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What kind of a show you guys putting.
On here today?
You're not interested in art?
Now we look, we're going to do this thing. We're going to have a conversation.
Hey, film spotters, Josh. Here.
The Film Spotting Archive has reviews, top fives and more going back to two thousand and five. Access to the archive is just one of the benefits you get as a Film Spotting Family member, which you can learn more about at Filmspottingfamily dot com. As you'll hear on this week's show, our top five Waquin Phoenix performances from two twenty twenty three has a notable omission his performance as
Theodore in Spike Jones's Her. That's because Her was the subject of that month's Bonus Show plenty of discussion of his performance took place on that bonus show, so we put her in the penalty box for our top five list that her conversation was a bonus show that only went to family members. So here, for the first time in the main feed is our tenth anniversary.
Review of her.
Mister Theodore Twombly, Welcome to the world's first artificially intelligent operating system. We'd like to ask you a few questions. Okay, are you social or anti social?
I guess I haven't been social while.
How would you describe your relationship with your mother? Thank you, Please wait as your operating system is initiated.
Hello, I'm here, Hi, Hi, I'm Samantha.
We're excited Josh to talk about Spike Jones's Her, a film that we did review together back in January twenty fourteen a Fix episode reference this, I think on our last show, a double feature her and Inside Lewin Davis
talked about those movies. We didn't have a full show crossing over into the new year, but had a couple big titles we knew we wanted to talk about, and we figured our listeners would want to hear us talk about both of those films worthy of revisits, like the one we're going to give to her now upon its tenth anniversary. I think the way I would start out this discussion is to simply say, Spike Jones make another movie challenge.
Yeah, how about it. I mean, that's one of the first things I looked up. And there's been what some TV or is it mostly music videos TV? He was doing something for Viceland. I think it has been more music videos. But four films, Josh, Is that right? We get her, maybe not going in order here, but her where the wild Things are of course, adaptation and being John Malkovich. These are all really good films. Yeah, I mean, I guess I can understand the temptation having done all
those to say I'm good. I don't know if I can top any of that. But still this is a filmmaker, especially after this revisit where I came away liking her even a little bit more than I did initially, that I would love to see more of. But for now, at least we've got her to take another look at.
I don't want to dwell on any negatives, especially as you said, you gave it a positive review the first time, but you did like it even more the second time. What did you like more? And maybe what did you not give enough credit to the first time around?
Yeah, I don't know if I had any specific complaints. I think I opened my written review at least saying a little talkie. The movie's a little talkie, And of course it is right, that's the nature of this narrative. And maybe it was just, you know, someone as usually inventive as Spike Jones. My expectations going in perhaps is what was at play there and knowing it was going to be sci fi and all the different visualizations you could have.
But you know what, that's under selling what we do get here.
It is right because the cinematographer Hot van Houtm. It's it's soft sci fi the way we've talked about, say, you know, after Yang, Coconaut is after Yang.
That's going to reference it too, right.
It's it's in.
The lighting, the softness of the lighting, the softness of the costume design, the colors here, the color scheme, and these are all things I did appreciate to a degree when I first saw it. I described the pastel hughes as like candy hearts that have gotten old and lost their pop and what I was trying to get at there is this is a movie that had it's wistful, it's sad, but it's also full of possibility and it's
excited about potential, and it holds those things together. The visuals do that too, So I think maybe I was just expecting a different type of visuals that I didn't get, and while I appreciated what I did get, should have maybe just set my expectations entirely aside. So yeah, that's kind of where the two responses compare. But overall, Adam, I think what I liked about the movie better this time is not worrying so much about it being what
is it predicting? What is it saying about where we're at, And having had a fair amount of what it predicts take place since then, I'm starting to realize this is a movie that's really about relational authenticity anytime, any place, any technology. I don't think this movie is that concerned about predicting anything or nailing any specific tech experience we're.
