piapia

I'm a Spielberg fan. But I like Spielberg pictures, and A.I. is not a Spielberg film bur a Stanley Kubrick film, which is something altogether different. Spielberg inherited the project from Kubrick and that explains the failure, because he tried to make a mixture of E.T. and 2001.The first part of the film is charming, in the same way that E.T. was charming, and the second part tried not to be cryptic, as Kubrick would have made it, and it ended in confusion. The character of the "mecha" child is charming, and so is the boy actor who plays it, But what the devil was that Teddy bear?. Perhaps Spielberg needed it, but the film did not. The gaudy "Flesh Fair" of the second part is too long, too noisy and not very credible. The mecha gigolo that escorts the boy through that part is definitely repugnant, the introduction of fairy tale elements is an act of desperation on the part of a filmaker who doesn't know what to do next with his characters. And the boy... Will he be destroyed? Is he condemned to live forever in a state of loneliness? Steven Spielberg found a magnificent climax for his first creature in need of love: E.T. But poor David is doomed. He is immortal, learned to love, but won't be loved. The end of the movie is literally a dead end.

Address Unknown is a very enjoyable film, especially because of its intelligent direction of actors, and the talent and personality of its two chief teenagers: Kyle Howard and Johnna Stewart, even if Howard looks younger than his character and himself are. I expect to see more of them. The trouble with this film is that once you have seen it and enjoyed it, the falseness of its initial sequence is evident. What were those two characters doing with a bag of U.S. Mail? Why was it in their hands? Why was it so important to them since it did not contain anything of real value, except a letter from one of them that was important only to the recipient?

Neo-realism was the school of cinema developed by the Italians just after World War II. From 1945 to approximately 1954, directors like De Sica, Rossellini and Zampa delivered masterpieces like Open City, Paisan, To Live in Peace, Shoe Shine, The Bicycle Thief, Umberto D and Miracle in Milan. But the Italian (not the World) audiences got tired of seeing poverty and everyday problems and demanded something more sophisticated. Federico Fellini added imagination to the down-to-earth themes of Neo-realism and gave the world a new concept of cinema. Neo-realism, it was said, was proper to poor, not to wealthy cinematic industries. It this was son, Iranian Director Majid Majidi accepted the challenge, and has made Children of Heaven, the most moving and perfect piece of neo-realism that has been filmed outside of Italy. The story is much like that of The Bicycle Thieves: it's a pair of shoes that are stolen. But Majidi has provided us with the most wonderful performances from children that the screen has ever seen. A great story, magnificent color and camera work,perfect actors both children and adult, and a firm direction that never misses an opportunity to engage and captivate the audience. I have never seen a better motion picture from that part of the world.