We went and saw Ex Machina tonight, the Ho and I. The first of *maybe* a movie a week for the summer season…I don’t know. We’ll see. I haven’t entirely commited to doing that, but I do think it would be fun. I’ve seen two movies in a theater so far this year, and they’ve been within the last 10 days. That’s kinda crazy to think about, actually. When I was 18 and 19, just starting school up in Humboldt, I averaged a movie a week for like two or three years. Seriously. I would keep the ticket stubs. One year was somewhere around 45 movies in theaters, and another year I think I saw 50. There are 52 weeks in a year. Right?…shit, now I’m totally second-guessing that. There ARE 52 weeks in a year…right?
So! Ex Machina. It was really good. Maybe perhaps not a masterpiece like some on my Twitter feed have made it out to be, but don’t let that sound like I wasn’t impressed. I was. The script was great, legitimately, the LOCATION(s) it was shot at…holy crap. So freaking beautiful. The acting was superb. The only tiny complaint I had about it was a choice made at the very, very end, but I’m not going to talk about that on here since that might spoil the fun for the hundreds of thousands of non-existant people that read this damn blog 😛
It was really interesting in that the movie was so SIMPLE. A Turing test, done face-to-face with an AI. Period. That’s the logline. Ahhhhh…how I wish to grasp such simplicity of concept some day. It turned into the perfect pretext for a discussion on the nature of intelligence and motivation. The visuals were wonderful, the concepts were touched upon but not too hard as to become alienating or overly philosophical…it was just a simple movie. I guess that would be the other slight…well, not really *complaint* because the movie is clearly exactly what they were intending to make, so it’s not like it over-promised and under-delivered…but it *could* have been more ambitious, I suppose. It doesn’t really innovate all that much, or even shatter SciFi conventions and present something we’v never seen before.
Liz, however, really struck on an idea that I legitimately think could take probably the EXACT same script and make it something edgy and hip, and totally cool…have this story done as a PLAY. It’s a genius idea; the setting is singular, this guys’ complex, there are only four characters, and the plot/concept perfectly lends itself to dialogue-heavy scenes debating big conceptual issues. LIKE A MOTHERFUCKING PLAY. I know, I’m married to a genius.
My day started pretty late. I slept in waaaaay longer than usual. I was freaking tired, yo. Woke up just in time to grab something quick to eat and meet Joshy-poo for some golf down at the Weddington course. He’s really starting to enjoy playing, I think, and he’s *definitely* getting better at the game itself. It’s just a great way to get out and do something, and to hang with each other and catch up. It’s something I really look forward to.
Then, I came home, ate some lunch and watched the end of the A’s game…a continual exercise in alternating between frustration and futility. Not that I could affect the outcome of the game, mind you, just…watching futility, I suppose 😛 They lost. Wasted an amazing effort by Sonny Gray. But, whatever. We’ll see if they start playing any better. There’s still time.
Tomorrow is another off day. I had delusions of getting catch-up work done, but I don’t think that’s going to happen, to be honest. I need a couple days actually off. Then, I can launch back into the swing of things. I have some “easy” lessons in my queue as it is…use them to make up ground. We’ll see how it goes. Tomorrow some writing will happen as well. Watching the movie tonight gave me some ideas, too, of conversations to explore.
Anywho, that’s all for tonight, I think. More sleep!