Having, and about growth as a human being and how technology can impact that positively and negatively, and of course also how you and evolved as a human being, even if you're not actually a human being, and how those two concepts interact with each other. Definitely thought about after Yang, because and I appreciated this the first time around as well. This depiction of the future is one where it's not what we expect, in that it's neither a utopia that's
maybe truly a dystopia. Then we're gonna have some reveal that way, or it's also not clearly a dystopia. It just seems like an extension of our current world. It seems like a near future. I can completely buy it, and I don't question it as a near future or need to be wrestling with the rules of the universe. It all somehow coheres, and I think part of it is, of course, what it did accurately predict. I maybe came across the wrong information, but Josh, this is what I
found when I googled it. I was trying to look up when pods are invented, when the whole idea of earbuds were created, and according to what I found, it was after twenty thirteen. I mean, maybe there were very early incarnations, like in the mid two thousand and four two thousand and five range, but otherwise they weren't really a thing until twenty fifteen, twenty sixteen around there. And of course that's entirely how people in this world communicate.
They're really not communicating with each other at all, which is very much like the world we live in right now. This feels just slightly heightened right where he's on mass transit or he's walking in the street or walking around his building. And it's not as if people seem crazy, unhappy or dissatisfied with their lives, but they are completely within their own universes silo, the earbuds in and they're focused on whoever they're talking to digitally somehow, and not
the people around them. And so that that feels right. And maybe I said they're not outwardly suffering necessarily, but maybe just like Theodore, they're all a little bit lonely too, and that's why they feel this need to have this constant connection to something, even if it's a voice or it's checking their email or whatever it is. And you mentioned Van Houdema, the cinematographer. This is one of his
early films. He hadn't done the Nolan movies yet, but he hadn't made Tinker Tailor Soldier spy, maybe at least one other film. I was looking up a detail today and I came across the fact that apparently this checks out with my rewatch of the film. Anyway, there's no blue in the movie.
Yeah, that makes sense.
They didn't want to include a color, certainly didn't want it to be dominant, but it's not in there at all. They just took it out of the palette. They said, we're not going to use the color that's most typically associated with science fiction. So as you said, we don't get those blues. We instead get the reds and the warm yellows and even some browns, those amber hues. We do get some gray. We get some gray in the buildings in the urban environment as we see the buildings
and those those landscapes. But it's muted. It's not techno. It's not sleek at all. And that use of color really is so striking here because you think about how dominant red is. It's easy to think about. You see the cover of the poster or the DVD or whatever, it's him wearing a red shirt against a red background. You immediately associate that color with this film, and you think of red as this very intense color, and very
passionate color. It can be even a little maybe off putting, or it can make you a little anxious perhaps, And they use it here in a way that doesn't suggest any of that, but it's so dominant. He is often wearing that red shirt, the red operating system when it starts up the lighting in his apartment. I mean, it
really is constant. It's in almost every frame. I even noticed Josh that the text of the OS packaging, like when he takes it out of the box, it's white paper with red lettering, which you'd never have read lettering, probably against something you'd go with just black, but it's read here and something about that used to read again, I mentioned all the different ways you think about red, and I think about Theodore as a very passionate character,
a very soulful character, and that red makes sense. But red can also be something that is I'll use the word intense again. And you don't feel that here. And it doesn't feel like it clashes, it doesn't feel like it doesn't make sense, that use of color against this world, even though he's so melancholy, I guess that's really it.
I don't think of such a melancholy wistful movie. I don't associate that with the color red, but that's kind of the point, is that he's someone who is passionate and is soulful, and is sensitive and is seeking that kind of color. I suppose in his life.
It's almost like a womblike red. And I think there's something about or cocoon like that. All of the people we meet are in. It's this future is Yeah, it's not a dystopia. Everyone's very comfortable, and almost so comfortable that they don't realize it's anothizing if I said that right, In a way, they don't realize their loneliness fully because there are these devices that are distracting them from their loneliness by making them think they're not lonely. And the
color scheme around that that's very enveloping and comforting. Again, I think plays a part in that. So we already touched on you know, we're doing this partly because we were thinking about Woking Phoenix performances, right, And I'm curious to see because I think this is something I did underrate a little bit, though I thought he was good before. What did you think of the performance in light of the things we talked about in the top five we
recently did. Was there anything that surprised you or was it pretty much what you remembered.
