I feel exactly the same about the end of A.I. It would’ve been perfect as you describe it. Chris Weitz is another matter. I haven’t been too keen on him ever since he screwed up The Golden Compass which happens to be one of my all time favorite books. Sure it looks impressive but that’s all the movie does. There’s no story whatsoever. I’m quite interested to see what he does to New Moon. As it happens, there’s barely a story to begin with so I’ll be happy to see if he can manufacture one for the big screen.

Proposition – Didn’t much like it but then again westerns are not my cup of tea. Music was spot on though. I’ll give it 3/5.

Leon – Loved it. Again. Jean Reno, Gary Oldman and Natalie Portman give great performances and the music gives this film a lot of it’s feeling. I remember reading somewhere that the director’s cut makes the relationship of Reno’s and Portman’s characters seem more romantic. Anyone have anything to say on this? I’ll have to find that version and see this once again, maybe through different eyes. 5/5.

Walk The Line – Liked it better than the first time around. Saw this one when it first came out so it’s been a while. 5/5

Little Children – I’ve been meaning to see this for a long time but never quite got around to it. It’s a good thing I did because I liked it, the general feel of it and the story. Maybe I would feel different had I read the book or if I didn’t have a similar experience in my past. 3/5.

The Best Years of Our Lives ~ Great post-WWII movie. 5/5

The Philadelphia Story ~ Smart romantic comedy with Katharine Hepburn, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant. 5/5

Totally agreed on the ending of AI. At the time I saw it in the theater, I felt it had a Spielbergian denouement tacked on to a Kubrickesque ending (which, like you, I thought should have been when he looked at the Blue Fairy).

I just watched "The Lives of Others." Staggeringly brilliant. I'm so picky about movies that my lifetime 10 Favorites list has only 5 films on it. This one is the newest addition.

Busy week for, only had time for a few movies:

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968): A+. I've been on the fence for a while, but I think I've finally decided this is the best western ever made. Beautiful, thrilling, and entertaining. And Henry Fonda plays a villain.

Watchmen (2009): B. Re-watched the Director's Cut for the first time since I bought it back in July. The added scenes don't add alot to the film, but they don't really take anything away, either. The film's technical aspects and attention to detail are still very impressive, even while it suffers from being such a straightfoward adaptation of the graphic novel.

The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970): B. Sam Peckinpah does comedy, and the results are better than one might think. It's a highly atypical western, but still above average, and Jason Robards gives a stellar lead performance.

Saw The Box yesterday, enjoyed it a lot. My only problem was that the script became pure exposition near the end, as if explaining the box was more important than following the characters. The score was amazing.

Badlands, on certain days, is my favorite Malick. Beautiful to look at and full of an energy that his other movies can miss.

Rewatched:

The Departed – 5/5
Mystic River – 5/5
Minority Report – 5/5
The Incredibles – 4/5

First time seeing:

25th Hour – 5/5 – Best Spike Lee film I've seen since "Do the Right Thing"
City of God – 4/5 – Great Film, Lil Ze is probably the evilest character I've seen in a film.
Live Free or Die Hard – 3/5 – entertaining but lacks a good plot and has weak acting

11/8-11/14:

Maverick – B
Funny People – B+
The Passion of the Christ – B
Moonraker – C-

saw pandorum the other day. really surprised me for what i assumed was just going to be trashy. although midway through i assumed certain plot points for the end. but it was pretty enjoyable, with some minor twists. id get it a B-

gonna watch jim jarmusch's new film, the limit of control, and also maybe Chan-wook Park's new film, thirst. both look amazing

@Mari S:

I read the book months after I saw the movie. I couldn't put it down. I would/did give it a higher mark, but then I'm a Winslette.

I only got to see "F For Fake" this week. Totally scared the bejeesus out of me because I studied art history and our profs made us confident enough to spot fakes. 4/5.

Jennifer's Body – 6/10 – A weird film, some good ideas but poorly executed and Megan Fox is still yet to prove she can act.

2012 – 6/10 – Excellent special effects, some of the cast average, some poor and some just coasting. The first hour or so is enjoyable, the middle still watchable though cliched, the end just seems to go on far too long though.

