I Am Frankelda, A.I. Artificial Intelligence, and From Russia With Love are among the films deserving of your eyeballs this month.
2020’s Bill & Ted Face the Music doesn’t enjoy quite the same status, but give it time—it’s no less of a delight, blending another madcap temporal crisis that can only be solved through the unifying power of rocking out with an almost melancholic exploration of what happens when youthful dreams go unfulfilled. With the entire trilogy on Prime Video now, it’s the perfect time to relearn the golden rule: Be excellent to each other.
A.I. Artificial Intelligence
By the 22nd century, human society and Earth itself are on the brink of collapse. Rising sea levels and rampant climate change have led to humanity’s decline, necessitating the creation of humanoid “mechas” to fill the gap. Most are detached automatons, but David (Haley Joel Osment) is different—a robot in the form of an 11-year old boy, he’s the first of his kind, an experimental model capable of feeling emotions. But can his new “mother” Monica (Frances O’Connor) accept him as a real boy?
Back in 2001, A.I. Artificial Intelligence was “just” an eminently serviceable outing from Steven Spielberg (picking up the reins from Stanley Kubrick, who’d been trying for decades to bring this adaptation of Brian Aldiss’ short story “Supertoys Last All Summer Long” to the screen). It blends Spielberg’s penchant for authentic family drama with the sci-fi sensibilities honed on the likes of Close Encounters and raises interesting questions about what makes us us (even as it goes on a pretty weird tangent into a self-aware cyberpunk retelling of Pinocchio in its latter half, with Jude Law’s hooker-bot Gigolo Joe as a loose Jiminy Cricket parallel). A quarter-century on, as its environmental warnings feel closer than ever and we grapple with the rise of AI in the real world, the film hits very differently. An eerily prescient piece of filmmaking that’s more powerful now than ever.
Classic James Bond
Everyone has their favorite Bond, but Sean Connery’s turn as Ian Fleming’s iconic British superspy remains foundational. If you’ve never encountered what is, for many, the quintessential incarnation, then now’s your chance, as 007’s opening trilogy is available to stream through Criterion. 1962’s Dr. No starts strong, seeing Bond on a mission to Jamaica to investigate a murder that soon escalates into a global crisis, while also introducing shadowy criminal organization SPECTRE, whose desire for revenge on Bond drives 1963’s more ambitious follow-up From Russia With Love. Then, 1964’s Goldfinger is where the series really cemented its (slightly camp) identity for a generation, with near-supervillain threats like Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe), hat-throwing henchman Oddjob (Harold Sakata), and best-named Bond Girl Pussy Galore (Honor Blackman). Sure, these earliest James Bond movies are a little … of their time … but they also remain some of the most entertaining and engaging thrillers ever put to film.
The Voices of Our Mother
When aging Harriet (Sheila McCarthy) begins acting strangely in the wake of her mother’s passing, her own adult children are called in to make plans for her care. It’s an unwanted family reunion for estranged siblings William (Mark O’Brien, also the film’s writer and director), Annika (Georgina Reilly), Therese (Carolina Bartczak), and Martin (Alex Ozerov-Meyer), who haven’t seen each other in years, but as the four find themselves trapped by obligation in their old family home, it becomes clear the demons tormenting this family aren’t just metaphorical.
