Comedy Central has been televising celebrity roasts for years now and, whether you’re a fan of the roastee or not, the collection of comedic talent that shows up at these things makes them worth a watch. According to Deadline, the network recently announced its next victim, and he’s a Hollywood veteran with plenty of history to mine for material.
Rob Lowe (aka, Chris Traeger/The Grinder/Sodapop Curtis from The Outsiders) will be the one absorbing insults for 90-ish consecutive minutes, but lest you think he’s taking this lying down, have a look a the statement he released in preparation for the event.
“What a thrill to once again be following in Justin Bieber’s footsteps,” he said. “I look forward to a night of hilarious jokes recycled from the James Franco Roast. I would like to express my gratitude to the members of my family who have passed away and therefore will not have to endure what promises to be a very special evening.”
Sounds like he’s ready to mix it up, but just who he’ll be trading barbs with remains a mystery. That said, if there’s a roast happening, comedian Jeffrey Ross is somewhere close by.
“Rob Lowe is handsome, talented, successful, and handsome. He needs to be roasted,” said Comedy Central president Kent Alterman. Apparently, one handsome just isn’t enough to describe Lowe, whose trademark good looks are tough to recognize in the tweet below.
From chiseled to shattered. Get ready @RobLowe, the #LoweRoast is coming this summer. pic.twitter.com/UgiL0sDWG5
— Comedy Central (@ComedyCentral) June 9, 2016
Lowe’s recent credits include You, Me and the Apocalypse, The Grinder, and voice work on Moonbeam City and The Lion Guard. The exact date of his roast is still TBD, but it is expected to air sometime this summer.
China just gave Hollywood a cautionary tale about AI filmmaking. Sanxingdui: Future Past, billed as the country's first fully AI-generated movie, hit theaters on October 23 and bombed at the box office.
According to Futurism, the film's reported $1.5 million production budget landed on more than 10,000 screens. Yet it pulled in only about $181,000, averaging roughly $20 per screen, making the budget difficult to recover.
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?