenario as Millennium Actress‘ journalists. Like them, I was interviewing and guffawing at the answers I received, which landed beyond the scope of what I could’ve ever hoped for from an actress whom I had the awesome responsibility to encapsulate a career that doubled my own lifetime. Like Chiyoko, Meiko never intended to be an actress at all. But through stubborn determination woven within the woman behind the character actress, she made a way out of no way. That shit means something to me, man.  [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfnRYdTpzbs[/embed] Whether it’s Wong Kar-wai, Studio Ghibli, or the late-great dreamscape auteur, Satoshi Kon, everyone’s got their favorites from an eclectic creative’s body of work. Sometimes those favorites coincide with their indelible effects on both pop culture and their status as poster children for their visual ethos—your In the Mood for Love, Spirited Away, and Perfect Blue. But my favorites of the bunch tend to be those with middle-child syndrome in their remarkable films. I’m enamored of how Kar-wai reverse-engineered the quantum Zeno effect of doomed romance and yearning in Happy Together; how Studio Ghibli told a timeless tale of environmentalism against industry and love caught in the crossfire in Princess Mononoke. But most of all, I’m moved by Kon’s beautiful tale of an actress reminiscing over her years spent hounding after an unattainable goal not to reach it, but for the thrill of the chase. Millennium Actress is streaming on HBO Max. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Millennium #Actress #Favorite #Satoshi #Kon #FilmAnime,GKids,Madhouse,Millennium Actress,Satoshi Kon
© Madhouse/GKIDS/HBO Max

Then something magical happens.

In the way memory isn’t us replaying events exactly as they occurred but reconstructing them from our own fallibly human recountenances, Chiyoko breaks free from the script of her own memory, transforming it into a lucid dream where her agency is superimposed over the roles she played, giving her the power to pursue the man she spent years waiting for. This, in turn, transports both the journalists and audiences into the fabric of the fantastical roles she’s played, referencing a pastiche of real-life cinema, including Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Chiyoko flips the script on the very fabric of her life’s narrative to arrive at her truth.

Along that journey, Kon weaves a stirring, imaginative, sobering tale integrating the universal pang of life, life’s regrets, and what we make of what’s left when we approach our final curtain calls, looking back on the journey we faced to get to our final destination. And the answer Chiyoko arrives at as the film bookends itself, as she’s sat in the cockpit of a space rocket set for the stars, is etched in my soul forever.

I treasure Millennium Actress so much that I nearly went into orbit myself when I interviewed Lady Snowblood actress Meiko Kaji during a Japan Society retrospective event earlier this year celebrating her 60-year career. It took nearly every fiber of my being to maintain my cool as my prepped questions for our Zoom interview made me realize I was put smack dab in the same scenario as Millennium Actress‘ journalists. Like them, I was interviewing and guffawing at the answers I received, which landed beyond the scope of what I could’ve ever hoped for from an actress whom I had the awesome responsibility to encapsulate a career that doubled my own lifetime. Like Chiyoko, Meiko never intended to be an actress at all. But through stubborn determination woven within the woman behind the character actress, she made a way out of no way. That shit means something to me, man. 

Whether it’s Wong Kar-wai, Studio Ghibli, or the late-great dreamscape auteur, Satoshi Kon, everyone’s got their favorites from an eclectic creative’s body of work. Sometimes those favorites coincide with their indelible effects on both pop culture and their status as poster children for their visual ethos—your In the Mood for Love, Spirited Away, and Perfect Blue.

But my favorites of the bunch tend to be those with middle-child syndrome in their remarkable films. I’m enamored of how Kar-wai reverse-engineered the quantum Zeno effect of doomed romance and yearning in Happy Together; how Studio Ghibli told a timeless tale of environmentalism against industry and love caught in the crossfire in Princess Mononoke.

But most of all, I’m moved by Kon’s beautiful tale of an actress reminiscing over her years spent hounding after an unattainable goal not to reach it, but for the thrill of the chase.

Millennium Actress is streaming on HBO Max.

Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.

#Millennium #Actress #Favorite #Satoshi #Kon #FilmAnime,GKids,Madhouse,Millennium Actress,Satoshi Kon">‘Millennium Actress’ Will Always Be My Favorite Satoshi Kon Film

Director Guillermo del Toro once compared watching a movie for the first time to going on a blind date. The first date is flirtatious with promise; the second go-around is the proper date. By the time you rewatch a movie three or four more times, you’ve graduated to marriage. In all my years watching anime for work and leisure, there’s no film I’ve felt married to as much as I do toward Satoshi Kon’s finest film, Millennium Actress.

Unlike Kon’s showier film, which pushes animation to the forefront with adult themes by front-loading its opening moments with dreamlike imagery that provokes you into unease and awe-struck wonder, Millennium Actress‘ brand of phantasmal imagery doesn’t flourish in magical realism, horror, or yuletide merriment. Millennium Actress blossoms in the hazy-bright subjectivity and romanticization of memory. Namely, the memory of former showbiz actress Chiyoko Fujiwara (JP: Fumiko Orikasa, Mami Koyama; EN: Abby Trott, Erin Yvette, Cindy Robinson). When a reporter and his cameraman make a pilgrimage to Chiyoko’s home for an interview recounting her career, they wind up traveling through her memories and films.