Paper Heart -6/10 – Interesting but does not have the hilarity needed to be rated higher.

Dangerous Minds – 6/10 – Wasn't sure whether I'd seen this before, I think I had but it's very un-memorale. Plays out like a sports movie but there's no real uplifting triumphant finale, nobody even graduates.

Jackie Brown (Rewatch) – 9/10 – An expertly well crafted film. Pam Grier and De Niro stand out in an impressive cast. Under other directors certain scenes may have come off as unnecessary, but with Tarantino they add to the overall quality and excellence of the film.

I completely disagree on the ending of "A.I.". When I saw it at the theater, I thought the same thing as Brad and the guys above – the movie should've ended with the Blue Fairy, everything after that bit is too Spielberg for me. But when I watched it again, WOW. It's one of the most devastating endings ever made. Come on, the boy spends the whole movie searching for his mother. (SPOILERS) And when he gets his wish done, he only gets his mother for a single day! After that, he's doomed to spend the eternity missing his mother. If this is not depressing as hell, I don't know what it is. "A.I." may actually be my favourite Spielberg movie. And Haley Joel Osment's performance is the best child performance I've ever seen.

"A.I." is one of my favorite movies of all time and definitely in the top 3 for movies made in the 2000's. But I agree with Adriano: it would not have ended well with him just staring at the blue fairy.

I see "A.I." as the anti-Twilight. Both the main character in Twilight and AI experience the same thing: obsessive, overwhelming love–love that drives away thoughts of anything else, love that must be satisfied by one person and one person only. With Twilight, it idealizes that love and paints it as the most perfect thing that ever existed. With AI, it shows what exactly that love will do: make people suffer, and make the lover suffer most of all.

AI is not about a robot learning to love. It's about humans trying to fulfill their perfect ideals through technology. They create robots that have that "perfect" love we dream about. None of us can love as perfectly as David loves Monica. We all wish we could, and we all wish someone would love us like that–and that is why "Twilight" is making so much money right now: because we get to indulge ourselves with this unattainable "true love" nonsense. But what if someone really were to love us like that? It would be unnatural. Love is not about throwing your life away for one person and one person only. Monica chooses her own son over David, even though her son is a bit of a brat and David is the "perfect Mecha child."

And this proves that AI is a Kubrick movie through-and-through, and that Spielberg directing was Kubrick's master plan to make the movie say exactly what he wanted it to say. Because this whole theme runs throughout "Eyes Wide Shut" as well. Both films are about humans dissatisfied with their imperfections and unable to accept anything except absolute perfect, but in the end we find out that being imperfect is what makes us human, and that we should strive to be better but never reject each other for our imperfections. The difference between EWS and AI is that at the end of EWS the characters realize this, while in AI they don't realize this (how can a robot realize something like that, after all?), leading to one of the most tragic endings in all cinema history. I cry so much every time I watch AI, it's ridiculous.

And that Haley Joel Osment performance? God. Fucking. Damn. The best fucking child performance I have ever seen. Ever. He runs circles around every other actor in the entire film. He runs circles around A-list actors in Oscar-winning roles in other films. If "The Sixth Sense" merited him a nomination for Best Supporting Actor, this one merited him a nomination for Best Actor. Sadly, the Academy only nominates kids as tokens and they'll begrudge a kid a second nomination even if he/she deserves to win. If "The Sixth Sense" and "AI" were all Osmont made, he'd still deserve a place in cinema history with the A-lists. Oh wait, that IS all he made… sort of. Or at least that's of note. I wish he'd return to acting. There's an Oscar the Academy still owes him.

Control : B+
Equilibrium: A-
Clue: B
Deliverance: A-

Far And Away: B/B+
2012: C+
Boy in Striped Pyjamas: A-
Mississipi Burning: B+
Open Range: A-

I Quite Enjoyed A.I. As It Is. I Don't Think It Would Have Been As Good To Me If It Ended With Him Staring At The Blue Fairy. One Of My Favorite Spielberg Films. Haley Joel Osment Was A Fantastic Child Actor And I Enjoyed Jude Laws Performance As Well.

