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Reviews
America Beyond the Color Line with Henry Louis Gates Jr. (2002)
Americas Color Line
Beyond The Color Line
By: Andrew Paulcheck
The Documentary film beyond the color line was very well done. Henry Louis Gates Jr. did a fantastic job as a narrator. Henry is a professor at Harvard and teaches black history. Through interviews, the professor examines the past, present, and future of black/white race relations in the USA. Henry travels from The South to The North then to Hollywood California were he finds out how racist the movie industry is.
The Goal of this Documentary was to show how African Americans are treated in the United States. The Documentary took a look at what African Americans opinions were of their treatment in their community. The most successful aspect of this movie was the visit to Martin Luther King Jr.'s grave sight. The professor did a great job of showing the significance of Martin Luther King's remonstrations. The most effective interview in the movie was Colin Powel. He is the most powerful African American in the world. Colin Powel said that hard working people can accomplish anything no matter the color of their skin. The least effective interview was Russell Simons. I think Russell was disrespectful to Henry because he was constantly on his sidekick and taking phone calls during the interview. Russell Simon's record label, Def Jam Records, produces rap artist that are glamorized by how many times they have been to jail or how little of an education they received.
There are many things that influence my reaction to this film. The most obvious is my parent's opinion. They raised me not to judge people based on the color of their skin. My family is white middle class and has no problems financially and no need to blame our economic problems on individuals, some thing hate groups tends to do.
Some things that would have made this movie more effective would be to show the opinion of the other side of the debate, a leader of a hate group or the racist politician, Duke.
This was a well filmed documentary that showed how the racism in America is still present but improving.
I, Robot (2004)
I Robot book comparison
I Robot
When the book "I Robot", by Isaac Asimov ,was brought to the silver screen in the movie "I Robot", directed by Alex Progas, I was disappointed. When it was transformed into a movie it became an action packed story about detective Spooner. The detective saves the world from becoming enslaved by robots. The book Asimov wrote was an accurate look at what role robots will play in the future.
"I Robot" ,the book, was a collection of nine short stories. The stories are being told to a reporter by Dr. Susan Calivin, a robot psychologist. During a story called "Reason" a robot questions his existence on a solar space station. He locks Michel Donovan and Gregory Powell away and starts a group of robots who worship "The Master". Asimov was looking at a creation of man so complex that it became able to wonder were it came from. In the story, "Runaround" a robot named Speedy is sent to get some selenium from a pool on planet Mercury. Speedy malfunctions on his mission and continually circles the pool of selenium. The malfunction is due to a slight change in laws of the robots mind. The laws of robotics are: 1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. Law 3 on Speedy was modified so he could better protect himself because Speedy was worth more than a battle ship. Eventually the two humans on the base, Mike Donovan and Gregory Powell, ride older robots out on the planet and get Speedy back. They almost die during there rescue. In "Runaround" Asimov was describing dependency humans will have on there technology in the future. This is his most accurate story of the future. In today's world we have become extremely dependent on our technology. With out our advances in technology there is no way our earth would be able to sustain the vast number of people living on it. Mass food and water production is all run by computers today. Asimov also had some inaccurate thoughts of what the future of robots might entail. Asimov's robots were created by robot engineers but whenever there was a problem with one it would be taken to a robot psychologist. Asimov gave the appearance that no one was quite sure how the brains worked.
