Siri is perfectly lovely bit of artificial intelligence, but she isn't always cooperative.
The familiar cuddliness is there, and the accent, but there's also wit, intelligence and some lovely phrasemaking.
Where other film-makers might have resorted to the kind of elaborate visualisations that characterised Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones, Abrahamson has the intelligence to trust his cast to show us the world through their eyes.
But all the lovely acting and the high intelligence (a former philosophy professor named Charles Randolph wrote the script) have been poured into a stupid story that relies on the rusted mechanics of a routine thriller.
Graham's singing, as usual, has a pleasing clarity and warmth; her unself-conscious performances of such masterworks as "Serenity," "The Circus Band," and "The Housatonic at Stockbridge" are delivered with a keen intelligence and a lovely, rounded tone that make us treasure this difficult music all the more.
Best is the promising Brooklyn band Tanlines, whose lovely "Bejan" merges the rhythmic intelligences of the Rapture and Vampire Weekend for a sound that's nervous and entitled at once.
It's a lovely piece, fanned to a blaze by Petronio's restless intelligence.
"Still a Long Way From Checkmate" (Dec. 28) -- about how artificial intelligence is affecting, or may affect, consumer appliances -- hinted at some lovely windmills in the sky.
Incidental Intelligence: A tricycle that frequents the Central Park playground at Fifth Ave and 72nd Street has a lovely, non-moth-eaten mink tail flowing from one handle bar.
Lovely, lovely, lovely Leitrim.
