Written by John Snyder

David (Haley Joel Osment) is a robot in A.I. Artificial Intelligence (Spielberg, 2001) that has been specially programmed to “unconditionally love.” He has been given to a couple whose son is in a coma. At first Monica, the mother (Frances O’Connor), wants nothing to do with him; he cannot replace their son. Though he has a lot to learn about human life, she begins to like him, and accepts him into their family. Then Martin, their son (Jake Thomas), comes out of the coma, and has to adapt to having a robot “brother.” Of course, he doesn’t treat David like a brother, but like a toy. Martin puts him up to dangerous things, like jealous elder brothers are wont to do, telling him what he must do to make his mother love him more.  David is programmed for the sole purpose of loving his parents, and he is learning more and more to live for their love, so he does the things that Martin instigates and that gets him into a lot of trouble. Eventually, Monica takes him out to the forest (which was actually an act of love, because otherwise he was going to be destroyed) and leaves him to his own devices. He perceives that the reason he was abandoned was because he wasn’t a real boy. So he sets out on a quest to become a real boy, and return to the love of his mother.

This quest is what made him into a real boy, according to his creator Professor Hobby (William Hurt), when David meets him in “the ends of the earth.”  But this affirmation that David had achieved “the greatest single human gift” of chasing our dreams wasn’t enough. David may have been naïve to think that the blue fairy could turn him into a real boy, but he was self-aware enough to know that the professor was only giving him a happy lie. He truly desired his mother’s love, and it is arguably that rejection of the false and the total dedication to seeking true satisfaction which makes him “real.”

The quest to be a “real boy” is the quest to become fully alive. To love, and be loved is what makes us fully alive, according to this movie. In that definition, although it is raw and heartrending, David becomes real in the end. The themes of truth and love are contrasted with hedonistic-death-escapism and cynicism throughout this movie—David representing the former, the robot-lynching flesh-fairs and legalized brothel of Rouge City representing the latter. The robot David achieves reality through his undying and unwavering love for his mother. Can the same be said of the humans who, seeking adrenaline and sexual highs, use and abuse robots and one another?

A.I. Artificial Intelligence explores what it would take for a robot to become a “real-live” human, and also muses whether or not many humans are completely real themselves. It is cinematically beautiful, masterfully acted, and also contributes to a canon of stories that use the subject of artificial intelligence to sound the depths of human desires and existence.

Written by Anthony Watkins

Think about the last film you watched. What was the plot time of the film or how many days, months, or years did the film cover? Chances are it covered at least several days or weeks. Now think of a film you have watched that covers exactly the amount of time as the duration of the film. It is perfectly normal if you are having difficulty, as this aesthetic, known as “real time” is a highly unconventional technique used in films.

In fact, there have been only a handful of movies in film history that are completely shot in real time. One of these is the French film Cléo from 5 to 7 (Varda, 1962), which gives a look into two hours in the life of a young singer as she awaits the results of a medical test that will reveal if she has cancer. The French New Wave, which arose in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s, utilized real time at least to some extent in several of its films. 

Some other films that have used real time include Rope (Hitchcock, 1948), Timecode (Figgis, 2000), and Phone Booth (Schumacher, 2002). Over the years, even some TV shows have implemented real time in certain episodes, such the hit comedies Friends (David Crane, 1994-2004) with “The One Where No One’s Ready” and Seinfeld (George Shapiro, 1989-1998) with “The Chinese Restaurant.” The TV series 24 as a whole relied on real time as each episode in a season represented an hour in the life of the main character, Counter Terrorist Unit agent Jack Bauer. 

The two hit '90s comedies Seinfeld and Friends both implemented real time in an episode.

Written by Anthony Watkins

Independent filmmaking is something that tends to be overlooked by audiences. Boyhood was one of the few independently produced films in many years that received widespread attention and acclaim. These films, although possessing microscopic budgets compared to Hollywood blockbusters, deserve just as much attention and viewing as the larger features. As many young aspiring filmmakers are taught in universities, you don’t need to be rich or have a large budget in order to make a great film, and many independent directors (including Linklater) have proved that and continue to prove it.

