Basketball Jocks and Pom Pom Girls

Jane Fonda (in her film debut) and Anthony Perkins appear in a publicity still for the 1960 romantic comedy TALL STORY, directed by Joshua Logan.

The film debut of a soon-to-be-major movie star is not always an event of any significance when it first occurs. Nor is it often a movie with any artistic merit that can stand the test of time and become an important topic for analysis among film scholars. Jane Fonda’s movie debut, Tall Story, will surely never make the AFI’s top 100 films list and it wasn’t a commercial or critical success upon its release in 1960. Yet the film is important in the career arc of Ms. Fonda. It’s also an enjoyable, often witty romantic comedy that plays much better today than when it first premiered.

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The Perfect AI Companion

The German film poster for the sci-fi comedy I’M YOUR MAN (2021).

Artificial intelligence (AI) appears to be influencing almost every aspect of human life these days and that includes everything from robopets (as a replacement for the real thing) to the online dating industry. There are even humanoid robots powered by AI but, as yet, no one has created an android that could pass for a real person and interact with them without anyone being able to tell the difference. But it is only a matter of time and Ich Bin Dein Mensch (English title: I’m Your Man, 2021), directed by German filmmaker Maria Schrader, takes this premise and turns it into a thought provoking cautionary tale that is alternately amusing, disturbing, sexy and subversive without ever falling into the trap of being just a futuristic romantic comedy.

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