I'm looking forward to you articulating in a way. I've been struggling to come up with why Joquin Phoenix is so remarkably good in this role. I don't know that I have it. I'll try to get at something here, but I love this performance, and I think one of the reasons why I could revisit this movie again and again.
I actually kind of watched it twice for this review because we were initially going to talk about it a week ago, I think, and I started watching it and I got through ninety minutes of it, I had thirty minutes left, and then when I knew we weren't gonna talk about it that week, I put it off and I started it from the beginning and watched it in
its entirety. So I've seen more or less the film twice in the past two weeks, and I feel like Josh I have such a warm feeling about it, and I have such a warm feeling about Phoenix's performance, Johansson's performance, their interactions with each other, that I kind of just want to put it on and have it in the background a lot, and he's playing a character. He's got that mustache, he's got the glasses that he frequently touches
up to the bridge of his nose. There's some mannerisms in terms of not quite Freddy Quell like, but in terms of the way he stands and some faces that he makes that it's Phoenix putting on a character. But nobody puts on a character better than Joaquin Phoenix. Where it's never distracting, it never feels fussy or overly theatrical. He just comes off, as I'll say the word again, sensitive and lonely, but not but not depressed. Not someone who is disengaged or wants to be disengaged with the world.
And the one thing I remember saying during our top five Waking Phoenix performances that applies here. One of the reasons why it was in my head wasn't just the movies we were talking about, but having at the time watched most of her again, think about how much of this film is just Joaquin Phoenix's face and him reacting, him reacting to things. He's reacting to what he's hearing.
He doesn't have an actor opposite him most of the time to feed off of, and he's so expressive and there's so much yearning that naturally comes through in him that I love the character. I love the performance. Again, I'm struggling a little bit because it's not as if I can point to one, two, or three choices Phoenix makes that I think get us to that point is just Joaquin Phoenix doing what he almost always does on screen, which is be really fascinating.
I think it's recognizing the high degree of difficulty, unassuming difficulty, like you wouldn't initially think this was a hard part. Right, He's doing two things and you've hinted at both of them incredibly well that are way more difficult than they might appear. One of them is to be enclose up, and this often, this frequently, this intensely held close up.
The other thing is to act with yourself so there's no one on the screen giving you anything back, and a that he pulls this off and does it so masterfully that we're completely invested in Theodore's inner life and rooting for him, feeling we understand him fully, feeling we might know him better than Samantha. I think we almost become possessive of Theodore. I had that feeling of kind of the feeling was, and this is all related to Phoenix's performance and the way he nudges his way into
our hearts as viewers. I had the feeling of the best friend who is watching your friend begin a new relationship you're not quite so sure about and you don't
know how to tell it to them. When he begins this relationship with Samantha, you're a little bit suspicious because of the technological aspect, but I think we're more suspicious because at that point Phoenix threw those close ups through opening himself up to us, being that tight on the camera and authentic in that close up and doing all this without someone else on the screen to distract us. We're not This is why we're so attached to him too.
It's just him and us.
Now, it's not he's not speaking to the camera, but so often there's no one else in the scene.
But that he's still.
Bringing all this authenticity to it, I think is why we do form such an attachment to him. So it's a masterclass in those two things, acting alone and acting within a close up. And then just to go back to your note, about, you know, how he carries himself. This is one of the first things I noticed is the unhurried slouch he has at the start, when all the has are his earbuds and he's talking to his you know device. This is a guy who has nowhere to go. He tells us that by the pace and
the posture of his walk. And then what happens once he meets Samantha. His step picks up a little bit and his posture picks up a little.
Bit from so he has a sense of purpose, a purpose now.
And it's you know, as we describe it, it's obvious, right, and it seems like these would be obvious things that an actor would do, but I don't think most actors would do it. And it's something again, we talked about physicality so much in our Top five that Phoenix is deeply attuned to the full body physicality of his characters, and he brings that to a performance that most of
the body we see is his face. So it's just, you know, it's it's almost in the context of all his other performances that this becomes even more impressive, not just in the gentleness or quietness, but in those scenes where so many tools are taken away from him, and he still registers this strongly.
