Happy Sunday Hollywood tech nerds!

Upcoming in this post:

🔥 How Tarantino Created His Own Film Genre

🎙 The Chainsmokers go From Hollywood to Cyberworld

🍿 Kernels: 3 links worth making popcorn for

How Tarantino Created His Own Film Genre

What makes Quentin Tarantino so special? In a new VICE Guide to Film, Samuel L. Jackson, Juliette Lewis, and Eli Roth reflect on Tarantino’s career.

Was it because Tarantino dropped out at 15 to work at a movie theater? Is that why he’s so good at making movies. No, explains Roth. “He’s just a genius.”

There’s 3 traits that really stick out. The last one was the most interesting.

1. Violence as entertainment. When Tarantino’s first movie Reservoir Dogs came out, violent movies were losing popularity. Reservoir Dogs brought violence back into the forefront.

2. Quentin Tarantino’s characters love to talk. “The average movie is 1/3 dialogue, 2/3 action. Quentin’s movies are the opposite.” Specifically, Tarantino’s characters talk the way they like to talk. If they’re criminals and low-lifes, they talk like low-lifes and drop the n-word 6 times in a sentence. They talk like real people.

3. There’s no devices allowed on set. Nothing with an on/off switch. There’s literally a guy that collects your phone, kindle, whatever. Jackson says this creates a fun creative space where people are talking, dancing, and smoking in between shots.

Watch the full Vice Guide to Film here:

The Chainsmokers go from Hollywood to Cyberworld

Unless you’re deep in the venture capital world, you might not realize the DJ duo Chainsmokers run a $35 million fund.

They’ve invested in companies like superemail client Superhuman, genAI company Stability AI, and crypto entertainment brand RTFKT.

So how did they go from playing the biggest stages in the world to sitting around with cybersecurity nerds at hacker conferences?

“When you're an artist with a platform like ours, you're getting sought out for two things: distribution and marketing—consumer-related brands or creator economy and social,” explained Chainsmokers Alex Pall. He wanted to change that: why not invest in cybersecurity companies and bring their marketing expertise there? “We wanted to go out and invest in tools that, behind the scenes, could be the things powering society.”

The Chainsmokers also had a personal experience regarding cybersecurity that many Hollywood insiders could certainly relate to: while they were on a trip to London, their Twitter was hacked and someone started posting pretending to be them. Additionally, Pall explained “You know, growing up, I was on ClarisWorks pretending I was hacking into things, and I was a big fan of the movie Hackers. They were really cool to me.”

The Chainsmokers are 100% living proof you can be a Hollywood party boy and a complete tech nerd. Embrace your nerdiness—keep learning about tech, cybersecurity, and everything you can.

Kernels (3 links worth making popcorn for)

Here’s a round-up of cool links about Hollywood and technology:

Fight Club to The Social Network: A Look at Director David Fincher. (link)

Adam Driver reveals behind-the-scenes secrets of movie Ferrari. (link)

Bryan Callen explains what Joaquin Phoenix was like on Joker. (link)