whatithinkis

I loved Lily-Rose Depp's work in 'The Idol.' Adored Nicholas Hoult in 'The Great' and 'Renfield.' Willem Dafoe in everything he's done, and he's done a lot, taken interesting chances, been terrific.

I've always enjoyed vampire films: starting with F. W. Murnau's 1922 'Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens,' (which I first saw in art school in the 60s) and including the Hammer Films of the 50s, 60s and 70s and all the bloodsuckers that ensued.

Never have I ever been deeply, profoundly disgusted, sickened or bored by any those myriad versions. Never had I wanted to back away, found them ugly, truly, truly ugly.

Til now.

This (spectacularly filmed) work is grossly, deeply, fatally ugly. And it made everybody in it ugly, through no fault of theirs.

You really could just give this a miss. The thumbnail deceives. That image, and the style it suggests, does not appear in this film.

Undaunted, I still look forward to 'Dracula: A Love Tale,' coming at the end of the month. Fingers crossed. Hope springs eternal.

The problem is I don't know what to call the something. I love and respect this man's work. He goes to places we maybe don't know are places til he gently, kindly and hilariously reveals them. The depth, the surprise . . . It's all so very very amazing. Stupefying really. I didn't want to write a review because this work is almost too complex to describe. And that means my reactions to it are almost too complex to, first address in myself, and then to describe in the context of a review.

I laughed, I cried. And at the end I felt a deep deep gratitude. None of that makes for a concise review. The word I'm coming to seems to be 'important.'

But how is that the word for a comedy special. And that's why I haven't written a review for this even though I experienced it when it first came out.

The reason I'm doing it at all is that I've been coming back here to read the reviews and there are none . . . Or only one. I feel bad about that because this work is so wonderful. So. There. I need to support this. And I have.

Nobody (other than the film itself) seems to be actually acknowledging that this could easily be an impending outcome of AI. That this film (quick as it arrives) could be the actual warning siren going off.

'What if' the only entities that could actually avert word crises resulting from AI - exactly as portrayed here - were . . . Are . . . Boy/men. Emotionally stunted people who lack the depth and range to see anything beyond their each individual technical field and have the financial wherewithal . . . JUST as depicted . . . To implement massive change. ARE, in fact, the only ones who do (the President is on the line). And, in reality, this is who they are. Boys. Nerds.

All the actions depicted are childish responses to hurts, offenses, insults, fears. And the reactions: those of little boys.

Wake up! They are exactly what we've got.