16 Comments
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Christa Lei's avatar

OH NO! I'm guilty of being late-- but to be fair, I have ADHD, and I try my best with my apps and stuff. I try to let people know how late I'm going to be though. I'm working on it. Past me has done wonders for future me (once, in college, anticipating how late I'd be for an appointment-- I put it in an hour earlier than it actually was, so I'd show up on time-- and half an hour early!)

I was way too young when I first watched AI so Jude Law being a sex bot was lost on me (oops,) but I did find it unbelievably sad.

My hottest take is that I think brioche buns should not be used as burger buns. They simply do not have the structural integrity to withstand the patty's juices! But, alas, I'll save that for another day...

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Sarah Lyn Rogers's avatar

I’m signed up for your Prep & Teach workshop! I’ve been on the fence for a while about whether I want to teach workshops, and how I would even get started. So thank you for offering this ❤️

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

Oh, I’m so excited to see you there! It’ll be great 🥰

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Tiffany Chu's avatar

A.I. was so sad to me, only because I related way too much to the robot ugh. I never wanna watch it again. Also, 100% AGREE WITH THE PUNCTUALITY THING. It drives me absolutely NUTS when people don't respect other people's time.

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

Pour one out for the entire A.I. movie.

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Robert Walrod's avatar

It's one of the all-time great child actor performances, I think. The way that David goes from uncanny valley (and more than a little frightening) at the beginning to incredibly sympathetic.

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

It’s a BEAUTIFUL performance. Gosh. Just amazing.

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Imola's avatar

And I completely agree with you on punctuality!

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Imola's avatar

I could be on board with almost everything, but number 8!! Red Bull is better than coffee?? No way! How have you come to this conclusion? I’m curious. I just love my cofee and never drink red bull…

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Tania Weatherley's avatar

I freakin love the AI movie. One of my all time favs

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Robert Walrod's avatar

AI is also in a very real sense the last Stanley Kubrick movie, and in some ways the negative image of 2001.

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

Do you feel like it came out similarly to the way it would’ve if Kubrick had done it?

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Robert Walrod's avatar

It's hard to say.

In an interview, Spielberg talks about how critics were very interested in dividing it into Kubrickian (cold, satirical, alienation) and Spielbergian (warm, sentimental, nostalgic) elements and that they almost always got it wrong -- that everything they identified as Spielbergian sentimentality was in Kubrick's original story treatments. According to him, the ending was Kubrick's idea and his biggest contribution to the story was the "Flesh Faire."

From the beginning, before Spielberg joined the project, the core idea was Pinocchio as science fiction -- I think it was always going to be a bit sentimental, and that was maybe intensified by Kubrick facing his own mortality and reflecting on his childhood memories, etc. He always wanted to collaborate with Spielberg at some point and in the nineties decides that the best fit would be Spielberg directing AI and him writing and producing it. One of his (Kubrick's) long-running artistic ambitions was to make a film for children.

That's part of what makes AI so fascinating. At some points, it really does work -- IE directly hitting the emotions -- like a Disney movie, playing on very childlike fears of rejection and abandonment. At other times, it goes into very adult material (sexbots, etc.) and has the dystopian aspects and dark comedy you'd expect from sixties and seventies Kubrick.

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

I love this. Thank you for taking the time to share it—I appreciate it, because I find it all so fascinating. Film is a big gap in my cultural literacy.

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Robert Walrod's avatar

You're very welcome.

We all have gaps. Ars longa, vita brevis.

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Esmé Weijun Wang's avatar

What are YOUR bad opinions & hot takes?

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