A.I. Artificial Intelligence

It is one thing to be right by way of fact and truth. It is another to be right by way of actions and deed of another, which easily can be identified as incompetence and foolishness, stemming from excess of ego and arrogance.

Several years ago, when director Steven Spielberg was The Big Thing (according to Hollywood proper, that is), I remarked Spielberg was the biggest fraud perpetuated since The Ringling Bros. Circus claimed it had a unicorn.

I STILL get hate mail in response to that remark.

Spielberg was (and is) a one-hit wonder. Not, as his handlers and sycophants claim, a wunderkinder. His best effort as director was "E.T.", and even then certain justifiable doubt is called forth, given the success of this clever little work comes not from his direction, but the screenplay and effects.

Steven Spielberg is a director. Not a writer, not a screenwriter, not an auteur. A director. A hired hand given credit undeserving.

Which makes him, simply, a fraud.

And if anyone needs proof certain of this assertion look no further than his latest so-called cinematic masterpiece, "A.I. Artificial Intelligence".

For those who don't know (and I would like to know who you are, and where you live, where it is you were not pelted and assaulted unrelenting by grand pronouncements preceeding this movie's release) "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" was to be the next work from the late Stanley Kubrick.

Unfortunately for all Mr. Kubrick passed shortly after the completion of his less-than-satisfying effort, "Eyes Wide Shut", and his work-to-be, "A.I. Artificial Intelligence", upon which he had labored for more than 15 years, passed to Steven Spielberg, who promptly made great utterances about how he would complete the master's work as homage.

'Insult' is more like it.

"A.I. Artificial Intelligence" is based (and I use that word loosely) on the Brian Aldiss' 1969 short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long": An advanced pet ('cybernetic' I believe it the term) that is abandoned in the woods. Now. When a real, flesh and blood, pet is given up there is a definite sense of loss and betrayal. But when a made pet is abandoned--tossed away, if you will--what is the emotion there? Is there emotion involved or not?

It was a question Aldiss struggled with and did well to attempt to answer. It was a question Kubrick committed almost twenty years to without answering.

It is a question Spielberg, in his haste to be declared god (albeit a false one), ignores almost completely in his film.

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