Ex Machina and the future

          Have we created a monster by making robots that have Artificial Intelligence (AI)?   Some very smart people who started the information technology revolution, like Steve Wosniak, Apple co-founder and Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, are starting to have second thoughts about a future with intelligent robots.  They worry that robots of the future could become smarter than humans and decide that humans should no longer be in charge. They see two possible scenarios; either the robots decide that humans are no longer necessary and destroy them, or the robots make humans their slaves. Both of these scenarios are scary to us humans, of course. My opinion is that although robots may become smarter than humans at some time in the future, they will never have what makes us human--souls. So it's hard to see how robots will ever have qualities like emotions, feelings, creativity, courage, caring, and a conscience, or example. These are some of many human characteristics that make us human and don't seem to depend on intelligence, either human or artificial. There is a new movie coming out soon, called Ex Machina, that explores the future of robots and AI.  You can click here to watch a trailer about the movie.  It looks like an interesting movie and I'm sure it will cause much debate.  I am eager to watch the movie when it is released. The future is difficult to predict. That's why it can be both fun and scary to think about. What do you think about the future, robots and AI? 

Good Writers, Good Movies

What makes a good writer? I think one of the most important things is to be a good story teller. Everyone likes a good story. If you can tell an interesting and creative story that keeps the readers' attention, that is maybe the most important key to good writing. Many books become movies. In most (not all) cases, it is because the author tells a good story that captures the imagination of the readers. So it is not surprising that books that are interesting to read go on to become movies. I like John Grisham's books about lawyers. Grisham is a good story teller. He has published many books, and I think that almost every one has been made into a movie. The books are usually better than the movies. Why is that? When we read, we engage our imaginations and create rich images in our minds of the characters, the situations, the places, and so on. When the book is turned into a movie, there is only one story, the one we see on the screen, and there is really not much left to the imagination. Some other well known authors whose books have become movies are Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, and Pat Conroy, to name a few. Their writing styles are different, but they have one thing in common--they can tell a good story.

Ten Favorite Movies

As promised, here is a list of my favorite movies. I heard somewhere that you can tell a lot about a person by the books s/he reads and the movies s/he watches. If this is true, I have no idea what my list says about me, other than that I like them. Some of my favorite movies started out as books. By the way, in my experience the book is always better than the movie. I have seen most of the movies on this list more than once. In no particular order:

1. Little Big Man (book and movie)
2. The Karate Kid (just the first one)
3. The Grapes of Wrath (book and movie)
4. The Edge
5. It's a Wonderful Life
6. Mountain Man (book and movie)
7. Avatar
8. The Rocky movies (especially the first :)
9. Forrest Gump (book and movie)
10. Rainman

There you have it. Many other movies I love didn't make the cut and perhaps on a different day I would choose ten different ones. Favorite books tomorrow.

More on Good and Bad Movies

The subject of my last blog was what I consider good and bad movies. Today I'll share more thoughts on what makes a movie good or bad, in my opinion. If you've been to the movies lately, or rented a DVD, I think you'll know what I mean by bad movies. There are so many new movies being released, but most of them are not worth watching. I would estimate that about one or two out of every ten new movies is worth watching. These bad movies I'm taking about either do not have an interesting story to tell, lack interesting characters, have mediocre to poor acting, or are based on tired and predictable formulas (Chick Flicks, most Action Movies, Horror Movies, you get the idea). Many of them are guilty on all counts, leaving me asking why they were even made in the first place.

My general rule of thumb about which movies I will take the time to watch or rent is based mostly on the starring actors: I will watch any movie with, in no particular order, Anthony Hopkins, Morgan Freeman, Al Pachino, Robert DeNiro, Clint Eastwood, Dustin Hoffman, Jackie Chan (yes, Jackie Chan), Denzell Washington, Diane Keeton, Will Smith, George Clooney, Jack Nicholson, Meryl Streep, Tom Hanks, or Mel Gibson, to name a few. But this are no guarantees. I have seen each of these actors star in bad movies. Now for the truly bad actors/movies. I refuse to watch any movie starring Will Ferrell, Jennifer Anniston, Tom Cruise, Ben Stiller, or Johnny Depp, and others whose names I can't even remember, or never knew. Sometimes previously unknown actors come out in interesting movies, such as Twilight and Across the Universe. An example of a good actor in a bad movie would be Robert Downey, Jr. in Sherlock Holmes, which, in my opinion, is a truly bad movie, despite some good reviews it received. The Sherlock Holmes character that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle created is an interesting character, but Downey's version bears almost no resemblance to the fictional Sherlock Holmes, and is more like a Jackie Chan version of Sherlock Holmes. Surely Doyle would roll over in his grave if he saw this movie. My wife and I watched Sherlock Holmes with another couple on New Years Eve, and I swear we would have walked out and found a better way to spend the last hours of 2009 if we hadn't already paid $20. I didn't like the fact that whoever made this movie took the license to turn Sherlock Holmes into just another wise-cracking, Kung Fu action figure. If Jackie Chan had played the lead role, it at least might have been amusing. A Chinese Sherlock Holmes. Why not? There are some movies that are so bad that they are almost funny to watch, but I'd rather watch a movie that is intentionally funny.

Tomorrow, I'll share a list of some of my favorite movies, and why I like them.

Movies: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Have you seen a good movie lately? I have, but I've also seen a lot of bad ones. First the good ones. A couple of months ago, I went with my seventeen-year old daughter, Maria, to see Avatar. We both agreed it was one of the best movies we had ever seen. For me, it was the most entertaining and creative movie I had seen in a long time. And we didn't even see the 3-D version, so we want to go back sometime and see it again in 3-D. I thought Gran Torino was an excellent movie; so good that after watching it at the theatre when it was first released, I have since watched it a couple more times on DVD. I watched The Blind Side with my family on DVD and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Good story, good acting. What these three movies have in common is that they have an interesting story to tell and interesting characters portrayed by good, and sometimes great, actors.

Now for the bad movies. Where to begin? There are so many of them. By bad I mean movies that don't tell an interesting story, lack interesting characters, and have generally bad acting. The length of this blog doesn't permit me to go into detail about all the bad movies I've seen, or refused to see, so I'll just mention one movie genre as an example: Chick Flicks. Because I have three daughters (one teenager, and two now in their early twenties), I have endured watching so many Chick Flicks that they have all kind of blurred together. It has been an act of love on my part to have endured watching so many of these awful movies with my daughters and wife. You know the ones I'm talking about; anything starring Hannah Montana or the Olsen twins, for example. I won't go into detail about why Chick Flicks are so bad, because this blog would end up being too long. I'll just say that they are almost always bad because their plots and characters are so predictable. So bad that even great acting couldn't redeem them. Having said that, I have seen a couple of pretty good Chick Flicks; one that comes to mind is A Walk to Remember, one of my daughters' all-time favorites. Otherwise, these movies are kind of like Danielle Steele novels. If you're read one, you've read them all.

I'll continue tomorrow with more on good, and bad, movies. The good, the bad and the ugly.