Chiyoko regales her guests, reminiscing about being a child during World War II, the mysterious man she helped flee from police officers, the promise they made to each other, and how his sudden disappearance led her to pursue stardom in cinema. Her hope was that she’d be so successful they’d have no choice but to reunite someday by the sheer gravitational force of her star power—if he’s even still alive. With her storied career behind her, Chiyoko’s life is spent longing forever and a day for a reunion that may never come.

While the surface-level intrigue of a journalist interviewing a subject isn’t lost on me, given my vocation, the 2001 film feels like my personal cinematic Amigara fault; what perpetually strikes me about Kon’s film is how it takes its otherwise pleasantly banal story on the page and breathes vibrant life into it through artistry the likes of which the anime industry may never see again. Kon’s blocking and camera work have already been praised to death, and rightfully so, as the stuff film students study to understand scene setting, and Studio Madhouse’s creative efforts with Millennium Actress are no exception. What gets me invigorated about Millennium Actress whenever the film crosses my mind in my day-to-day is how it plays with memory as an active, living tapestry over the static, absolute depictions of it I’ve encountered in other media.

As Chiyoko recounts the chapters of her life—her humble beginnings in film, the trials and tribulations she faced to become a household name for a time—her audience in both viewers and the journalists who’re guests in her home are struck with the poignant sense that her life is one of pyrrhic victories. No matter how big she got, the goalpost was to be big enough that her assumed paramour would find her from her own clout, and they’d reunite in the most saccharine way imaginable; it never manifests as the reward at the end of her hard-earned journey—a journey that rivals the millennia her visage graces immortalized in celluloid. It’s Sisyphean, and the pain of being trapped recounting her trek up to this point feels less like a trip down memory lane and more like a prison behind the guardrails of her all-encompassing dissatisfactions.

‘Millennium Actress’ Will Always Be My Favorite Satoshi Kon Film Director Guillermo del Toro once compared watching a movie for the first time to going on a blind date. The first date is flirtatious with promise; the second go-around is the proper date. By the time you rewatch a movie three or four more times, you’ve graduated to marriage. In all my years watching anime for work and leisure, there’s no film I’ve felt married to as much as I do toward Satoshi Kon’s finest film, Millennium Actress. Unlike Kon’s showier film, which pushes animation to the forefront with adult themes by front-loading its opening moments with dreamlike imagery that provokes you into unease and awe-struck wonder, Millennium Actress‘ brand of phantasmal imagery doesn’t flourish in magical realism, horror, or yuletide merriment. Millennium Actress blossoms in the hazy-bright subjectivity and romanticization of memory. Namely, the memory of former showbiz actress Chiyoko Fujiwara (JP: Fumiko Orikasa, Mami Koyama; EN: Abby Trott, Erin Yvette, Cindy Robinson). When a reporter and his cameraman make a pilgrimage to Chiyoko’s home for an interview recounting her career, they wind up traveling through her memories and films. Chiyoko regales her guests, reminiscing about being a child during World War II, the mysterious man she helped flee from police officers, the promise they made to each other, and how his sudden disappearance led her to pursue stardom in cinema. Her hope was that she’d be so successful they’d have no choice but to reunite someday by the sheer gravitational force of her star power—if he’s even still alive. With her storied career behind her, Chiyoko’s life is spent longing forever and a day for a reunion that may never come. [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWGRmtTUkvg[/embed] While the surface-level intrigue of a journalist interviewing a subject isn’t lost on me, given my vocation, the 2001 film feels like my personal cinematic Amigara fault; what perpetually strikes me about Kon’s film is how it takes its otherwise pleasantly banal story on the page and breathes vibrant life into it through artistry the likes of which the anime industry may never see again. Kon’s blocking and camera work have already been praised to death, and rightfully so, as the stuff film students study to understand scene setting, and Studio Madhouse’s creative efforts with Millennium Actress are no exception. What gets me invigorated about Millennium Actress whenever the film crosses my mind in my day-to-day is how it plays with memory as an active, living tapestry over the static, absolute depictions of it I’ve encountered in other media. As Chiyoko recounts the chapters of her life—her humble beginnings in film, the trials and tribulations she faced to become a household name for a time—her audience in both viewers and the journalists who’re guests in her home are struck with the poignant sense that her life is one of pyrrhic victories. No matter how big she got, the goalpost was to be big enough that her assumed paramour would find her from her own clout, and they’d reunite in the most saccharine way imaginable; it never manifests as the reward at the end of her hard-earned journey—a journey that rivals the millennia her visage graces immortalized in celluloid. It’s Sisyphean, and the pain of being trapped recounting her trek up to this point feels less like a trip down memory lane and more like a prison behind the guardrails of her all-encompassing dissatisfactions. © Madhouse/GKIDS/HBO Max Then something magical happens. In the way memory isn’t us replaying events exactly as they occurred but reconstructing them from our own fallibly human recountenances, Chiyoko breaks free from the script of her own memory, transforming it into a lucid dream where her agency is superimposed over the roles she played, giving her the power to pursue the man she spent years waiting for. This, in turn, transports both the journalists and audiences into the fabric of the fantastical roles she’s played, referencing a pastiche of real-life cinema, including Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Chiyoko flips the script on the very fabric of her life’s narrative to arrive at her truth. Along that journey, Kon weaves a stirring, imaginative, sobering tale integrating the universal pang of life, life’s regrets, and what we make of what’s left when we approach our final curtain calls, looking back on the journey we faced to get to our final destination. And the answer Chiyoko arrives at as the film bookends itself, as she’s sat in the cockpit of a space rocket set for the stars, is etched in my soul forever. I treasure Millennium Actress so much that I nearly went into orbit myself when I interviewed Lady Snowblood actress Meiko Kaji during a Japan Society retrospective event earlier this year celebrating her 60-year career. It took nearly every fiber of my being to maintain my cool as my prepped questions for our Zoom interview made me realize I was put smack dab in the same scenario as Millennium Actress‘ journalists. Like them, I was interviewing and guffawing at the answers I received, which landed beyond the scope of what I could’ve ever hoped for from an actress whom I had the awesome responsibility to encapsulate a career that doubled my own lifetime. Like Chiyoko, Meiko never intended to be an actress at all. But through stubborn determination woven within the woman behind the character actress, she made a way out of no way. That shit means something to me, man.  [embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfnRYdTpzbs[/embed] Whether it’s Wong Kar-wai, Studio Ghibli, or the late-great dreamscape auteur, Satoshi Kon, everyone’s got their favorites from an eclectic creative’s body of work. Sometimes those favorites coincide with their indelible effects on both pop culture and their status as poster children for their visual ethos—your In the Mood for Love, Spirited Away, and Perfect Blue. But my favorites of the bunch tend to be those with middle-child syndrome in their remarkable films. I’m enamored of how Kar-wai reverse-engineered the quantum Zeno effect of doomed romance and yearning in Happy Together; how Studio Ghibli told a timeless tale of environmentalism against industry and love caught in the crossfire in Princess Mononoke. But most of all, I’m moved by Kon’s beautiful tale of an actress reminiscing over her years spent hounding after an unattainable goal not to reach it, but for the thrill of the chase. Millennium Actress is streaming on HBO Max. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who. #Millennium #Actress #Favorite #Satoshi #Kon #FilmAnime,GKids,Madhouse,Millennium Actress,Satoshi Kon
© Madhouse/GKIDS/HBO Max