 

 

WORKS CITED
“Richard Linklater.” Biography. 2015. 26 Feb. 2015. <http://www.biography.com/people/richard-linklater>.

Written by Anthony Watkins

Written by John Snyder

“Can a machine think?”

That is what Alan Turing (Benedict Cumberbatch) is asked by the detective (Rory Kinnear) questioning him in The Imitation Game (Tyldum, 2014). An interesting question, it has nothing to do with the charge of homosexual acts for which he has been arrested, but has everything to do with his research and work in the field of mathematics and computer science. Turing is considered a father of the field of computer science, particularly in the area of artificial intelligence, and while his contributions to AI are not the focus of the film, the answer to this posed question—at least as he gives it in the movie—certainly is.

Turing answers the detective with an observation: that different humans think differently (in terms of likes, dislikes, beliefs, etc.), so then, machines can think, just differently than humans. This idea is used as a metaphor to understand and explore the human condition.  One could very quickly interpret this as a message about homosexual relationships, but if you look deeper there’s really more to it than that. Although Turing’s homosexuality plays a role in the social tensions and eventually results in his arrest, it is not the driving theme of this movie—which is ultimately focused on the nature of interpersonal conflict itself. 

The Imitation Game is not a very accurate portrayal of the real Alan Turing, particularly in how it depicts Turing having an autism-spectrum-esque social handicap that is at the source of nearly all conflicts with his coworkers and classmates.  But the movie uses this imagining of his genius for a purpose. In a flashback to Turing’s school days, his friend Christopher (Jack Bannon) explains to him cryptography. Turing reflects that cryptography is akin to talking to other people. “When people talk to each other, they never say what they mean.  They say something else and you’re expected to know just what they mean.”  Every interaction between human beings is like decrypting a secret message.  And when those messages get decrypted poorly (in other words, as we think differently) conflicts happen. Turing is absolutely brilliant, but in this movie his mind works in a way that is very different than his classmates and colleagues, and misunderstandings and bullying ensue.

The depiction of Alan Turing in this movie is that of someone so very different from most other minds with which he came in contact, and it is a story of both his and their struggle to coexist and cooperate.  Using the metaphor of the question “can a machine think?” to structure its theme, when the credits of The Imitation Game roll we are forced to face that question as it applies in our own lives. “Is this person—who drives me crazy, who does not understand simple things I am trying to say to them and who is constantly antagonizing me—is this person at all intelligent? Can this person think? Is he or she, in fact, a human-being whose life is valuable?” And I would hope that we could sit down to hear their stories, before the relationship or the person’s life comes to an end, and answer that with an affirmative.

Written by Mark Trinkle

Guardians of the Galaxy (Gunn, 2014), this years second Marvel film nominated for this category, but one of distinctly different tone and feel needed much more diverse effects. Director James Gunn wanted to make sure that even though the two least human characters “Rocket Raccoon” and “Groot” were animated and not filmed with motion capture that they not be 'too animated' to fit into the world of Marvel (Truitt).

Yet another product from the minds of Marvel, X-Men: Days of Future Past (Singer, 2014) rounds out the list with its star-studded cast and time-hopping story. The three aspects of the film that involved the most special effects work were Quicksilver's powers of speed, Magneto's lifting of a stadium (which was constructed completely digitally) and Mystique's shapeshifting powers. In one action sequence the same stunt had to be redone about three dozen different ways some with Jennifer Lawrence and some with the man she had been disguised as just to make sure they got enough coverage so the animators could composite the images together into one smooth shape-shifting butt-kicking motion. (Truitt; Morgan)

Hopefully this article gave a taste of all the work that went into this years' nominees that may have gone overlooked. Special effects technology has come so far and become so prevalent in the industry that it is easy to take for granted the complexities and difficulties, but fortunately these and many other filmmakers don't let that stop them from pushing boundaries to create visually stunning images for their films.


Works Cited
Morgan, David. "Oscars 2015: Take Our Best Visual Effects Poll." CBSNews. N.p., n.d. Web.
Truitt, Brian. "Oscar's Visual-effects Nominees Make Their Own Reality."USA Today. Gannett, 28 Jan. 2015. Web. 20 Feb. 2015.