Harriet Deltubbo I really like this type of film, as it reminds me of French movies where it's more about the characters and their environment. One of the bleakest films I have seen in ages. All characters are unhappy souls, surviving in a grim world, unable to improve their lot. The cinematography is stark and bare. It's an amazing work and everything I had hoped for from an artistic standpoint. It's a world where the only thing that keeps lives afloat is the sensitivity of the bilaterally desperately needy relationships on display. It's a very short movie -- too short for my tastes -- but it gets 7/10 in my ratings scale, so check it out.

robotbling (www.plasticpals.com) Spike Jonze is a talented director cut from the same technicolor dreamcloth as Michel Gondry, directing music videos before making the leap to feature films such as Adaptation, Being John Malkovich, and Where The Wild Things Are (incidentally, the young star of Where The Wild Things Are recently starred in another robot short called Blinky).Jonze's films and videos definitely have a specific feel that is bizarre but heartfelt, and as in Where The Wild Things Are, I'm Here makes excellent use of costumes married seamlessly with CGI.There's no question that I'm Here is very well made from a technical standpoint, but like Blinky I feel that the whole robot premise is hampered by foggy planning. When people are in a terrible accident or fall deathly ill, their loved ones often wish they could take their place. That is sort of the main idea behind the short, and it works well within the context of modular robot body parts that can be swapped from one robot to another. The robots are presented as 2nd class citizens, prohibited from driving vehicles and possessing limited personal wealth. It is, therefore, something of a sacrifice for the main character to give up his body parts to repair his lover. There's no indication that she'll be able to buy replacement parts for him any time soon, but the film leaves us with the impression that she'll do whatever is necessary to fix him up.It's cute, and even a little touching. But it doesn't make much sense if you think a little harder about the premise. For example, why should the robots be assigned typical human gender roles? Even in animated films starring living creatures doing so seems natural, but it breaks down when dealing with artificial life. Here, there need be no genders at all – and besides, an artificial intelligence may reproduce itself asexually anyway through file copying or self replication. Perhaps the robots actually possess human brains or digital copies of once-human minds, but this isn't really explained, nor is the source of the female robot's creativity. Is she displaying an unusual level of artistic inspiration for a robot, or is she simply a more sophisticated A.I. than her male counterpart? We know he works a simple job at a library (probably better handled by an on-site cart robot), but her job is never seen – perhaps she was designed to create artwork, in which case her creativity may not be that unique at all.If they are artificially intelligent and not cyborgs with human brains, shouldn't the information that makes up their memories and knowledge be backed up in the cloud, or in a safe database? If so, losing your body in an accident would carry significantly diminished consequences, since your consciousness would have a life of its own outside the material body. You might even be able to download your mind into another body, share the same body as another robot simultaneously (or in turns), and so on. So in conclusion, I guess you could say I enjoyed the film and it got me thinking, which tends to be my undoing.

SunnydaZe10 Spike Jonze is a director known for over-the-top high concept music videos and yet his films are always so emotional and subtle.Many scenes in this film moved me yet I can't put my finger on why. It captures the loneliness of a big city, but how just a few friends and a sweetheart can cure that empty feeling. Everything is kept so simple as to be universal.The look of the robots is very retro and ironic. They look older than the computer I am writing this on by maintaining the boxy gray look of a computer from the late 90s. In many ways this short seems to take place in LA during the 90s. Everything seems dated.I won't say much about the relationship at the center of the story but I do wonder if it is meant to be dysfunctional or not. Let's just say it reaches a very one-sided place in terms of giving more than you get in a relationship. The ending is moving but also a bit creepy when you consider the reality of what has been sacrificed to save a casual lover.

Norm Richardson Retro robots in the future, same as here and now, but robots stomp about. A quiet, lonesome, librarian robot fixates on a sleeker fem-bot with some questionable robot friends, enters into a one-sided relationship, gives too much, the end. It's the kind of film that doesn't matter, it's slight, it's light, it's quite simple. But give it the half hour it asks, invest a bit of time and let it flow past you, and it's a sweet slice of everyday life. The ups and downs and all the angles of relationships. Filmed in a washed-out sunny California vibe, it's not a technical effort, but it does have an extended pop video feel. Subtle animation give life to the robots, and for all the lack of reality, the characters are believable, and sympathetic.