August 18, 2000

12:25 PM

In other news - Spielberg hijacks project (A.I.) from Kubrick's grave, hacks it and Casts Robin Williams....
Williams? Williams? I'm going to go out and kill SS myself.
posted by tiaka (11 comments total)

Side note : Ok, let's see how many people I can upset today. heh. Ohh, well, I'm not trying to, just that this really couldn't hold off for another day, and I promise to never post 2 links again, (I realise I could post all the links I want if they're interesting.heh.) It's just that I'm going to piss blood here because of this, you know, I accepted the fact that SS would do AI, the fact that he didn't care enough to look further than the latest Wunder-child-actor as the lead, and the fact that he is Spielbeg, but This? I mean, come on!!!
posted by tiaka at 12:31 PM on August 18, 2000

Not that it isn't true, but I wouldn't get too upset until I saw that news from a more reliable source.
posted by quirked at 1:15 PM on August 18, 2000

Still, the very thought itself is enough to make blood boil.

Mine's at 211 degrees...
posted by solistrato at 1:20 PM on August 18, 2000

Not that I particularly care for Robin Williams but big deal. He's doing some voice over work and he's not getting any screen credit for it.
posted by Nyarlathotep at 1:29 PM on August 18, 2000

Considering that the small amount that we know about Kubrick's own thoughts on "AI" already allow us to make the conclusion that he considered it a fable (not an overblown dramatic piece) leads me to believe that Williams is actually a good choice. He's a decent actor - when he bothers to try - and his child-in-a-man's-body tone would probably support Kubrick's fable concept nicely.
posted by m.polo at 1:40 PM on August 18, 2000

Some of you people get easily excited. How many of you had boiling blood when Tom Cruise was cast by Kubrick for EWS? Calm down. It's Williams doing narration - he's not doing Mork, Popeye, or Patch.
posted by gluechunk at 1:45 PM on August 18, 2000

Um, I think I miss the point of this entirely. Kubrick is dead and nothing is going to change that. Steven shouldn't try to make a Kubrick film, he can't. AI is just a script and it just happened to be something Kubrick was intent on, but it doesn't mean that he owns it from beyond the grave.

At some level I want to dismiss Robin because of his current streak of bad movies. Perhaps he is caught up in the game of trying to maintain a persona that he may not embody anymore. It's like he's struggling between making people laugh and then making them cry and ends up boring them.
posted by john at 1:48 PM on August 18, 2000

Hey....i liked Altman's Popeye. Regardless, Spielberg will never, ever be Kubrick. But i'm sure that's a shared thought here.
posted by milhous at 5:57 PM on August 18, 2000

"At some level I want to dismiss Robin because of his current streak of bad movies..."

Bicentennial Man, Jakob the Liar, Patch Adams, What Dreams May Come, Good Will Hunting...

What streak are you talking about? This man has an incredible body of work, and some of his best performances have been in the past five years.

Well.. okay there was "Get Bruce" but he did that one as a favor to a friend, obviously, and it was a cameo. Doesn't count. Jack. Birdcage. Jumanji. Mrs. Doubtfire. The Fisher King. Dang this man has had one hell of a career so far! Maybe you personally don't like him. That's your choice. Few performers work harder with as good of a track record. Flubber was the last bad (real) movie he was in, back in 97. And Being Human sucked. That cannot be argued. Overall however, his batting average is nothing to spit at.

As for Spielberg being Kubrick, who would want to be Kubrick? I think Christopher Walken rocks, but I'd never want to be him. How absurd. The illusion many have of Spielberg wanting to be Kubrick would be like basketball's Michael Jordan wanting to be like baseball's Nolan Ryan. What's wrong with being the great person you already are?
posted by ZachsMind at 10:33 AM on August 21, 2000

Bicentennical Man, please. What Dreams may come, was more like what yawns may come. Good Will Hunting, felt like a pale revision of Dead Poets. Birdcage was decent, but he had little to do with that, Mrs. Doubtfire was so-so-formula and Jumanji was just a FX showcase. The only movie you listed that was really decent was the Fisher King and that came out a long time ago. I guess I don't like his Disney movies.
posted by john at 10:58 AM on August 21, 2000

I agree... and, Fisher King was done by Gilliam, so take what you will.

"As for Spielberg being Kubrick, who would want to be Kubrick?"
Just about every director, man and woman and child there is. I mean, Kubrick is the greatest director to ever live. period.
posted by tiaka at 5:52 AM on August 25, 2000