Yeah. I also feel that way or close certainly about Scarlett Johansson. I think this is the performance where I really became keenly aware of how talented she was. I was a little down on Scarlett Johansson, kind of Brad Pitt like earlier in her career. She was someone like Pitt who I thought had a movie star of sensibility to her. But I thought when she tried to veer too much into playing characters, it felt a little bit forced.
She didn't have the natural instincts. It seemed to me, just like Pitt that someone like Walking Phoenix has when it comes to playing characters. And we never see her here, but all of her vocal choices, the fact that, of course she doesn't play the movie wouldn't work this way. She doesn't play it in any way as if she is playing someone or something that is not human, that the voice is going to sound computer like or day
to like. She sounds natural and authentically herself and someone who is I think the key difference is it doesn't even have to be a matter of the voice, like she's talking quote unquote like a robot, which would be silly, and she doesn't do. It's that she's also not responding to things too quickly or too matter of factly, as if she's already processed everything and she's giving you her reaction because it's a reaction that's been preordained, it's been
pre programmed. It is truly as if in the performance you sense what she expresses about her and what makes her unique, which is she is constantly evolving. She has intuition, She's taking in all of the information around her and all of her experiences in the moment and is evolving. That's exactly what we're all doing too, and what Theodore is doing. We're just not doing it with the pace or the same magnitude that it is for her character.
Earlier, I was thinking about how I was annoyed, and it's gonna sound strange, but I was really excited about that. And then I was thinking about the other things I've been feeling, and I caught myself feeling proud of that, you know, proud of having my own feelings about the world, like the times I was worried about you and things that hurt me, things I want, And then.
It's terrible thought like are these feelings even real or are they just programming?
And that idea really hurts, and then I'm getting angry at myself for even having pain.
What is centric?
Well, could there be a more vivacious voice than the one that Johansen is using here? And what I mean by that specifically is full of life, because that's what you know. Samantha believes she's alive from the start. You get that sense, right, But we have to hear that.
All we can get that sense of is hearing it in her voice, not what she tells us, not the argument she makes for that, not the reasoning, but the actual vocal quality of a being that is so happy to be alive and is yearning for other ways of living. I think this connects with another thing that struck me about this viewing is that her to me is very much about embodiment and is helpful in being grateful to have a body and to be fully alive. I think
that is what Samantha wants. How about the phrase she says, I think it's during the first sex scene, I can feel my skin that you know. That is what is exciting her, is this sense of embodiment and there's a shot. There's a throwaway shot that was crucial for me here where Theodore is watching dancers out. You talked well about you know where I'll siloed off in this world. Yet here's a moment where he gets outside of himself and he sees some people out in public dancing, and that's
something you require a body for. And there are other moments where disembodiment does not work. How about the first sex scene where he is calling up some sort of chat right a woman and yeah, yeah, and that kind of goes awry. Or even there's another one Adam too, when Samantha arranges the surrogate woman be work to be her body. Well, this is what I what registered for
me here is that that doesn't work for him. And I think one of the reasons is because while it is attempted embodiment, it is still not Samantha's body, and there is a gap between soul and body that that encounter cannot cover. And I think that's that's partly why that doesn't work. Even the ending of this film is
an embodied real world experience right with another person. He's sitting there with Amy Adams, who is so good in this movie, by the way, just incredible, and they're sitting there doing something you can only do if you have eyes to see it and appreciate with someone who's there there with you. And I don't mean all of this to say that the movie is making an argument for embodiments against an AI presence like Samantha. I think it is recognizing that's what Samantha yearns for as well.
First, I'm glad you said that about Amy Adams, because I noted just some people in the cast here that we get that, maybe we even forgot were in this film, like Amy Adams, who's so good, like for the second time this week for us, Chris Pratt, Yeah, I forgot that. I know it's fashionable to hate on Chris Pratt. Guess what. There's a reason why I had him higher on my Chris Power ranking list than a lot of other people do.
He's actually really talented. He's a really entertaining, charismatic, funny actor. But not just not just funny and entertaining. There is there is some depth to him and he's really good here as well. Small scene only has a few of them, but he's really good. Olivia Wilde shows up, great scene, so that date that goes very awry.
Another side of Theodore.
