While I know that the movie "AI" (or "Artificial Intelligence"...if I say one in coversation, I'm always corrected to say the other one...oh well) isn't on many people's "Favorites of last year" list, I have to say that I've enjoyed it each time I saw it. Sure it has two endings, neither of which are all that great. Sure it's long and some of the scenes are so slow and methodical that you wish you were actually watching "Eyes Wide Shut". Sure the robots/aliens (depends on who you talk to, once again) at the end are really corny and stupid-looking.

Despite all that, I find that it's visually compelling and, even better, emotionally compelling, at least for me. I cry every time I see it. The emotions that are trafficked in that movie are deep gut things...unconditional love and the desperate need for some of it back. Also, I find that certain moments almost belie the detached nature of the ending and narration--it's almost as if we are supposed to understand, in a wink-wink way, that we need to come away from "AI" believing more in fairy tales and the supernatural than less.

I mean, the damn fish lead him to Coney Island.

And there's a few visual moments that are really creative. There's one in particular, where a falling David is reflected on the glass in front of Gigalo Joe's face...David's fall is shown, in reflection, from the pupil of Gigalo Joe's eye and down his cheek--the single tear that Joe can never have. It seems over-the-top on paper, but it's so subtle that I didn't notice it till this viewing with my parents.

Don't worry, I was snapped back to reality quickly afterwards. When asked how she liked it, my mom said, "Um, it was weird."

My second piece for Relevant Magazine is online...a nice little review for "The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys". It's funny--I went through a bunch of trouble (and long-distance calls) to procure a couple of film stills for the website. Well, they found a pic elsewhere and used that. Oh well. At least I got to talk to someone "in movies" in Manhatten.

In other news: I found the apartment. It's perfect. Now I just need the job.

I'm very impressed that a news story recounting the fact that Playboy is putting out a "Women of Enron" issue has hit the number five newsstory slot on Yahoo!...and I thought the internet had changed drastically since I first started using it in 1992.

For those who rejoiced in my attempts and subsequent short victory in leaving the evil empire, it looks like I might become their newest assistant manager.

All of this falls under the heading "Huge Maybe", along with Restoration Hardware, The Princeton Review, and Tupperware.

Yes, I said Tupperware.

I'm also looking into jobs in Technical Writing. It looks like a lot of fun. Breaking into the field will be hell.

My cousin José has come back from his studies at Oxford to spend some time here in the states! I've always considered him the brother that I never had, so it's been wonderful taking a few moments to catch up. He let me know about his one and only Chelsea Clinton sighting ("We don't really socialize in the same circles," he said) and gave his discription of Oxford as a city--"Clostrophobic."

I'm doing a lot of waiting when it comes to the job search. It turned out that the labs had a part-time position opening up, but its "hours available" versus "wage earned" ratio didn't hit the "Keith pays for an apartment" window. I just applied with The Princeton Review as well, so here's hoping that I got high enough scores on my SATs and GREs to work there. And they always said that I'd never need my SAT scores for anything other than getting into college...

I was going to write more, but there's a mosquito flying around my room that must die...