I’m thinking I’ll write something formal up tomorrow, as this film and I have enjoyed quite the journey over the past decade. For now, I’ll let the beautiful work of Janusz Kaminski tell the tale.
I’m thinking I’ll write something formal up tomorrow, as this film and I have enjoyed quite the journey over the past decade. For now, I’ll let the beautiful work of Janusz Kaminski tell the tale.
Comments
48 responses to “10 years ago this weekend”
This film is definitely in my all-time Top 10! Such a fantastic mix of everything I love about movies. And that shot is extremely beautiful!
Definitely one of my favorites as well. I love how people are finally coming around now all these years later. I guess Spielberg proving the ending was Kubrick’s idea changes things. The irony and bittersweet emotion of it makes it a great finale.
His Fire Walk With Me.
Watched this once like 8 years ago. Definitely gonna watch it again this weekend!
Spielberg’s misunderstood masterwork.
I say this without a tiniest bit of hyperbole – no movie has ever had a more profound impact on me than A.I. did (and in the future we might have an interesting discussion on all time great theatrical experiences we’ve all had and why I’ll always treasure “Before Sunset.”).
It is my favorite film of all time and I’ve only seen it three times. I care about this movie so much – I probaly won’t even read the rest of the comments – just one might ruin my day. I’m not really a fan of how that sounds but it is what is.
Actually, It took me five or six days to recover from the initial viewing. It goes without saying that the movie didn’t have to grow on me. I fully got it the first time.
A.I. isn’t just phenomenal or beautiful science fiction. It’s got themes on top of themes (that I could write pages about) and the bottom layer isn’t just depressing. It’s pretty much absolute bleak hopelessness.
Recently, I’ve began drawing parallels between A.I. and The Fountain (another, albeit relatively inferior, fave of mine). Both of them explore the themes of death but wheres The Fountain has, what is ultimately a hopeful ending (with which I wrestled), A.I. is complete denial. No cop-outs.
No one may like Minority Report more than I do. But when I hear about it being a return to form I get really sad. I remember how depressed I was that only very few people actually understood the film (at the time a small upside was seeing viewers who walked away profoundly disturbed and very quiet). The rubbish I read about the ending – the very core of the film – it was downright painful. The people who found it upbeat made my jaw drop. People who claimed it was about aliens (Um, no) depressed me too.
I am very pleased that the movie is now beginning to get its due. What Spielberg did with Kubrick’s ideas – the ones that were always meant for him anyway (little known fact that is that Stanley considered Steven not only a most superb fillmaker but his successor(!) – if I find that interview again I will post it here) is nothing short of amazing. If Kubrick was alive I am sure he would have nothing but highest of praise. This isn’t just adapting to someone else’s vision. It’s taking a project, understanding it to the very marrow, filtering it through one’s own sensibilities and seeing it realized to it’s fullest potential.
That is a sign of a master director. And the end result is a remarkable document of a very special collaboration that is a pearl in either of the respective filmmographies.
Kind of annoying reading things like “I got it the first time” or “people didn’t understand it.” Just saying (and not to ruin your day with a negative comment, Maxim). There were smart, well-reasoned arguments about what the film might have been, might have meant (on levels just as profound) without that ending, but there’s nothing wrong with coming around to what the film is (which happened with me, though relatively quickly — as soon as I gave it a second look on DVD later that year). It wasn’t about not understanding (though the fact that some thought the advanced A.I. were aliens was just an unfortunate side effect of the effects choices), it was about not embracing. Which, at the end of the day, is completely fair.
I’m happy it was such a profound experience for you, though. It is indeed a masterful, completely unique piece of sci-fi cinema and I love it dearly.
More tomorrow.
I really didn’t mean it like that, Kris. That “got it the first time” line wasn’t meant to rub yours or anyone else’s nose in. In fact, I’m sorry I even wrote it. That part was a continuation of a personal reflection and it came out wrong. Take my word on that.
I will argue about the discussions on the ending tough. Not out of close-mindedness, elitism or because I doubt there were legitimate directions the film could have been taken. I see us falling into a familiar trap of not really disagreeing but really talking about different things.
I hope that I made it clear, that I wasn’t dismissing all criticisms. I’ve actually read some very insightful and perfectly legitimate ones. When I was talking about “people not getting it” I was only talking about my frustration with what was an objectively large amount of people who didn’t even try to find any merits but dismissed it outright. Here I want to try to drill it down even more and try to convince you that it wasn’t about non-embracing (I’ll use rejection instead) based on an real opinion but rather those critics and I’ll just say it, who thought they understood the film but ended up reviewing something entirely else.
To that point, what I said about aliens wasn’t really about aliens at all (heck, they really *could* have been aliens tough the fact that it was advanced robots made it more meaningful). The crucial thing here is that people missed the function they played in the film. I cannot tell you how many “and suddenly there were random Spielberg aliens to cheer everyone up at the end of A.I.” comments I’ve heard over the years. A guy can vent, right?
I’m sorry, I was hoping to get away with fewer paragraphs. I guess that came at the cost of clarity.
I hear you.
This has always been a great, great film.
Do people remember the online promotion for it? That was really interesting and fun to explore and definitely made the film my most anticipated that year.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_(game)
This movie was masterpiece!
A beautiful masterpiece. 10 years on i’m still amazed Spielberg made such a bleak yet profound film… very much looking forward to your piece today Kris.
Gorgeous film. Wonderfully weird. And the ending always gets me. It’s one of those endings that I never want to experience (knowing that it’s coming soon). I want to turn off the movie. But then I punish myself and watch it anyway; just ’cause it’s so masterfully executed. :(
So who killed Evan Chan?
