The Truth Shall Set You Free

Today I turned to my internet friends to settle once and for all a debate I've had with a number of people about the Steven Spielberg directed film Artificial Intelligence: AI.

Some people believed that the entities (in the picture above) were aliens, while I was strongly convinced that they were an advanced mecha, due to their cybernetic design and deep seeded fascination with and knowledge of humanity. Well, it appears I was right. According to Mr. Spielberg:

They are not aliens but state of the art artificial intelligence, robots at the point of perfection. They have created themselves and continue to procreate without mankind on the face of the planet. Now had Stanley directed it, would you still have thought they were aliens?

So, case closed. (Some Googling could've closed this case 9 years ago, but I guess it's more fun to argue about it.)

Scene from Runaway Bride

       MAGGIE
  I'm going to kill myself.

       PEGGY
  Why?

       MAGGIE
  Because you think I'm all like... "Hey 
  man, check me out".

       PEGGY
   (friendly)
  No, I don't think you're like, "I'm 
  charming and mysterious in a way that 
  even I don't understand and something 
  about me is crying out for protection 
  from a big man like you".  Very hard 
  to compete with.  Especially to us 
  married women who have lost our mystery.

       MAGGIE
  But you haven't lost your mystery!  
  You're very mysterious!

       PEGGY
  No.  I'm weird.  Weird and mysterious 
  are two different things.

       MAGGIE
  But I'm weird.

       PEGGY
  No.  You're quirky.  Quirky and weird 
  are two different things.

Maple

Perhaps it is subconsciously due to the upcoming Valentine's Day, despite the fact that I think it's more related to events currently happening in my and others' lives, that I have been in a particularly sappy mood. It is also partially due to all of the flack the movie He's Just Not That Into You is currently receiving for being a shitty movie, which is unfortunate, because romantic comedies don't have to be trite, sexist displays of patheticness. Anyway, I'm in a romcom mood.

Edit: I originally included a clip from Notting Hill, but since I'm actually watching My Best Friend's Wedding (or just finished watching it) and because I find it more pertinent to singles than Notting Hill, I've included the final scene below, that pretty much almost changed my life in high school, for putting words to something that had been scratching in my consciousness. Spoiler alert, obvs.

Me and you...

"I don't want to have to do this living. I just walk around. I want to be swept off my feet, you know? I want my children to have magical powers. I am prepared for amazing things to happen. I can handle it."
-Richard Swersey in Me and You and Everyone We Know

My Playground

There are certain movies that are difficult for me to watch as an adult, despite my immense love for them, because they remind me too much of the childhood dreams that have fallen to the wayside. A League of Their Own is one of those films.

Jimmy Dugan: Taking a little day trip?
Dottie Hinson: No, Bob and I are driving home. To Oregon.
Jimmy Dugan: [long pause] You know, I really thought you were a ballplayer.
Dottie Hinson: Well, you were wrong.
Jimmy Dugan: Was I?
Dottie Hinson: Yeah. It is only a game, Jimmy. It's only a game, and, and, I don't need this. I have Bob; I don't need this. At all.
Jimmy Dugan: I, I gave away five years at the end my career to drink. Five years. And now there isn't anything I wouldn't give to get back any one day of it.
Dottie Hinson: Well, we're different.
Jimmy Dugan: Shit, Dottie, if you want to go back to Oregon and make a hundred babies, great, I'm in no position to tell anyone how to live. But sneaking out like this, quitting, you'll regret it for the rest of your life. Baseball is what gets inside you. It's what lights you up, you can't deny that.
Dottie Hinson: It just got too hard.
Jimmy Dugan: It's supposed to be hard. If it wasn't hard, everyone would do it. The hard... is what makes it great.

Kiss Series, The Movie Spoiler Edition: L'Ultimo Bacio

"Don't do it!" you yell at the scream. Carlo is 30. He has a beautiful girlfriend who is pregnant with their first child. He has a good job. His friends are going through growing pains...and so is he. And here he is, at a party with a young high school girl, blond, beautiful, crazy about him. He succumbs.

And the kiss is lacking in true emotion or even sensuality. It's just about sex. Not the sexy sex. The sex that happens to fill some proverbial, non-sexual void in one's life that one doesn't yet realize can't be filled by a good looking person who isn't his/her significant other. It's the kind of sex that increases the void.*

*-No vagina jokes.

Kiss Series, The Movie Spoiler Edition: Penelope

It's very difficult for a kiss involving James McAvoy to be anything other than incredible and steamy. No psychological analysis for this one. It was just amazingly choreographed, written, and executed.

Kiss Series, The Movie Spoiler Edition: Anywhere But Here

What makes this scene so memorable isn't the fact that this is some great, deep emotional, teenage romance. It's a quirky and sweet and fairly sad since it's always clear that he's more entranced by her than she ever will be by him. But the look of need in Natalie's face when they finally kiss...the way her vulnerability shines through this cool veneer she's attempted to erect just shows how young they really are. And they'll go on to their separate lives, fall in love with other people, but at this moment...

And apologies for the shitty quality of the clip. It's the only one I could find.