The Oscar race got a little less cloudy in Feb. 8 following awards from the Producer’s Guild and Director’s Guild. Anora took home both, cementing its status as this year’s Best Picture frontrunner.
“My imposter syndrome is skyrocketing right now, as well as my cortisol levels,” director Sean Baker said as he accepted the DGA prize for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Theatrical Feature Film “It’s such an honor to be recognized by my peers.”
After thanking his team and the folks at Neon who produced the film, he acknowledged that they were able to film the film on location in New York City for just $6 million. He also called out the film’s cast, especially star Mikey Madison, who he said changed the way he’ll be working with actors moving forward.
“Working with [Madison] has changed the way I will be directing actors in the future, because of what she gave,” Baker said. “Hearing her incredible ideas … a year before production, what she wanted to bring to the production and what she did bring to it. [She has] an incredible career ahead.”
Anora‘s wins cement its frontrunner status. 25 of the past 34 PGA Theatrical Motion Picture winners have gone on to repeat in Best Picture, and 19 of the past 22 DGA winners have repeated in Best Director at the Oscars. While there are certainly years that buck this trend, it’s an auspicious sign for a movie that emerged as a potential frontrunner all the way back at the Cannes Film Festival in May.
While some pundits worried that Anora might be too controversial or spiky, given that it’s about an erotic dancer who marries a wealthy Russian boy only to see the marriage fall apart, it seems like there are people in Academy who are ready to reward it. The only question remaining is whether the movie will be able to keep up this momentum.
Some of the best shots in Grok Imagine’s AI-made Odyssey don’t contain actors. Ancient landscapes stretch into the distance. Close-ups of grimy hands suggest people who have touched something rougher than a keyboard. For a few seconds, the illusion holds.
https://twitter.com/imagine/status/2113712964419063911
YouTube videos could soon look better without eating quite so much data, right? Thankfully, the platform plans to introduce a new video format called AV2 on its web player in early 2027, promising more efficient streaming and potentially fewer playback hiccups on slower internet connections. The big headline is a roughly 30% improvement in compression efficiency over AV1, YouTube's existing video format. That doesn't guarantee every video will use 30% less data, but it could make streaming a little easier on both internet connections and data allowances.
What is AV2, and why should viewers care?
YouTube is changing how its Home page works, giving viewers more control over what shows up there and making some of the app’s most-used sections easier to reach. Custom Feeds are now replacing the existing topic chips for eligible users, while YouTube is also testing a redesigned top bar on mobile that moves Subscriptions closer to the Home feed.
YouTube first started experimenting with Custom Feeds earlier this year, letting you type out what you wanted to watch and turning that request into its own stream of recommendations. Now, the feature is starting to look less like a side experiment and more like something YouTube actually wants people to use as part of their everyday Home page.