Then something magical happens.

In the way memory isn’t us replaying events exactly as they occurred but reconstructing them from our own fallibly human recountenances, Chiyoko breaks free from the script of her own memory, transforming it into a lucid dream where her agency is superimposed over the roles she played, giving her the power to pursue the man she spent years waiting for. This, in turn, transports both the journalists and audiences into the fabric of the fantastical roles she’s played, referencing a pastiche of real-life cinema, including Akira Kurosawa’s Throne of Blood, Ishirō Honda’s Godzilla, and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, as Chiyoko flips the script on the very fabric of her life’s narrative to arrive at her truth.

Along that journey, Kon weaves a stirring, imaginative, sobering tale integrating the universal pang of life, life’s regrets, and what we make of what’s left when we approach our final curtain calls, looking back on the journey we faced to get to our final destination. And the answer Chiyoko arrives at as the film bookends itself, as she’s sat in the cockpit of a space rocket set for the stars, is etched in my soul forever.

I treasure Millennium Actress so much that I nearly went into orbit myself when I interviewed Lady Snowblood actress Meiko Kaji during a Japan Society retrospective event earlier this year celebrating her 60-year career. It took nearly every fiber of my being to maintain my cool as my prepped questions for our Zoom interview made me realize I was put smack dab in the same scenario as Millennium Actress‘ journalists. Like them, I was interviewing and guffawing at the answers I received, which landed beyond the scope of what I could’ve ever hoped for from an actress whom I had the awesome responsibility to encapsulate a career that doubled my own lifetime. Like Chiyoko, Meiko never intended to be an actress at all. But through stubborn determination woven within the woman behind the character actress, she made a way out of no way. That shit means something to me, man. 

Whether it’s Wong Kar-wai, Studio Ghibli, or the late-great dreamscape auteur, Satoshi Kon, everyone’s got their favorites from an eclectic creative’s body of work. Sometimes those favorites coincide with their indelible effects on both pop culture and their status as poster children for their visual ethos—your In the Mood for Love, Spirited Away, and Perfect Blue.

But my favorites of the bunch tend to be those with middle-child syndrome in their remarkable films. I’m enamored of how Kar-wai reverse-engineered the quantum Zeno effect of doomed romance and yearning in Happy Together; how Studio Ghibli told a timeless tale of environmentalism against industry and love caught in the crossfire in Princess Mononoke.

But most of all, I’m moved by Kon’s beautiful tale of an actress reminiscing over her years spent hounding after an unattainable goal not to reach it, but for the thrill of the chase.

Millennium Actress is streaming on HBO Max.

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