Steve Jobs

Released:  October 9^th, 2015

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Universal Pictures

Starring:  Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels, Michael Stuhlbarg, Katherine Waterston

Directed by:  Danny Boyle

Written by:  Aaron Sorkin

Personal Bias Alert:  not a Sorkin or Apple fan

7 of 10

            Anyone who’s started to get some age on their bones knows the rough story of Apple and has witnessed its meteoric rise over the last seventeen years.  Those with a wary eye would also have noted the mythologizing of the company and its co-founder, Steve Jobs, which has led to both ardent worshiping and simmering animosity.  By now, it would be difficult to wipe from history the notion that Apple led us into the technological revolution, but any such simplistic description of the tectonic cultural shift we’ve experienced would be untrue.  This is what makes the affronted reaction to Steve Jobs so surprising.  Yes, the film isn’t particularly nice to its deceased subject, but its jabs at the man were reported on throughout his life.  This reaction is perhaps indicative of the cultural gullibility that the film hints at, but if writer Aaron Sorkin understood this phenomena, then it begs the question of why he thought the film could be successful at all.

            Then again, Sorkin isn’t known for undervaluing his own abilities, and it doesn’t surprise me to read of the ‘great truths’ he believes he hit upon in this film.  By structuring the film around three different product launches, it’s clear that Sorkin wasn’t going for a traditional biopic.  The film relies instead on thematic work to give it its arc, and the carefully selected characters that reappear throughout are the biggest hints at what Sorkin was reaching for.  Obviously, Jobs himself is in nearly every frame, with Michael Fassbender portraying him as a borderline megalomaniac.  Representing the largest thematic arc, namely the influence of family (or familial figures) on personality is his daughter Lisa (Perla Haney-Jardine, Ripley Sobo, and Makenzie Moss) and father-figure John Sculley (Jeff Daniels).  Through these characters, Jobs’ early life is used to explain his later downfalls, and his character arc and the film’s overall storyline centers on this exploration.  The trouble is that Sorkin doesn’t handle the storyline with Lisa well, and the constant presence of a young girl seems both manipulative and troubling.  What he’s exploring here is a rather simple line to draw, and the overblown way in which Sorkin chooses to examine it is, and I hate to use this word, pretentious.

            The other people surrounding Jobs is a group of long-time coworkers:  confidante Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet), co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), and punching bag Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg).  These are people who have known Jobs intimately throughout his career, and they are mouthpieces for the ramifications of forced mythology.  Again, this theme is hit rather hard, and while Sorkin’s observations on these and other smaller themes are true, they aren’t nearly as insightful as he would have us believe.

            And yet, for all its narrative downfalls, Sorkin still brings his snappy brand of dialogue to the table, which makes Steve Jobs bound along to a strong rhythm.  His pairing with director Danny Boyle proves to be a wonderful choice, as most of the film takes place in dressing rooms and backstage hallways.  Boyle has already made an hour of a man trapped by a rock visually appealing, so I’m sure this was no great stretch.  He doesn’t do anything too flashy, mostly some dynamic lighting and excellent music cues, which hints at what he’s really a master of:  knowing how to work with what he has.  What he had with Steve Jobs is some electric conversations, and he plays up each scene’s ebbs and flows into something that, in the moment, feels satisfying.  It’s just too bad that he and Sorkin weren’t able to find something larger to tie it all together.

Other Notes:

Ø  All of the cast is very good, including Michael Stuhlbarg, who I’m afraid is getting overlooked in favor of the more recognizable cast members.

Ø  This film seems to be getting hit with the ‘isn’t true to real life’ criticism.  I don’t think that was ever the intent here, so the criticism doesn’t seem valid to me.

Ø  In case my feelings on Apple seem relevant to you, here they are.  I generally dislike the company (I hate its incompatibility and prices), but it’s not enough to stop me from owning an IPhone and an IPod.  I’m still a firm PC user, though.

