Robot Stories

[magid]

Sunday night I saw Robot Stories at the Coolidge Corner theater, in the video screening room, which I'd not been in before. It's pretty small, with a screen to match, but seemed to be the right size, considering how many people came to the show.

Before the official start of the movie, there was a 'promo' piece, for Asian Pride Pr0n, which was pretty funny. Then the movie began, and the beginning credits were entertaining, robots cranking out 0's and 1's... until one had a bright idea and had a 7... and then a 4... and then the rest caught on...

There are four parts to the movie, four different stories.

1. "My Robot Baby" shows a couple who are trying to adopt, and have to care for a robot 'baby' for a month to show they're fit (which doesn't seem like such a bad idea for prospective parents of any stripe, I have to say, though perhaps not to the extent this went).
   
2. "The Robot Fixer" has a mom and grown daughter coming to the bedside of the son/brother, who's in a coma. The mother tries to get him to come out of it, to the extent of focusing on the robot toys he'd loved as a child, while the daughter stays more grounded in what is going on.
   
3. "Machine Love" shows two iPerson workers as they work (and are harrassed) in adjoining buildings, until they finally meet and fall for each other.
   
4. "Clay" is about a sculptor near the end of his body's life, in a time when one can be scanned and digitized before the body expires, to live on in networks. His wife has already gone before him, others are urging him to be scanned, and yet it feels wrong to him, not really true, at all.

I liked the stories. There were some funny moments, some poignant, each story a whole unto itself. Most of the actors are Asian, but that's not what the stories are about; they're more universal than that. Everyone who'd suggested I see it was right: two thumbs up, definitely.