Remember Pootie Tang? Yeah, so do we — even if we wish we didn’t. Released in 2001, the blaxploitation satire film represented Louis C.K.’s most recent directorial credit for a feature-length movie. In the 16 years since, the comedy legend has directed comedy specials and television episodes (mostly his own shows), but never movies.
On Tuesday, though, the Los Angeles Times reported that C.K. is debuting a new project at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF), titled I Love You, Daddy. C.K. will star in the film as Glen Topher, a successful New York television producer and writer and Chloë Grace Moretz (Clouds of Sils Maria) will play his daughter, China.
The black-and-white movie was shot in secret on 35mm film and somehow did not leak a single time — a minor miracle in the 24/7 news cycle of modern Hollywood. The cast of I Love You, Daddy is littered with stars, including Charlie Day (It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia), John Malkovich (Deepwater Horizon), and Louie veteran Pamela Adlon (Californication), though we don’t yet know anything about their roles.
C.K. is no stranger to surprise rollouts. Last year, his hit web series Horace and Pete appeared on the comedian’s website without notice, quickly attracting a cult following. Louie, his popular cable series, has been on indefinite hiatus for a few years. It’s likely that his extended break from directorial work was due to clashes over creative control; the production for Pootie Tang was notoriously frustrating for C.K., who vehemently disagreed with Paramount on several points. In a 2011 interview, he said he prefers to work with “nobody controlling him (sic).”
TIFF– which opens September 7 — will play host to a number of anticipated films, with directorial debuts from Brie Larson (Unicorn Store) and Aaron Sorkin (Molly’s Game), plus John Curran’s Chappaquiddick (based upon the Ted Kennedy accident), and more.
Until recently, most film festivals ignored television content, but that’s begun to change of late, with new TV sections at TIFF, Sundance, and Tribeca. On the television front at TIFF, two episodes of HBO’s James Franco vehicle The Deuce will screen, as will four episodes of Starz’s The Girlfriend Experience.
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.