Frank

Released:  August 22^nd, 2014

Rated:  R

Distributor:  Magnolia Pictures

Starring:  Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy, Michael Fassbender, François Civil, Carla Azar

Directed by:  Lenny Abrahamson

Written by:  Jon Ronson, Peter Straughan

Personal Bias Alert:  likes offbeat music, relates to weirdos

8.6 of 10

Acceptance (n.): 

1.      The act of assenting or believing

2.      the fact or state of being accepted or acceptable

It’s a hard thing to achieve, acceptance.  Be it from a group of people or from yourself, it requires an honesty that most find uncomfortable.  It’s often easier to just keep it inside, to settle for a half-truth that leads to a half-acceptance.  But what would you to do if you couldn’t keep it inside, if you had to wear your oddities on your head for the world to see?  You would be forced to accept them, to become comfortable with them, and hopefully, to find a group of people who accept you along with the thing on your head.  All that’s already happened to the titular Frank (Michael Fassbender) when he rolls into Jon’s life sporting an oversized papier-mâché head that he never takes off.  Instead, it’s Jon (an excellent Domhnall Gleeson) who must go on this journey, pushed by his own frail desires and the otherworldly people who’re dragging him forward.

            Jon, you see, dreams of being a musician but fails to find inspiration in his humdrum life.  When Frank’s band, with the unintelligible name Soronprfbs, loses their keyboard player to a psychotic break, they allow Jon to fill in for a gig and eventually invite him to help record their new album.  Reactions within the band to Jon vary, with Frank being accepting and nurturing while theremin player Clara (Maggie Gyllenhaal) is hostile and dismissive.  The rest seem to not really care for but not overly care about Jon, leaving him increasingly isolated as the recording session drags out. 

Frank and the others undoubtedly have something that’s working, even if their music is far from the mainstream.  They throw themselves into their craft in a way Jon doesn’t understand but is determined to figure out.  He believes wholeheartedly that he can learn to become a great musician, but as he discovers, trying for your dream only brings you closer and closer to a resolution.  Many find it easier to remain in a dream state, which Jon might very well have been happy to do if Frank, Clara, and the others hadn’t swept him up.  But in the Irish countryside, surrounded by people who tell him exactly how good he is with an honesty as brutal as Clara’s sucker punches to the face, he’s stuck finding out just feasible his dream is.

Now, this movie may sound like a total drag, but it sugar-coats its blows with an acerbic wit that keeps the audience laughing the whole way through.  Whether it’s Jon’s exaggeratedly pathetic tweets or the borderline-insane environment that surrounds him, there’s always something to chuckle at amidst the darkness.  It’s also an understatedly beautiful film to take in.  The rustic cabin where the band records makes for a rich backdrop, allowing the fog from outside to blend with the cigarette smoke from inside to form an inescapable, otherworldly environment.  And the music that the band performs is odd, yes, but also hypnotically precise and always pleasurable to hear.

Frank is certainly an ambitious film, juggling so many moving parts that it’s a bit hard to take in.  It’s immediately enjoyable, yes, but you may not understand why you care so much about this little band of weirdos right off the bat.  Its offbeat tone seems aimed at more serious movie-goers, most of whom are likely to get frustrated by this obliqueness.  If you don’t find its meaning, Frank may strike you as enjoyable but trivial, and if you leave it without any further thought it might very well remain there.  Some pondering and a bit of space is what ultimately reveals the depths this film explores, which is something everyone might not have the time to give it.

Other Notes:  

Ø  The characters, for all their weirdness, never seem unreal.  It’s easy to imagine a group like this out in the woods banging away on their instruments, oblivious to the rest of the world.

Ø  The music was all performed live, so I guess all the actors are pretty good musicians.  Also, I guess Gyllenhaal learned how to play the theremin.

X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)

Released:  May 23^rd, 2014

Rated:  PG-13

Studio:  Twentieth Century Fox

Starring:  Hugh Jackman, James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart

Directed by:  Bryan Singer                 

Written by:  Simon Kinberg

Personal Bias Alert:  X-Men is my favorite franchise, haven’t read any of the comics, vaguely remembers watching the ‘90’s cartoon

8.5 of 10

            Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine has been the breakout star of the X-Men franchise from the beginning.  He was the conduit for the audience in the first film back in 2000 and served as the anchor for the rest of the trilogy.  He’s the only character to have an individual film (in fact, he has two), and of the seven films in the X-Men franchise, only “X-Men:  First Class” didn’t feature him in a starring role.  No surprise, then, that when the writers chose a time-bending storyline from the comics for the next film, they changed the time traveler from Kitty Pryde to Wolverine.

            There’s actually another good reason for making that change.  Wolverine is a survivor, a man who’s lived an inordinately long life, and because of that has endured more than the rest of them.  He sort of operates as the franchise’s observer; he experiences everything, takes on most of the pain, and lives with the memories.  It’s made him gruff and closed-off, and yet he’s managed to retain some measure of hope.  Given what he’s been through, that hope has weight, and it becomes imperative that he gets that across in “Days of Future Past.”

