THE REEL DIARY

Because contemporary life feels like an unscripted movie.

The October Issue · Issue No. 2

REEL FEEL

October is here, and the Reel Diary got a lot busier. There are new movie and TV takes, two editorials about the strange metrics of being online, and a tech story that moved fast. Below is everything new, then a catch-up on the September posts that came after the last issue.

MOVIE DIARY

Talamasca wasn't very good. Episode one of AMC's Anne Rice spinoff kept switching tones, and I never felt the pull to press play on episode two. Read it · Watch the video

'Sweet Bobby': A Journey into Psychological Torment A catfishing documentary that opens on a hopeful voice and builds to a betrayal that's hard to forgive. Read it · Watch the video

Love & Lazer Beams: LANTERNS Continues to Dominate Streaming TV Episodes 4 and 5 recapped and reviewed: the Martian Man Hunter reveal, a deadly car crash, and John's shocking choice. Spoilers ahead. Read it · Watch the video

The Rich Flu, or Eat the Rich A sci-fi drama where a deadly flu hits only the wealthy, and why it left me with dread and catharsis instead of satisfaction. Read it · Watch the Short

EDITORIAL

Performance metrics are brain slop. And, the big D word. Two creator stories where the numbers, good and bad, ended in disaster, and a third way to measure a good day. Read it

They changed the view count metric but I didn't notice anything YouTube changed how it counts long-form views, the comments panicked, and then, nothing. Read it · Watch the video

JOURNAL

Astra pulled. Dots is live. Meta is watching. OpenAI shelved its next model, GPT-6.1 Astra, after safety testing turned up unsettling results. A day later it unveiled Dots, always-on AI agents aimed at Meta's Muse. Would you hand an assistant like that the keys to your day? Read it · Watch the Short · The news brief behind it

Below, a fishing town, and something in the water Netflix's six-episode limited series landed October 8. Josh Hartnett plays a fisherman in a Newfoundland island town where an unidentified creature starts terrorizing the community. More on the Journal page

WHAT YOU MISSED IN SEPTEMBER

These went up after the September issue was sent.

What's opening this September, a stacked month for horror Pumpkinhead 2, Backrooms on HBO Max, the Resident Evil reboot, Parasomnia, Don't Move, and Family, across theaters, streaming and VOD. Read it

Two AI features, two rollbacks Google's Earth AI overlay and Instagram's Muse Image both launched and were pulled within days. A look at the pattern, plus a Waymo fleet update. Read it · Watch the Short

The Internet is Boring (or Web 1.0 is Still Alive) Web 2.0 is a repetitive scroll of the same bits, while a preserved galaxy of Web 1.0 is still standing and browsable. Read it · Watch the Short

The irony of being called not human by an AI Called a bot by readers and flagged as an AI narrator by YouTube, a human is still writing. Read it

THAT'S THE REEL

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Quiana Writer & Editor, The Reel Diary