You see there too, another side of Theodore, and then we also get even the voice of Brian Ky. I know, is Alan Watts a real character Alan Watts? I had to look that up today. I didn't know. I'll confess my ignorant a real man who died I think in the seventies, and the idea that they' brought him back. That also seems like something we're heading for, so obviously right where we're gonna be able to talk with people from the past somehow through their writing. AI has already
done some of that, taking people's voices. I'm thinking about the Anthony Bourdain doc and it was just one line, but how controversial that was. But those performances are really good. One other part of the sex scene that I love, that first really successful sex scene between Samantha and Theodore. I love the choice to go to black in that moment and just let these two characters have this private moment there. It's I was gonna say, it's a subtle choice.
I suppose it's not that subtle to actually go to black on the screen, but we only hear it. We let the characters have it. I think it's a great choice. And then I love the next day because I think this is one of the things the movie really wants to explore, is the ways that a relationship with an os like this, with an artificial intelligence is not quote unquote real, but all the ways that it is very much real, all the same things that you get from
a conventional relationship. What are the things that transfer to this and it really is no different once you allow your brain to look at it from that perspective. How about the next day after that sex, seeing Josh that it's now a little bit awkward between them, he kind of holds off you can tell on getting back online ay, and then when he does, they kind of talk over each other a little bit. It's the closest thing to
traditional rom com moment we get in this film. But it feels it feels right any of us who've ever had any experience like that, with any intimacy whatsoever. You know, the next day, it's sort of like, did that really happen? Like what's the what's the new dynamic? Now? I love I love that part. I think another thing that really
works about the performance, it's Johansson's performance. I don't want to take anything away from that of the ways the film overall ends up having the impact that it does, and the way we can buy in and we can believe that the relationship is as quote unquote real and as authentic and is close to matching whatever we perceive as a traditional or real human relationship is the fact that just like she is a voice in his head, she's a voice in our heads. She is a voice,
and we're having that same experience that he is. But it's even the decision with the sound design to have most of the outside world closed off so that all you're hearing, even at the beach, right, you don't hear beach sounds when he goes though. It also struck me that the beach is the one place where people don't seem to be totally just obsessed with their devices. They're actually talking to other people. It's the only time we see that.
Yeah, it's to set him apart, right here.
I sent him apart. Yeah, but we don't hear any beach sounds when he's walking, he's going to work or going home. We're not hearing the clamor of the streets, the sounds of people walking, the sounds of people talking. It's it's all the soundscape of what earbuds, what AirPods sound like, where there's that noise reduction and you're only getting that voice in your head, and there is and
I'm saying this acknowledging. Look, I not only have been doing podcasting for a long time, but I teach it now, and I talk about the intimacy of podcasting and there being something to the fact that you put on these headphones and you hear these voices in your head and you feel more connected to those people than you do watching the characters on the big screen or a TV.
It's just a fact there is something more intimate about it, and that intimacy of her being in his head it matches the exact same experience we have as viewers.
I wanted to talk a little bit about the idea of role playing in this movie as well, because I think we get a hint at this, a hint of this very early on the scene where it's kind of a switcheroo. We hear him writing but reading the fiftieth anniversary letter, and we think, right, is this him?
We don't know it isn't him until he says something about like my naked body, and it's clearly yeah, he's talking from a female perspective.
Yes, And it's just hints.
A couple of things is how invested he is in his work, that he's proud of it, he puts a lot into it. But he is playing a role there.
And this is all.
Connected to the idea of authentic relationships. What are authentic relationships? And we see it, I think maybe that night or the next night when he does have that late night chat with a woman. And notice he's smiling I think when he's composing the message, but then his face goes flat when he says send, and there's a It's clear he's playing a role there, right for a yes, for a transactional purpose. So just as in doing his job, he has to play a role in meeting this woman
for a late night chat. There is a transactional purpose. Send is and scene yeah exactly. Yeah, it's the end of the scene. And now he's back to normal Theodore. And notice what happens. And notice what happens when he and Samantha do have that sex scene. She doesn't hang up afterwards like the two of them in that chat immediately hang up. You know, transaction made, We're done, we got what we needed here, there's still some sort of relationship.
