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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015
    franz_conrad wrote
    Sometimes tone is about the little things. Sweet music played against that is very different to sugar with coffee. Spielberg has a kind of irony in him, but he has no teeth when children are involved, even robotic ones. He's a boring parent in that regard.


    You must forgive me if I don't take any second-hand account of Spielberg's parenting skills particularly seriously.

    Also, I don't agree with you as far as 'teeth' are concerned. Spielberg is one of the few directors in history who has managed to conjure up the REAL faces and behaviour of children on screen. He's similar to Truffaut or Celine Sciamma that way, and you can't manage that feat without knowing a thing or two about the nuts and bolts of child psychology (unlike, say, the laughable TOMORROWLAND in which the roundfaced children in the first act talk unnaturally like semi-adults). For me, A.I. is a quintessential example thereof -- although it's a peculiar case because it's not a normal child, so something is always a bit "off".
    I am extremely serious.
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      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015 edited
    Spielberg's portrayal of children in his films is pretty spot on with no greater example than in E.T. I watch that film and I see almost a mirror image of my own children.

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
  1. Yeah fair enough. I've never forgiven him for rescuing the son in War of the Worlds.

    But guys, you've actually ignored the one detail I brought up in favour of unecessary personal slam I followed it with. Bloody Mary switched for coffee. Hell of a change to the final beat. A smiling child who can make your favourite cocktail to drown your sorrows is quite different to the smiling child who knows how to make your morning pick me up. We wouldn't be disarmed if a normal child did the latter, although we might be surprised. It's hard to be maudlin about the former. Who would want that eternity? Only someone programmed to love it.
    A butterfly thinks therefore I am
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      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015
    franz_conrad wrote
    Yeah fair enough. I've never forgiven him for rescuing the son in War of the Worlds.


    That was dogshit. No arguments can be made to defend that atrocity!

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
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      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015
    franz_conrad wrote
    But guys, you've actually ignored the one detail I brought up in favour of unecessary personal slam I followed it with. Bloody Mary switched for coffee. Hell of a change to the final beat. A smiling child who can make your favourite cocktail to drown your sorrows is quite different to the smiling child who knows how to make your morning pick me up. We wouldn't be disarmed if a normal child did the latter, although we might be surprised. It's hard to be maudlin about the former. Who would want that eternity? Only someone programmed to love it.


    I would have chalked that up to David being naive and not knowing what the proper drink to prepare in the morning was. I don't think it changes anything to be honest.

    I really need to revisit the movie because I like it a bit more each time I see it. It's flawed for sure but I definitely appreciate more now then when I frist saw it during its initial release.

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
  2. It's a great film. Just a bit monophonically sweet on the home stretch.

    To be fair, if you don't think there's a difference in the drink, I can't convince you there is. I just sense the same filmmaker at work that had a computer sing 'daisy' to an astronaut in its dying moments. He had an almost English sense of humour, Kubrick.
    A butterfly thinks therefore I am
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015 edited
    Never had an issue with the son turning up safe in WOTW, nor that David is making coffee instead of Bloody Mary. Both are rather marginal issues. The most interesting thing about the 'coffee' thing in A.I. is the shot of David's eyes and top of his head mirrored in the bench -- one out of a long string of shots that display him as an alien in the family (the "UFO shot" through the lamp at dinner being the pinnacle).

    For me, A.I. is pretty much close to perfection as far as filmmaking goes.
    I am extremely serious.
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      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015
    Thor wrote
    Never had an issue with the son turning up safe in WOTW, nor that David is making coffee instead of Bloody Mary. Both are rather marginal issues.


    The son surviving A FIREBOMB is not marginal. His "sacrifice" is null and void and his return to his family is just utter cheeseball. One of the worst Spielboogied moments in the history of his very fine career.

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
  3. The only thing I remember about that film is that I want a version set in Victorian England. And possibly scored by Jeff Wayne but John Powell or David Arnold would be fine too.
    Bach's music is vibrant and inspired.
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015 edited
    Erik Woods wrote
    Thor wrote
    Never had an issue with the son turning up safe in WOTW, nor that David is making coffee instead of Bloody Mary. Both are rather marginal issues.


    The son surviving A FIREBOMB is not marginal. His "sacrifice" is null and void and his return to his family is just utter cheeseball. One of the worst Spielboogied moments in the history of his very fine career.

    -Erik-


    We don't really know anything, do we? Yes, we see a firebomb taking place on the other side of ridge, but in typical Spielberg/Hitchcock fashion, nothing is shown explicitly. This means any number of things could have happened. He could have been in a bomb shelter, a cave, gone in a different direction than straight for it, the bomb can have gone off somewhere else etc. Only your mind sets the limits.

