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Episode 106: No Mnemonics Detected but at Least We Have Jones — Johnny Mnemonic (1995) with Celeste Pilegard
Join Alex and Celeste Pilegard as they discuss the first of two Keanu Reeves dystopian cyberpunk future films, Johnny Mnemonic (1995). The film was directed by Robert Longo and he quit filmmaking after this one. A film having to do with storing other people’s memories in your head while others suffer from a debilitating disease caused by electronics, while set in 2021… you have to wonder if the author of the short story, William Gibson, was some sort of soothsayer! The pair discusses the interesting memory portrayals and their relation to scientists’ current understanding of memory, as well as the recent introduction of generative AI and its effects of cognition.…
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Episode 052: We Might Love David If He Wasn’t So Creepy — A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) with Jim Davies
Join Alex and guest host Dr. Jim Davies in a discussion of the portrayal of artificial intelligence, consciousness, and love in Steven Spielberg’s Pinocchio-esque film, A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001)! We explore the idea of artificial intelligence, what it means to be conscious or sentient, and how well the film works on these fundamentally hard-to-define fronts. Though Jim is a cognitive scientist, Alex also asks him about the film’s idea of love and what it means to be loved, which hits at The Velveteen Rabbit‘s ideal of what it means to be real and who is worthy of love! Listen, we think David, who was played so well by Haley Joel Osment, could be loved if he just didn’t act so oddly.…
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Episode 028: It Really is Hard to Forget This Film—Still Alice (2014) with Shana Southard-Dobbs
Join Alex and guest host Dr. Shana Southard-Dobbs in a discussion of the psychological concepts in the somber and illustrative film, Still Alice (2014)! Alzheimer’s disease is front and center in this tour de force by Julianne Moore. Both Shana and I thought some of the aspects of the film came too close to home, but not for the memory loss, but that it happens to a college professor and cognitive scientist!
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