In the future robots will not cost as much as a battle ship, as Asimov said in "Runaround". Robots will be cheap and affordable within a few years of their release. Ted Hoff, under Intel, invented the microprocessor in 1970. The first personal computer to make a splash on the market was from IBM. The first IBM PC ran on a 4.77 MHz Intel 8088 microprocessor, with 16 kilobytes of memory, expandable to 256k. The price started at $1,565, nearly $4,000 today. This computer has less memory and power than my calculator, a complete joke by today's standards. The November 2006 "Popular Science" has a laptop computer, made by XO, which cost $130. It could be produced and sold so cheap because it cuts energy use with a new LCD and runs on Linux's free software. I found Alex Progas' movie of "I Robot" to be terrible compared to the book. There were very few similarities of the book and the movie. The main characters had the same names and the laws of the robots were identical. Dr. Susan Calvin was made into a Hollywood doctor. She was young and attractive but the only thing that made her seem smart was when she unnecessarily used extensive vocabulary. The Film was polluted with advertisement particularly for Converse. All the acting throughout the movie was terrible. The one thing "I Robot" did have was impressive action scenes and special effects. In both the book and the movie the robots and humans have a problem of control. Asimov depicts this in his last chapter "The Evitable Conflict" where mistakes are only made when companies don't follow what the robots tells them. To solve this problem the co-ordinator suggests making every one give up there civil rights and obey the machines to prevent further economical problems. Alex proposes that the robots will take over when Vicky, a robot, takes control of the company and tries to protect people from them self by taking away their freedom. The book and movie do tie a similar idea together. People may one day become taken over by there own creations.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001)
Speilburg and Kubrick
AI By:Andrew Paulcheck The movie AI was directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Stanley Kubrick. In the near future, the polar ice caps have melted and the oceans waters have risen to flood all costal cities. One company owner, Professor Hobby, has designed a human like boy based on the image of his dead son. His name is David. David is different from most robots because he is programmed to feel love. Monica, his mother, is the woman who adopted him as a substitute for her real son, who is in cryo-stasis because there is no cure for a disease that he has contracted. David lives happily till his brother is cured and sent home. David accidentally endangers his brothers life and is taken back to the lab were he came from for destruction. During the trip, this Monica has a change of heart. Instead of destroying her son she will abandon him in the forest. This movie is the tale of Davis quest of becoming a real boy to gain his mothers love.
This movie was marvelous, interesting and suspenseful through out. I typically hate all child actors but the acting by Haley Joel Osment was great for the robot part. Frances O'Connor played a perfect role as a caring mother and Jude Law was a fantastic male prostitute. The camera work and special effects were very well accomplished. In the intense scene when David and Gigolo Joe are running from the Flesh Fair blimp I was given chills at the first sight of the rising moon like blimp. This was quickly followed by an intense chase threw the forest. The other robots in captivity have great effects on them as well. One has a head that can be seen threw and another is a old hunched back.
At the Flesh Fair, David is put on display to be executed. Before acid can be poured on him he pleads for his life and people are put in an uproar because the Flesh Fair is killing a boy. He is soon set free. This part of the movie demonstrates the difference between Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. If Stanley Kubrick was directing this movie David would have fought a bloody battle out of the friar. Instead he is able to walk right out due to human compaction. While in captivity at the Flesh Fair, David becomes friends with Gigolo Joe, a male prostitute, framed for a murder and they go on a journey trying to find the Blue Fairy from Pinocchio so she can turn David into a real boy.
When David arrives at the house of the Blue Fairy he is shocked to see another David robot already there. This is the point when David realizes he is not an individual but actually a machine. David is outraged and bashes the other David's head in with a lamp. This is the first violent emotional outburst of David. After he talks to Professor Hobby, the man who created David, David learns he is an individual after all. David was the first robot to ever follow his dreams. Sadly, this does not boost David's spirits. As he sits on the top of the building where he thought The Blue Fairy would be and he utters one word,"Mommy". Then throws him self over the edge into water where he sinks down to see an amusement park that has a Pinocchio exhibit. This again is a point were Steven Spielberg has obviously changed. Had Stanley Kubrick Directed this, David would have surely killed himself from the fall off the building. After David sees the Blue Fairy at the Pinocchio exhibit he takes the helicopter under water where he asks the statue, which resembles his mother, to make him a real boy.
David stays at the bottom of the ocean with the Blue Fairy for two thousand years until he is unfrozen by aliens looking for the meaning of life through humans. Some people found this odd, but I thought it was a creative twist to the movie. Eventually the aliens are able to bring back David's mother for one day because Teddy, David's teddy bear, had a lock of her hair. This ends up being the best day of David's life and he falls asleep forever. David eventually gets his wish and lays happily with his mother till the end of time. Spielberg's last happy scene of the movie that I'm sure Kubrick would not be happy about.
This was one of the best movies I have seen in a long time. In AI the creativity of Spielberg and Kubrick combine together nicely. They create a happy, dark, science fiction movie that would make any fan of Spielberg or Kubrick leave the theater happy.