    So yeah -- I have zero problem with this. In fact, I have very few problems with that film at all. Maybe Dakota Fanning a little bit, but she's always rather annoying.
    I am extremely serious.
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      CommentAuthorSouthall
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015
    Captain Future wrote
    The only thing I remember about that film is that I want a version set in Victorian England. And possibly scored by Jeff Wayne.


    I'd say the chances of that are a million to one.
  4. Thor wrote
    Never had an issue with the son turning up safe in WOTW, nor that David is making coffee instead of Bloody Mary. Both are rather marginal issues. The most interesting thing about the 'coffee' thing in A.I. is the shot of David's eyes and top of his head mirrored in the bench -- one out of a long string of shots that display him as an alien in the family (the "UFO shot" through the lamp at dinner being the pinnacle).

    For me, A.I. is pretty much close to perfection as far as filmmaking goes.


    Who can fault Spielberg's style? But you emphasise style over content to such a degree that it can fall by the wayside that the expression was conveying an idea. If the idea was different, it would have been expressed differently, you would have felt differently.

    At the very least we can say that Spielberg's ending was not exactly Kubrick's, Unless that shot is somewhere in a storyboard Kubrick did. He took it in his own direction, which is his right as an artist, and the result is something that - if not sentimental, is certainly more sentimental than the Bloody Mary idea.

    Which is the only point I was making: Just because the source material leads to the same dramatic setup doesn't mean two filmmakers whose work rarely felt similar would have engaged an audience the same way with that setup. Everything else these men have done tells us that.
    A butterfly thinks therefore I am
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015 edited
    I don't really care to engage in hypotheticals. We have Kubrick's ideas (fact) and we have Spielberg's realization of those ideas (also fact). The most constructive thing, therefore, is to judge this and only this. Leave the speculation to fiction.

    But you emphasise style over content to such a degree that it can fall by the wayside that the expression was conveying an idea.


    You should know me so well by now that you know I think style very much IS content, when in the capable hands of people like Spielberg. None of the ideas would be particularly interesting unless he hadn't realized them the way he did.
    I am extremely serious.
  5. Fair enough, but the connotations of a cup of coffee in the morning made by a child in America are rather different to the kid who runs the cocktail bar for his parent's alcoholism. If style can wipe away that difference, I grant you it is content. I don't believe it can. (Nor do I believe the style would have been the same, but if I'm not allowed to use a hypothetical, I'll just stick to the material world.)
    A butterfly thinks therefore I am
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015 edited
    I'm both a bit confused and amused by your hang-up in this, because in the relevant scenes in the film (I presume we're talking about the same scenes), it's neither about children making coffee nor drinks for their parents' alcoholism. It's about establishing David as an "alien" in his new environment. From the dissonance of the initial imagery in the montage sequences to the consonance of the shots between David and Monica afterwards. Why does it have to be more acidic or subversive than that?
    I am extremely serious.
  6. Ok, all I'm saying is that one of these things is the penultimate beat in the Kubrick film, and the other is the penultimate beat in the Spielberg one. Last impressions can be quite telling. Their endings were not equivalent in feel. I wasn't actually reacting to you funnily enough. (Surprise surprise - it's become an argument between us. Everytime I get to this point in one of these I swear I never want to do it again, because it's just so unsatisfying.) Martijn wrote:

    Yes, I think the 'Spielberg tacked on a sentimental end' myth has been quite thoroughly debunked... which takes nothing away from the fact that the film would have been a SHITload better had that misfit aliens-or-humans-or-robots ending been cut anyway.


    To which my response was: well, he changed one thing at least, and maybe the little things can be as important as the big ones when it comes to sentimentality. (If it didn't say something, why change it at all?)
    A butterfly thinks therefore I am
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 27th 2015 edited
    Sorry, I thought you were talking about the initial 'house chores' montage, not the 'last day' montage towards the end of the film. I missed that bit in the preceding discussion. Still, the same argument holds. Now bathed in a slightly artificial light somewhere between dream and reality, the love between David and Monica is what's keeping it real. That's what matters.

    I can understand that in the hypothetical "film of your mind", you would have wanted something more acidic (not only in this sequence, but others too). That's fair enough. Personally, I go to Kubrick for Kubrick and Spielberg for Spielberg. I don't judge A.I. "as if" it were a Kubrick film, even if most of the thematic ideas come from him.
    I am extremely serious.
  7. Thor wrote
    Personally, I go to Kubrick for Kubrick and Spielberg for Spielberg. I don't judge A.I. "as if" it were a Kubrick film, even if most of the thematic ideas come from him.


    Nor do I, but I don't think it works to suggest there would have been no qualitative difference between the two, which is what I was reacting to.
    A butterfly thinks therefore I am
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 28th 2015
    franz_conrad wrote
    Thor wrote
    Personally, I go to Kubrick for Kubrick and Spielberg for Spielberg. I don't judge A.I. "as if" it were a Kubrick film, even if most of the thematic ideas come from him.


    Nor do I, but I don't think it works to suggest there would have been no qualitative difference between the two, which is what I was reacting to.