So I think these are all hints in terms of what is an authentic relationship and how does role planes sometimes get in the way of that, How is it maybe a hurdle for Theodore. And it's not until he is able to drop all those masks that he's able to connect with Samantha on a deeper level. And this is all just goes back to the idea of you know, this is really more about relationships than any sort of ethical concerns about AI for.
Me, absolutely, And I'm going to to highlight or underscore something here about the work he does as a writer and that we see at the beginning, and a scene that you brought up that for me was the big surprise of the film on this rewatch surprise meaning I had completely forgotten that this scene was in the film, and it really surprised me and really kind of shook me and moved me as I watched it. And that's
the surrogate scene. And I think some of this may get back to what you were saying, Josh about the complexities or what the movie wants to explore in terms of physical embodiment. He can't accept the surrogate situation despite the fact that all she is doing, if you really think about it, Josh is being the surrogate for a relationship that he embodies every day multiple times at work. As the writer of those letters, he is her. He
knows the people he's writing to. He has a sense of the history of their relationships.
Bong relationships with these.
Clients, just like she feels like she knows them. She says, I'll always love you and Josh, that's another thing to go off slightly off topic for just a second. That was another thing that seemed to me eerily prescient. A point I see that we could be going to with these types of relationships is that that woman, I don't
think is some far fetched thing. This idea that the way we live with these parasocial relationships and our relationships and connections to people we don't actually know, but we feel like we know them because you interact with them so much every day on social media. You think you know them as people we joke or you see people online joking about that couple. I love them so much. Yes, I know that's probably mostly hype. Herbally or it's an expression of love or admiration for them, but it doesn't
cross a line. Okay, but I could see it going there. I could see something further and further down that path where people like her aren't something we just see in quote unquote science fiction movies. But that was a connection I made this time that I definitely didn't the first time around, that he is able to be the surrogate for all these other relationships and it feels completely real to the people. The people getting those letters and procuring
the letters. No, they know that someone else is writing them, not their lover. They don't care. It's real enough to them. It's real and it works. He's the surrogate for them, But when she's the surrogate for him and her relationship, there's there's something where a line has been crossed. Can't he can't pretend?
Yeah?
I think, I mean, I think it does come back to embodiment because he is an emotional surrogant with those letters, he's not a physical surrogate, and maybe you know there's something there about that being a particular distinction. Yeah, I'm just the letter writing thing is so fascinating to me, just thinking about you know, that would not fly to hire out an anniversary letter or something like that. But
I can also see us getting to that point. And here we come to you know, the whole chat GPT thing is like, to what extent if you use chat GBT to get you started on your fiftieth anniversary letter to your wife or husband?
Like, is that crossing the line? Is that? Yeah?
I mean, Josh, I just want to say I'm with you. I completely understand how that's your initial reaction. Why would why would our partners be okay with us not putting in the work ourselves and not expressing from our hearts and minds how we feel about them and hiring someone else to do it. But we would also feel that
way theoretically about falling in love with an os. And what this movie suggests is the more ways those lines get blurred, the more ways that those relationships actually produce the same real feelings and real results, the type of intimacy that you want from a relationship. It's just a matter of it's just a matter of subtly, over time kind of shifting your perspective on it. And I can see a world where couples who have very healthy relationships
and do put in the work. Might nevertheless have a surrogate like someone like Theodore, who if they're doing their job right, it doesn't feel any different than as if the husband wrote the letter himself or the wife wrote the letter herself.
You know, just hiring someone to decorate decorate the rooms, you approve it, you get final say and yeah, it's all yours.
You know.
We were talking about some of the ways too that this movie maybe challenges our expectations a little bit if you walk in thinking you're watching a science fiction movie or movie that's gonna be about predictions at all. I love the fact, on the most basic level that we
get a depiction of AI. I don't know how many other depictions of of Ai there are to draw from, but the ones that I can think about, certainly a movie we both love comes to mind, like X Makina right, where the whole point of those films as science fiction films is to be a warning. They're cautionary tales. This
is going to come back to haunt us. The Terminator films, all the stuff, the machines are going to become sentient and humanity is screwed, right, and Spike Jones says, I'm gonna make a movie that instead of being about how the machines are going to get smarter and they're going to become more human, and by becoming more human, that means they're going to be even more set on their own survival and destroying anyone around them who might stand
in the way of their survival. And instead, I'm going to say, I'm going to suggest that becoming more and more human means to be even more focused on trying to navigate and understand love. That's really what this film is exploring. Amy Adams character says at one point, I think he says to her, do you think I'm crazy? Or something like that, when he admits he's in love with an Os, and she says, well, I think anybody who falls in love is made is a freak exactly.