I obviously need to see this again.
I saw this and Minority Report when I was all of 13 or 14, so no I didn’t get it the first time given my age and taste at the time. I’ve rewatched the latter quite a few times in the last several years and it stands as one of my favorites from the Berg. The former I caught online last summer, can’t remember why I think I was on a Kubrick kick that weekend, and my appreciation for it grew a great deal. And both are incredibly relevant given the current national climate.
One thing is also for certain, neither Minority Report or AI would have a chance in hell of getting made in todays market.
This is my number 1 film of 2001. Still, I am in the side of the ones that consider the film’s end not good. In my humild opinion the film should’ve ended with Osment under the sea in front of the fairie’s statue.
Such a fantastic film. I originally hated it when I watched it upon its first release, but I was young and really did not understand it as much as I did when I gave it a re-watch last year and it brought me to tears. Certainly one of my all time favorites.
I was only about 13 when I saw this movie so I’m pretty sure I totally misunderstood it… but the visuals alone continue to inspire me. I was engrossed by every second of the movie just to see it.
I have no idea whether it’s a good movie because it’s been, well, ten years since I watched it, but it’s definitely among the most beautiful movies I’ve ever seen.
I feel bad for all the suckers who still don’t understand why this is such a good film. Dismissed without an ounce of thought.
Also, Kaminski shoulda been nominated.
Too much going on in that last 20 minutes (after David jumps from the building) for me to get behind any of it. It wasn’t so much what happened that I had a problem with, it was all of it being spit at me in such a short amount of time that made me ‘done’ the film.
From an art direction and visual effects point of view, it was the first Steven Spielberg science-fiction movie where I didn’t feel like I was being transported to another world, but was on a set and/or watching a computer screen.
That being said, I should probably watch it again sometime seeing how it’s been ten years since the last viewing and so many people on here love it.
“One thing is also for certain, neither Minority Report or AI would have a chance in hell of getting made in todays market.”
Steven Spielberg is still one of the most powerful people in showbusiness. Why wouldn’t either of these films be made today?
“I feel bad for all the suckers who still don’t understand why this is such a good film. Dismissed without an ounce of thought.”
Maybe they didn’t like it. I don’t care what their expressed reasons were. The film at least for me plays exactly the same when I first saw it.
@/3rtfu11
It took Spielberg several years just to get the approval for Tin tin, a family film. Even someone like him wasn’t immune to white knuckle studio tactics in a makret that is oversaturated and dealing with a near depression in some cases. If they were made today their budgets would be significantly slashed. They aren’t enough of a brand name to appeal to a mass audience now. Just look at how Minority Report was considered an underperformer the summer it came out. All while Spider man dominated the box-office. A film that helped to change the landscape of summer movies for the worst.
Fuckin’ Spider-Man.
“Spielberg’s misunderstood masterwork.”
Very true. I love this film although I feel sad everytime I see it. One of my Spielberg faves together with Always.
Not saying it was a bad movie Kris, but you can’t deny that it helped changed shit and lead to some serious catastrophes in the decade since.
So that my point is crystal clear: I think “Spider-Man” is a terrible movie that changed shit and lead to some serious catastrophes in the decade since.
Okay lol
Kris, aside from leading the charge of superhero films (though X Men started that), how do you think Spider-Man changed things?
Aside from what, the answer? You pretty much nailed it. The film made $400 million dollars and everyone saw dollar signs. (And just because X-Men came out two years earlier doesn’t mean it started the shift toward heavily built-in fan-base entertainment of the sort we have every weekend today, by the way.)
That opening weekend for Spidey pretty much sealed the fate of the next decade. It’s just too bad it’s a crummy movie to boot.
Couldn’t you make the case Harry Potter did the built-in franchise thing first?
No because how many movies are like Harry Potter? How many are like Spider-Man? Exactly.
And besides, the point is superhero as a subsection of built-in fanbase pandering, so it’s all Spidey.
Still think it is one of the most overrated movies of the last few years. There are moments, but overall it just drags on for me.
Overrated?
It was the tenth highest rated movie in indieWIRE’s critics roundup of the best films of the 2000’s. It is a critical darling, if not a populist one.
I wouldn’t say that was the case when it came out.
Rashad, it was very well recieved when it came out. Not sure as to why, but part of me has always felt that the way film used it’s setting as such a prominent character resonated with many. Especially in states and on the heels of one of the biggest devestations America faced. I’ve gotten in trouble for expressing that thought before, but even at the age of 14 it wasn’t hard to find the connection there.
And as for how it changed things, Kris pretty much answered that with the record breaking opening weekend that no one saw coming. Not long after, Daredevil and Hulk were put on the fast track into production just to meet the spring/ summer release dates. And it looks like a decade later people might be growing tired of the genre
Just to be clear I was talking about Spide Man there.
Hulk was filming before Spider-Man came out.
Yeah, but not every other franchise on the goddamn planet.
That’s your answer, Rashad? Really?
Well he said Hulk was rushed into production because of the opening weekend. I think what I said was an apt response.
And it takes virtually nothing away from the point that’s been made a thousand times. One that you can barley argue against aside from one note about a production start date.
I missed the bit about Hulk rushing into production. Thought you were randomly mentioning something. Sorry to snap.
BUT — the point still kinda stands, regardless.
Is AI available on any of the streaming sites? Doesn’t seem to be available on Netflix, Blockbuster or Amazon. Am I missing any?
There might still be a version on youtube in 12 parts. If all else fails that is.