GoNY has scenes in it that just never leave my mind. At first viewing, I thought it was so-so and would be completely out of my head in a week. Nope!

QoS is positive motion toward what I think could truly revive the James Bond franchise: dirt, blood, and darkness. I mean, the guy has been killing people, breaking all known laws, and breaking hearts forever, but it's always been played as a joke, or maybe something that Hugh Hefner is supposed to be doing to pass the time when he's not at the mansion. What if James Bond gets into stories with actual human stakes? It would look more like QoS and less like, oh, say, Moonraker. More like this please!

Australia – You're absolutely right on the long view of this (e.g., our robot conquerors will see Hugh Jackman and Clark Gable as contemporaries) — but in fairness, aren't quite a few more films deserving of this same long view? It was cartoonish, but I took it as a national founding myth put on screen, and those are to be granted a bit of cartoonish excess. It was *beautiful.*

Assassination … – Whenever this flits across the cable, I can't bring myself to turn it off. How many films have explored fear this thoroughly? The conspirators want to be brave enough to do it, but they're scared to death (and we later see that they're scared of more than Jesse James — Jesse James's fame is dangerous too). It's also refreshing to see such an exalted hero go out so believeably. He can't admit it, but he doesn't really want to do the “Jesse James” thing any more, but what is he supposed to do instead? Become a Western Union telegraph intern? Go to Deadwood and say “cocksucker” a lot? So he plays it out, eats breakfast, then looks into his horse portrait, and lets it close out. Excellent movie.

AI — I only wish I could somehow be rid of the knowledge that Spielberg made it. The intrusions of Spielbergian soundtrack throw me. But this a fine exploration of humanity and loss.

Taken — the long view is in order here too, I think. Our robot successors will wonder why this film was not more widely celebrated — I'd place this well above, say, any of the Borne messes or the Missions Impossible, and I completely buy your take on it — that it is the most primal of human dramas. Plus, this had Liam Neeson!

GoNY has scenes in it that just never leave my mind. At first viewing, I thought it was so-so and would be completely out of my head in a week. Nope!

QoS is positive motion toward what I think could truly revive the James Bond franchise: dirt, blood, and darkness. I mean, the guy has been killing people, breaking all known laws, and breaking hearts forever, but it's always been played as a joke, or maybe something that Hugh Hefner is supposed to be doing to pass the time when he's not at the mansion. What if James Bond gets into stories with actual human stakes? It would look more like QoS and less like, oh, say, Moonraker. More like this please!

Australia – You're absolutely right on the long view of this (e.g., our robot conquerors will see Hugh Jackman and Clark Gable as contemporaries) — but in fairness, aren't quite a few more films deserving of this same long view? It was cartoonish, but I took it as a national founding myth put on screen, and those are to be granted a bit of cartoonish excess. It was *beautiful.*

Assassination … – Whenever this flits across the cable, I can't bring myself to turn it off. How many films have explored fear this thoroughly? The conspirators want to be brave enough to do it, but they're scared to death (and we later see that they're scared of more than Jesse James — Jesse James's fame is dangerous too). It's also refreshing to see such an exalted hero go out so believeably. He can't admit it, but he doesn't really want to do the “Jesse James” thing any more, but what is he supposed to do instead? Become a Western Union telegraph intern? Go to Deadwood and say “cocksucker” a lot? So he plays it out, eats breakfast, then looks into his horse portrait, and lets it close out. Excellent movie.

AI — I only wish I could somehow be rid of the knowledge that Spielberg made it. The intrusions of Spielbergian soundtrack throw me. But this a fine exploration of humanity and loss.

Taken — the long view is in order here too, I think. Our robot successors will wonder why this film was not more widely celebrated — I'd place this well above, say, any of the Borne messes or the Missions Impossible, and I completely buy your take on it — that it is the most primal of human dramas. Plus, this had Liam Neeson!

The biggest problem with the film for me was that I couldnt stand Walberg's acting choices and his voice thru the film. Perhaps the foreign actors dubbing will change all of that and I can give the film a second chance.

Imagine a world where an indie theatre such as the belcort every friday night would take a misunderstood movie such as “The Happening” and re-air it in B&W with subtitles.

“Dude… you haven't seen Paul Blart: Mall Cop until you have seen it in French!” :)

“The Assassination” gave me chills, it was just so good. I really REALLY enjoyed it, I'm not sure how much I can stress that. I LOVED it. AI left me speechless, to this day it I watch it any time it comes on. It's very complex, which is one of the reasons why I'm absolutely sure it went over a lot of heads (sadly). I liked Righteous Kill, and I'm a movie snob to end all movie snobs, so that's saying a lot. I agree with a lot, but I just couldn't get into Miami Vice, after an hour I got the sneaking suspicion that it wasn't going anywhere. And Gangs of NY. I watched it, it had some good points, but it mostly faltered for me.

But the precise point of the movie was to break down the notion of what makes us human by positing emotion as nothing more than a controlled response to a stimuli. Humans didn't simply make robots who could run, work, and fuck better than them, they made robots who could outfeel them as well. In the scene before David is fully programmed where he bursts into laughter, can we discern any difference between what he was programmed to find funny and the natural response of the two humans in the scene?

And the ending of A.I. is the most self-critical thing Spielberg has ever allowed himself to shoot. We learn that this was all a flashback triggered by future robots to probe David's emotional journey because they are interested with his life. There's no difference between them digging into his brain looking for a connection and the audiences who go to Spielberg's films looking for an immediate visceral and emotional impact. It's not exactly Peeping Tom, but it's brilliant nonetheless and not at all as saccharine as some would claim (really, the love he foists on the vision of Monica is just the twisted love of it all coming full circle, as he was designed to provide a false outlet for the real Monica's emotions).