            At the opening, humanity has turned on the X-Men from the original trilogy and are hunting them down using robots called Sentinels.  Their only hope for survival is to send Wolverine’s consciousness back to the 1970s to stop Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence) from killing the Sentinel’s designer and inadvertently giving the humans the key to the Sentinel’s future success:  the ability to take on a mutant’s powers.

            Most of the film takes place in the flashback, with Wolverine teaming up with the cast from “First Class” to stop Mystique.  Wolverine finds everyone reeling from the events of “First Class,” none more so than Prof. Xavier (James McAvoy).  He’s boozy and petulant, despondent over the losses he’s endured.  Wolverine’s main job becomes coaxing Prof. X into becoming the man he knew and the man everyone needs.

            Casting has always been a strong suit for the X-Men franchise, particularly in “First Class.”  Here they get to pick the best of the best, with Jackman, McAvoy, Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult as Beast, and Michael Fassbender as Magneto forming the central dream team.  They play off each other with ease, and the script gives them the opportunity to do some electric one-on-one scenes.  Their backing cast, many of which are listed as stars, include Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Ellen Page, Peter Dinklage, and Halle Berry, to name a few. 

            A great cast is always exciting, but a poor script can leave you burned.  Hearing about the plot, there were so many red flags that I went into “Days of Future Past” with my guard up.  Time travel?  Mixed-trilogies cast?  Terrible title?  I didn’t see how they could pull off this seemingly bloated concept while retaining the strong character beats that has made the X-Men franchise stand out.  It got off to a rocky start with a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it explanation of why Kitty had to send Wolverine back in time and the nonexistent explanation for why Kitty can do this, even though I thought her ability was to run through walls.  But once Wolverine wakes up in the ‘70s, the story settles into a nicely building arc that feels smoother than most blockbusters.  Once you buy into the central conceit, the plot holds together fairly well, and the character stuff is just as strong as it was in “X-Men” or “X2.”

            I’ve always had a sneaking suspicion with the X-Men franchise that it works so well for me due to distraction.  There’s so many characters with so many different abilities that there’s always something or someone interesting to focus on, and particularly the films with Bryan Singer at the helm are good at knowing when to jump from one thing to another.  With most blockbusters there are three or four main characters, generally all working together towards the same thing.  This makes the plot pretty linear, giving you time to note all the holes.  The X-Men films almost always involves a massive, scattered cast of characters doing all sorts of visually interesting things, so when I start to think “Hey, that didn’t make sense,” I can’t even get the thought through my head before they’ve moved on.  I’m not sure how Singer’s able to do that, but I’m sure some of the credit should also go to Editor John Ottman.

            Ottman also provided the music for the film, which is just one in a long list of smaller things that the film got right.  What I love about the music is how it changes as the characters embark on different tasks.  The jailbreak scene, featuring a great bit part by Evan Peters, has a classic heist score, while some of the large set pieces having a thundering score more reminiscent of “Inception.”  The ‘70s clothes and hair is fitting without being distracting, and the visual effects are stunning.  As always with the X-Men films, I have to give it props for mixing in some solid humor as well.

            The most surprising thing about this film is how little it did wrong.  It goes down easy and remarkably quickly.  It’s not until you leave the theater that you realize how hard it must have been to do so many things so well.

Other Notes (Ridiculous Mutant Version):

Ø  Why couldn’t the portal girl just have everyone huddle together and make a portal surrounding them so the Sentinels can’t touch them?

Ø  Why couldn’t portal girl just create a portal for them all to go through that would take them away from the Sentinels?  Just put Wolverine on a gurney and wheel him through.

Ø  Why did Magneto fling himself so haphazardly onto the train?  He normally moves at a nice controlled pace.

Other Notes (Normal Version):

Ø  I liked that there weren’t too many “Hey, it’s the ‘70s!” jokes

Ø  The scene where Prof. X enters Wolverine’s mind is great.  I love that McAvoy’s tear stain was visible in his close-up.

Ø  So in the new future, everyone’s alive.  Even if we didn’t go to war, shouldn’t someone have died of natural causes or a car crash or something?

Ø  I live in Indianapolis, IN, and with the Indy 500 going on this weekend, the movie theaters were remarkably quiet.  Hopefully, that doesn’t hurt this film’s box office.

Ø  I’ve already seen this film twice, once in 2D and once in 3D.  I preferred the 2D.  The darkened picture I got at the 3D showing made several facial expressions less clear, and I always feel like 3D blurs the fight sequences.