The Joy of Scrabble

I have already reviewed Scrabble, but when I was invited to participate in this write-off celebrating our favorite games, I knew that Scrabble had to be my choice. So I will be reviewing the deluxe edition of Scrabble, which is much more luxurious and practical than the original version. But first, a word or two about the game...

I have always loved Scrabble. My love of words has a lot to do with it, and there is also the thrill of arranging the tiles into a jackpot of points. Scrabble is one of the games we pull out most often, and we even have a notebook where we record our scores, along with the date of the game played. We haven't always kept that kind of a record; that came about a few years ago when I was in a Scrabble-obsessed phase and we played just about every day. Suffice it to say, Scrabble is my friend.

But I hadn't played it all that much recently until a friend of mine reawakened my interest in the game. We had just returned defeated from the college his sister and I attend. The group of us - the three of us and three friends - had planned to play Midnight Bingo, but we arrived to discover that the date had been misadvertised. As we sat at their house pondering what to do, he came up with the idea of playing Midnight Scrabble instead. So it was that we swung by my house to pick up my board and found ourselves starting up a game of Scrabble at midnight.

It was a revamped, revitalized version of Scrabble which reminded me a bit of the Disney commercial with the little girl who changes the rules to the game and ends up spelling
"supercalifragilisticexpialidocious." (Fun fact: That word was in the title of my first review of Scrabble, which was written long before I saw this commercial.) At any rate, the whole point was just to have fun and to prove that board games don't have to be "bored" games. We didn't even bother to keep score, and we created a completely different set of house rules. It was grand.

So I've been on a Scrabble kick lately. And although most of my games at home with my parents have occurred a little earlier in the day and have followed the more traditional rules, I can't forget the impetus for my renewed love of the game. Scrabble: Teenagers (and college folks) think it's cool, too!

Um... That was more than a word. But that's okay. Here's the gist: For anyone unfortunate enough not to know already, Scrabble is a game consisting of a board and a bag full of lettered tiles. In the deluxe version, the tiles are reddish-brown with white lettering. The board is plastic, and each square is set off in a groove. This is a very helpful in preventing the board from being wiped out by a clutzy movement. Also extremely useful is the turnstile underneath the board, which allows players to turn the board towards them on their turn. These special features make it the ideal board to own.

Although any number of house rules can be implemented, as I noted earlier, the basic rules are that each player has seven tiles on a given turn. That player must make a word by building off of a letter already on the board, except for the first word of the game, which must cover the star in the center of the board. The words can go horizontally or vertically, and special spaces on the board add extra points. There is a 50 point bonus for using all seven tiles. Proper nouns and foreign phrases are not officially allowed, though we dispensed with that rule quickly during Midnight Scrabble. When the bag is empty, the first person to use all of his or her remaining tiles collects the points remaining on the other players' trays. Whoever finishes with the most points wins.

However you play it, S-c-r-a-b-b-l-e spells fun, and it?s my pick for favorite game.

Almost Human: Space-Age Pinocchio Seeks Humanity

From the moment I heard of A.I., I wanted to see it. Science fiction - about a robot, no less. I used to spend hours dreaming of building my own robot, and I even tried to start the project a few times before realizing that this was something way beyond my grasp. There is something very intriguing about the idea of an artificially created being wishing to be real. Short Circuit remains one of my all-time favorite comedies, and Data was always my favorite character in Star Trek: The Next Generation. Robots have always fascinated me. There was also Steven Spielberg. I don't like all Spielberg movies - I hated Saving Private Ryan - but usually they have a great deal of heart and ultimately leave me feeling good. But the main reason for wanting to see A.I. was, I'll admit it, Haley Joel Osment. I finally have an answer to that "Who's your favorite actor?" question, and I can't wait to see what he does in the future. I'm hooked on this guy for life.

So, I was determined to see A.I., even though I heard bad things about it from all directions. I intended to see it in the theater, but it came while I was out of the country. So when I returned, I awaited its arrival in the dollar theater. It came, and my friend and I said we would go see it that week. That was the second week of September, and it never happened. I think perhaps it is good that I did not see it at that time. As much as I wanted to see Castaway, when I found out I was going to England I did not want to watch it until I had arrived safely home. I had no such forewarning about A.I., but if I had seen this film on September 9th or 10th, I think it would have driven me over the edge. Watching it now was eerie enough.

The movie is a joint project of Steven Spielberg and the late Stanley Kubrick, the far less warm and fuzzy director of 2001 and Dr. Strangelove fame. Based on the short story Supertoys Last All Summer Long, it takes place sometimes in the future, after global warming has caused the icecaps to melt and flood many of the world?s major cities. In order to accommodate the needs of a new age, the leading scientists create androids who appear fully human but cannot feel emotion. This changes with the creation of David, an android in the form of a child programmed to love. David is given to a couple, Monica (Frances O'Connor) and Henry (Sam Robards), whose son Martin (Jake Thomas) is in a cryogenic coma while doctors seek a cure for his medical condition. By speaking a series of seven words, Monica imprints herself upon David, causing him to take on the eternal mantra of I Only Have Eyes for You, a song repeated several times throughout the film in another context.

