If you only watch one episode of Stargate ever, make it "Window of Opportunity."

"In the middle of my backswing?!"

The one with the black hole is solid science fiction too. I forget the name of that one.

Fair enough. I have a hard time getting emotionally invested in the movie myself, since David is never even hinted to be anything more than a mere machine. A complicated one, yeah, but I related to him as a character about as much as I'd relate to an ATM.

The whole premise and execution reminds me more than a little bit of this, though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBqhIVyfsRg

Eddie, I think we've been down this road before. If it wasn't you, it was somebody else on this forum I'm pretty sure. Lemme say it again, 'cause once again I find myself needing to: Whenever I sound really fucking condescending, it's because I'm making fun of myself a little bit and the between-the-lines whatnot isn't coming through over the Internet. For reals. Promise.

That said, I'll try to cut down on it.

Anyway, at the risk of actually staying on topic, lemme just say this about that regarding "AI." There's legitimate debate to be had about the difference between an author's intentions and a viewer's interpretations and whether one or the other of those is more legitimate. But whether either Kubrick or Spielberg meant it this way — or Aldiss, who wrote the short story on which the movie was incredibly loosely based — that film has to be one of the most deeply and unapologetically misanthropic works of art ever. It's practically the anti-Spielberg film. Spielberg, the consummate humanist, put his name on a feature that starts out with the contention that humans are bastards who are absolutely not worth saving and never lets go of it for a second.

There are two kinds of characters in the movie: human beings and robots. The humans are, without exception, selfish, crass, venal, shallow, weak, manipulative and cruel. The robots have their own personalities, because they were built to, but they share one characteristic in common: They are innocent. They're simple and child-like and pure of spirit, by virtue of, well, not having spirits at all. They are virtuous, but empty.

Precisely one character (or more accurately, group of characters) shows the slightest humanity in the course of the film. And it happens at the very end, and in deference to anybody here who may not have seen it, I won't spoil. But suffice to say it fits with the theme.

"AI" is the anti-fairy tale. It starts with the premise of Pinocchio, then says fuck you, there is no fairy, there is no magic, you will never be anything other than what you are. You're incapable of transcendence, and no one — no one — will ever love you.

It's a dark, dark film. And the reason I made my wisecrack about not understanding it is because a lot of people simply don't. They misunderstand this or that aspect of the film — or maybe it's more accurate to say they differently understand it, since I make no claims about one interpretation or another being the correct one — and it leads them to think the movie was thematically murky, or that it took a hard swerve in the third act. It wasn't, and it didn't. It's a brutal, nihilistic film.

Unlike mister snooty pants Chris and mister I-have-friends-and-a-life Zarban, I will be sitting on my couch. There may or may not be beer involved.

So I'll be there.

Remind me to put "top five series or season finales in episodic television" up on the top-five thread when next it's my turn.

I've always had a soft spot for the "fuck it, everyone dies" kind of finale. Or even the "okay, no actual characters died, but fuck it, the premise of our show dies" kind.

On that note: Have you ever noticed just how many synonyms English has? If you don't speak any other languages you might never have noticed, but really it's kind of ridiculous. Virtually every word in our language has at least one synonym, and most often one of the two synonyms seems more polite than the other. Best example of this I know is "sweat" and "perspire." The two words are perfect synonyms; they mean exactly the same thing. But one is more polite.

"Sweat" (the verb) is from the Old English "swætan." "Perspire" is from the Norman French "perspirer," out of the Latin "perspirare," literally "to breathe through."

Between 1066 and the mid-1400s, late Anglo-Saxon and Norman French merged to form what we now call Middle English, which of course evolved into Modern English starting in the 15th century or so.

But we've retained almost all of the vocabulary of both languages. The grammar and basic functional words are Anglo-Saxon, but fully half of the vocabulary of Modern English is French. You can especially see this with the meat words: cow versus beef, swine versus pork, deer versus venison. Pretty much the only meat word we retain from Old English is lamb, and that's just cause the French "agneau" is hard for us to pronounce. (We did retain the name Agnes, though, which is just the Latin word for "lamb" with a different spelling.)

Anyway, it's all a thousand-year-old side effect of the fact that the nobles spoke French and the common people spoke Anglo-Saxon. We kept almost all the words, but even today we associate the French words with politeness or snootiness, and the Old English words with being low-class or common, or even rude. Social memory lasts a long time.

Okay, done being a word nerd now.

Please don't let this turn into a name-your-penis thread. Please don't let this turn into a name-your-penis thread.

Dude. You could have sold tickets to that.

I don't know about melting, but the sex would be fantastic.

Listening to this one — I'm only about halfway through — has gotten me thinking about likes and dislikes and hows and whys.

I saw this movie for the first and only time quite recently—well, sort of recently—well, about a year ago. And I remember liking it. Not loving it; I haven't rushed back to watch it again. But I enjoyed it. After it was over, I was glad I'd taken the time.

And you guys … well, not so much.

And I've been wondering why that is. I mean, I'm making a couple of not-entirely-safe assumptions. I'm assuming that neither I nor you guys have shit-for-taste. I don't like the same movies some of the disembodied voices have said they've liked, but so far it's always been okay-I-see-where-you're-coming-from. So if I assume that neither I nor the DIF hive-mind are just flat-out stupid about movies, then … well, I have a mystery on my hands.

The only thing I can figure is that I — and I'm totally just speaking personally here — I didn't want anything from this movie. I wasn't invested in it on any level. I got it from Netflix, and I watched it on a weeknight, so it's not like it cost me anything to speak of. And I didn't go into it all heart-set on it being the best movie capital-ee-vee-ee-arr. I watched it, found it pleasing, and moved on with my life.

And you know what? I felt the same way about Avatar. The deal I made with the movie was simple: "Entertain me." And thus was I entertained. Golf claps all 'round.

It's just weird, is all. Cause I can be critical, man. I have the capacity to express harsh and strongly worded opinions. It's just that in this case, and a few noteworthy others, I didn't have any. Strong opinions, I mean.

What I've heard so far in the commentary — and again, I've only listened to some of it today — boils down to this: "It wasn't what I wanted." And you know, that's about the best damn reason I can think of for disliking a movie, or really anything at all. If I'd gone into the movie wanting the same things you guys wanted, I'd probably be right there on the couch with you — in spirit, 'cause otherwise it'd be creepy and weird — talking about how let-down I was.

But really, the whole "it's a fairy tale"/"it's not a fairy tale" thing … respectfully and with love, I think that's a big ol' red herring. Cause if any of you can give me, right now, a succinct and reasonable definition of what "fairy tale" really means, I will fedex you a dollar.

I can't construct an eloquent and lucid defense of the film, 'cause I only saw it the once, and that was last year. But I remember being intrigued by the juxtaposition of the fantasy elements with brutal reality — maybe it's not the world's most original concept, but it was sufficient to engage me for the duration. And although my personal taste leaves me with little patience for that sort of thing, you have to admit that Del Taco really does have an unusual eye for fantasy. And more than anything, as the movie went on, I found myself wanting to know what was going to happen next. So … you know. There's that.

I think it really all comes down to expectations. And I think it's both totally valid and fundamentally honest to say the words, "It wasn't what I wanted."

Life doesn't give you many chances to say those words in that order, so when an opportunity comes along, grab it with both hands and hold on tight.

No, and from what I hear, it's a lucky thing.

I can tell you this much, though: When Senator Barack Obama runs over your foot on the concourse at Reagan with his wheely carryon, he's very apologetic about it.