    Oh yes, I'm sure there would have been differences. But we have what we have, and I guess that's my point in all of this.
    I am extremely serious.
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeMay 28th 2015
    Southall wrote
    Captain Future wrote
    The only thing I remember about that film is that I want a version set in Victorian England. And possibly scored by Jeff Wayne.


    I'd say the chances of that are a million to one.


    He said.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorMartijn
    • CommentTimeMay 28th 2015
    But still...
    'no passion nor excitement here, despite all the notes and musicians' ~ Falkirkbairn
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      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeMay 29th 2015 edited
    Thor wrote
    Erik Woods wrote
    Thor wrote
    Never had an issue with the son turning up safe in WOTW, nor that David is making coffee instead of Bloody Mary. Both are rather marginal issues.


    The son surviving A FIREBOMB is not marginal. His "sacrifice" is null and void and his return to his family is just utter cheeseball. One of the worst Spielboogied moments in the history of his very fine career.

    -Erik-


    We don't really know anything, do we? Yes, we see a firebomb taking place on the other side of ridge, but in typical Spielberg/Hitchcock fashion, nothing is shown explicitly. This means any number of things could have happened. He could have been in a bomb shelter, a cave, gone in a different direction than straight for it, the bomb can have gone off somewhere else etc. Only your mind sets the limits.


    Ummm... yeah... NO! No one on the other side of the hill survives THIS! The aliens napalmed the hill.

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeMay 29th 2015
    Are you sure you're not making excuses for your favourite director Thor? Though IMO it's nowhere near the classic of George Pal's vision ( and Pal's version will continue to outlive Spielberg's film ) I do like Spielberg's WoTW despite its flaws, it's one of a few "recent" films that has genuinely creepy moments, the first appearance of a machine rising out of the ground with the dull grey sky background is for me sublimely and deeply horrific and memorable.
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeMay 29th 2015
    I hope I'm making sense because I went out with friends tonight and have got pretty darned drunk!
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
    • CommentAuthorTimmer
    • CommentTimeMay 29th 2015
    Sorry, let me re-phrase that...

    I hip im makim sence bedurse I went oot

    fuk off!
    On Friday I ate a lot of dust and appeared orange near the end of the day ~ Bregt
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      CommentAuthorAtham
    • CommentTimeMay 29th 2015
    Feck Tim!
    Loving the classic George Pal Film makes perfect sense, drunk or sober! beer
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 29th 2015 edited
    Timmer wrote
    Are you sure you're not making excuses for your favourite director Thor? Though IMO it's nowhere near the classic of George Pal's vision ( and Pal's version will continue to outlive Spielberg's film ) I do like Spielberg's WoTW despite its flaws, it's one of a few "recent" films that has genuinely creepy moments, the first appearance of a machine rising out of the ground with the dull grey sky background is for me sublimely and deeply horrific and memorable.


    No excuses, really. There are definitely films and aspects within films of Spielberg that I have issues with, but not the ones being brought forth in this discussion (so far). I still maintain that as long as you don't see Tom's son die explicitly in WOTW, there's plenty of room for possibilities. If one insists that just because you see some of the flares and lights of a napalm attack on the other side of the ridge (but not the attack explicitly), that EVERYONE must have died, I think that's a sign of lack of imagination on the viewer's behalf.

    Never seen the Pal version (as far as I can remember), but Spielberg's version is an incredibly underrated film (the basement scene being my favourite in it).

    Oh and kudos for writing so coherently under the influence! I'm never bothered with correcting myself in such circumstances.
    I am extremely serious.
  8. On the other hand if your composer makes your audience vicariously feel the sacrifice, you can be accused of being the boy who cried wolf by an audience who would understandably feel cheated.
    A butterfly thinks therefore I am
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      CommentAuthorThor
    • CommentTimeMay 29th 2015
    franz_conrad wrote
    On the other hand if your composer makes your audience vicariously feel the sacrifice, you can be accused of being the boy who cried wolf by an audience who would understandably feel cheated.


    Maybe. But no more than a character in any film that you thought were dead, reappearing later on. I also don't remember it as being a particularly melodramatic moment. Yes, there's a bit of heartfelt dialogue between Tom and his son, but it's more "matter-of-fact" than celebratory, if memory serves.
    I am extremely serious.
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      CommentAuthorErik Woods
    • CommentTimeMay 29th 2015
    Thor wrote
    If one insists that just because you see some of the flares and lights of a napalm attack on the other side of the ridge (but not the attack explicitly), that EVERYONE must have died, I think that's a sign of lack of imagination on the viewer's behalf.


    Not a lack of imagination. It's common sense.

    -Erik-
    host and executive producer of THE CINEMATIC SOUND RADIO PODCAST | www.cinematicsound.net | www.facebook.com/cinematicsound | I HAVE TINNITUS!