David's obsession with his mother makes him a prime candidate for the Oedipus complex, as do his interactions with Henry and Martin, who recovers from his mysterious disease. I was reminded of Harry Potter briefly, between David's being locked in the closet at one point and the dreadful treatment given him by his "brother." At any rate, David becomes the outsider shortly after Martin's return, and Monica feels forced to dispose of this monster she helped to create. Releasing him into the woods with Teddy (Jack Angel), Martin's outdated supertoy that is reminiscent of Teddy Ruxpin, Monica makes David, a "mecha," promise to avoid people, who are "orga." David is left crestfallen but determined to win his mother's love by seeking out the Blue Fairy and asking to become a real boy.

The journey is dark and depressing, and his only friends throughout most of the journey are the wizened Teddy and Gigolo Joe (Jude Law), a quirky character programmed to be a lady-killer. Others pass through momentarily, including a robot nanny (Clara Bellar), a human child (the little girl from the Disney Scrabble commercial) and the Einstein-like hologram Dr. Know (Robin Williams sounding a lot like his earlier Genie). A cozy-sounding narrator (Ben Kingsley) whose voice begins and ends the movie provides a fairy-tale context, albeit a very dark one.

Osment is haunting as David, turning in a performance no less fine than I expected. He is passionate, he is tormented, and yet he is clearly mechanical. A very unnerving characterization. The other character I most enjoyed was Teddy, the gruff but gentle companion of David throughout the journey. Gigolo Joe was slightly off-putting at first but ultimately I found him pretty entertaining, and the trick he has of providing ambiance is quite nifty. I also enjoyed the manic Dr. Know. But that was about it.

The other characters did not move me, not even Monica. She annoyed me, actually. Something about her did not seem right, did not seem real. She failed to move me, and her dialogue was at times dreadful. (Example: Upon being told by her husband that she must be sure before she lets David imprint on her, she says, "Silly man, of course I'm not sure." Silly man?? Give me a break.) David seemed to show more emotion than she did, and when she did it seemed forced. I just could not bring myself to care about her. Her husband Henry comes across as wishy-washy, stupid, and mean-spirited. Above all, he seems extremely selfish. Her sadistic son Martin is a horror, as are his friends. The birthday party scene reminds me a lot of the party scene from The Sixth Sense. Haley definitely carries the day, and more than anything he is disconcerting.

This movie was no E.T. My dad complained because of the lack of dialogue. This was one of his major complaints with E.T., and he felt that A.I. also failed to have enough talking. This time, John Williams' score did not seem to annoy him as much, however. He thought the music in E.T. to be sickeningly saccharine. I never saw the sparseness of speech to be a problem for the former, so it didn't really bother me in the latter, either. A friend of mine forewarned me that while he thought the movie was pretty good up to a point, the ending spoiled the social commentary. If he was able to make enough sense out of this movie to see a social commentary and to tell that the ending shattered it, I salute him. I was never entirely sure what was going on and how I was supposed to feel about it. It definitely did not make me feel good like E.T. did. In fact, it sent cold shivers down my spine on a number of occasions.

One painfully long scene in the film involves David's being captured and taken to a Flesh Fair, a ghastly gladiator-like spectacle with the motto "a celebration of life." Androids are rounded up for these events and tortured in the arena before a bloodthirsty mob in the stands. It was a horrifying sight reminding me of the gruesome garage in The Brave Little Toaster. That movie still gives me the willies... The Flesh Fair provides nightmare material for a week, and it's not the only disturbing part of this movie. It's dark and depressing at every turn, and its extended ending (my friend also pointed out, and I definitely agree, that the movie felt like it should have ended about 20 minutes before it did) did nothing to salvage the warm and fuzzy feeling I was hoping to get. It left me dazed, disoriented, and down in the doldrums.

Add to that the scenes of a Manhattan flattened by floods, with just Lady Liberty's arm rising above the waves and the Twin Towers lording over the ruined city. New York City virtually destroyed. And, at one point, David leaping from the top of a building, and a shot of him plummeting to the waters below in a scene that looked far too much like those scenes of the WTC jumpers for comfort. It was all a little too eerie for me to say that I enjoyed the movie very much.

And yet, perhaps that sense of eeriness is what was intended. Though A.I. did not give me the reaction I had hoped for, it did produce a strong visceral reaction. Strange pairing that it was, the film made excellent use of Osment's talents and the available technology to give a glimpse of a possible future. And so I cautiously commend it and award it four stars. But it leaves me uneasy and hoping that Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future was more accurate than this. Please, Lord, tell me this is not where we are headed!