And I think maybe that that's that's what this movie is definitely exploring. But I like that idea, of course. I love that idea that this is this is this movie that's driven by technology and makes us think about some of these really provocative things. But at its core, it's not about the machines coming to destroy us. It's about the machines becoming more human, which means they're more interested in love, which means they'll they'll continue they leave.
At the end, the machines leave, and the movie doesn't really explore that or explain that. But what I took away is the idea that they finally discover that the more they get into these big, unanswerable human questions, the more that's something they need to do on their own. They need to do on their own, just like he needs to come to terms of these things on his own. And the fact that this movie I never noticed this arc before. I didn't pay attention the first time around
to the fact that it's not an accident. Of course. This movie starts with him dealing with the loss of his relationship, the grief of the ending of that marriage to Roney Mara's character, and it closes with him reconciling with her in a way by sending her an email, and everything he says could be translatable to everything he just went through with Samantha. But everything he goes through with Samantha somehow brings him back to a reality of
needing to connect with and reconcile in some way. What he's learned with an actual person that he loved.
Yeah, I think that's you know, it brings it back to the human experience, and I think the Ais leave so that we can be left with him. So I do feel like her is less despite the title, less interested in the Although it gives a lot of time to this the fate and wants and needs of the Ais. It's a better movie because it does pay attention to that.
But where it wants to leave us is with Theodore's humanity, in our humanity, and to your point about it being a positive spin on a futuristic movie like this, it wants to leave us at least. This is how I feel watching the movie, grateful for what we do have and thinking about the authentic relationships we might have again, the bodies that we have and the ways those allow us to participate in relationship and all of that just does make this a movie that's about gratitude in a lot of ways.
For me.
Yeah, I can see that. I think that's an appropriate word. I'll close out here some of my thoughts by just bringing up the fact that as much as I respect the fact that the movie isn't about the dangers of AI or it is trying to be this cautionary tale.
It's funny to just yesterday, as we're taping us, read an article in The New York Times about the godfather of AI leaving Google and warning of the dangers ahead Josh and he has a part in this article where he basically says, you know, a lot of people, of course understand that the stuff the movies warn us about, that the machines are going to take over and try to kill us all is probably inevitable. But we just thought it was. We just thought it was fifty or
sixty or so years down the road. So I just went about my life and continue to explore AI and help bring it to life. Now I think it's gonna happen much sooner. So there's two parts of that. One one he feels like it's imminent and two fifty or sixty years down the road felt far enough away it wasn't something to worry.
About, Like that wouldn't given me pause.
Yeah, but that that is where where we're at. Where now every day, every day you can read an article like that, and the things this guide Jeffrey Hinton, doctor Hinton, is warning about can range from just the replacement of people doing jobs and that being bad enough in many ways to fall on yes, actually maybe terminating the hostile takeover the terminator. It it does feel right now more
real than maybe ever before, certainly ever before. It feels more real and more possible, not just the work of science fiction. And that's scary, and maybe that's why. Actually I had such a lovely experience with her this time around. I love I mean I had it the first time too, but it it challenged me and it made me think about the problems that will come with this type of technology.
But it does so with such a curiosity and sensitivity that it's it's maybe more science fiction than those science fiction films, because that's not how it's going to go at all, but it's the way I'd like it to go.
Doesn't sound like.
It's going to go that way, And certainly that future seems more likely now than when Her came out just ten years ago. I mean, yes, fifty sixty years you're talking about, But just ten years ago, you know, we were in such a different place than where it appears.
We are now.
Can you feel me with you right now? I me too? Man lives.
Again.
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Pro pantibly
M HM.