District 9- 9/10

Jeniffer's Body- 7/10

Moon- 8/10

Moulin Rouge- 8/10

Closer- 10/10

Green Street Hooligans- 8/10

I've had such a crazy week that I really had to think about what I had watched this week, ha ha.

At the theatre:

THE BOX. I agree with Brad on his initial review of it. It is a hard movie to pin down just after veiwing it. I did really enjoy it and like Donnie Darko (and Southland Tales) before it, it is definitely a movie that will require repeat veiwings to pick up on all the subtle nuances. One of my favorite parts about it, was that since it was based in 1976, it felt like I was watching a movie from 1976. The pacing, the score and the set design were spot on for this and I think that added to the film.

On DVD:

I LOVE YOU, MAN. Just picked it up on DVD, saw it twice when it was in theatres, loved it then and still love now. By far one the best comedies of 2009. And there were definitely parts of the Jason Segel character that I identified with…

SLACKERS. This movie is purely a guilty pleasure for me. It is a pretty decent college comedy. Jason Schwartzman (post Rushmore) is great as a slimey college overacheiver who blackmails three Slacker/Cheater roommates (Devon Sawa, Jason Segel and Michael Maronna of 'Adventures of Pete & Pete'), in one scene Schwartzman even channels his cousin Nicolas Cages manic scenery chewing mannerisms, HA HA. But the movie is good for a fun laugh and is no way meant to be taken seriously.

KISS, KISS, BANG, BANG. This is such a great movie. It makes me wonder why Val Kilmer chooses/gets such bad roles. He is a good actor and under utilized in my opinion. (If you don't agree, check this movie out as well as his THE SALTON SEA). Robert Downey, Jr. does a great job of being the protagonist/narrator of a very darkly comic neo film noir. And there are some great lines/exchanges in the movie as well:

Gay Perry: What would you find if you looked up 'Idiot' in the dictionary?
Harry: A picture of me?
Gay Perry: NO! The definition of the word 'Idiot'! Which you FUCKING ARE!!!

Thats just one exchange in a movie full of gems. I realize reading it doesn't have the same comedic effect, but it's one of my favorites.

On TV.

BRING IT ON. Ok, before you give me shit, it is another guilty pleasure movie for me. But it is also one of the better teen movies to come out in the early 2000's. It also has sentimentality factor for me because I worked at a movie theatre at the time it came out and, at the time, i was trying to hook up with this chick who had been a cheerleader in HS and just graduated, on our breaks we'd step in and watch it. We had the whole chant/cheer at the beginning memorized… most people who worked at the theatre did, both the guys and the girls. (If you care, i never ended up dating her, but we did become close friends and she ended up dating and marrying my old roommate, we're still all close friends to this day and they had there first child 4 months ago). Another reason, to like this movie… ELIZA DUSHKU!!!!

SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE. I like this movie quite a bit, I'm a sap, sue me.

CASINO ROYAL. I must say I didn't actually get all the way through this movie, since we started it after getting nice and drunk at a party at like 1:47am… I have never made it all the way through this Daniel Craig as James Bond effort… it still lies in the "movies that keep eluding me" category for some reason.

Thats about it. I'll try to return next week with more notable entries…

@Danny: Great story about "Bring it On". It's one of the most re-watchable movies ever. I still need to learn that cheer from the beginning. "I'm everything you're not!"

@JM: Never thought about some of the things you said. I feel like watching this movie again. And bawling my eyes out again.

@Owen: Couldn't agree more on "Once Upon a Time in the West". Best western ever, period.

Pirate Radio – A movie that tries to celebrates rock and roll. It falls flat. 3/5

Precious – A harrowing film that should be been seen. 4.5/5

An Education – A bubbly romp of a film. Carey Mulligan and Alfred Molina give great performances. 4/5

The Virgins Suicides – What was the point of the film? 2.5/5

Crank – A ridiculous movie that is somewhat enjoyable to watch. 3.5/5

Vampyr – A Criterion edition of the supernatural happenings at an inn. Don't watch it at night. You might doze. 4/5

Total Recall – A great action movie. The futuristic elements look dated. 4/5