Over/Under Movies Episode 25: War of the Worlds (2005) and A.I. Artificial Intelligence

Over/Under Movies

It's Spielberg vs Spielberg in this episode of Over/Under Movies, as the gang dig deep into two Spielberg sci-fi efforts in hopes of finding either a tripod that can disintegrate them into dust or a robot boy who's been frozen for a couple of millennia. First, we talk about Spielberg's misguided HG Wells adaptation War of the Worlds, which was a big hit when it came out in 2005 and got forgotten down the line, perhaps for some good reasons? Are one of those reasons the fact that Tom Cruise is woefully miscast as a deadbeat working class everyman? From there we move onto calmer waters as we discuss the ever growing merits of The Bearded One's unsung hard sci-fi/fairy tale masterpiece A.I. Artificial Intelligence. Yes, we do talk about the controversial ending. And yes, we do love it. During this episode, the team mentions a blog post by Oktay defending A.I. in great detail. As promised, you can find the post here: https://oktayegekozak.wordpress.com/2012/01/27/in-defense-of-a-i/ As usual, thank you for listening, please send us your comments so we can improve the show and look forward to new episodes when our kick ass Portland-based film critics will discuss one overrated and one underrated film within the same genre or style. You can also find us on iTunes if you search for Over/Under Movies and on Twitter @overundermovies. Erik McClanahan is the lead film critic at Oregon Arts Watch, co-host of the Adjust Your Tracking podcast (Also available on iTunes) and a contributor at The Playlist. Ryan Oliver is a film critic for Gotcha Movies and the host of the Gotcha Movies Podcast. Oktay Ege Kozak is a film critic for The Oregon Herald, Beyazperde, DVD Talk and is also a contributor and film critic at The Playlist. A special thank you to Drew Wallner, who designed our new logo.