Archive for category: Reviews

Points for style and technique, as the whole film is shot in claustrophobic, hand-held close-focus, always looking at or through the eyes of the mesmeric, or mesmerized, Saul. When a truck is on the road and we see green trees pass by, the color takes us aback. What was missing, for me, was any empathy with the main character. I never understood why he adopted the boy who survived gassing as his “son,” nor why he was obsessed with providing him a proper burial, at the expense of his colleagues’ deaths or the larger massacre going on around him, let alone the risk to his own life. I could only understand him as a lunatic, which made sense of the final scene when he sees a boy he thinks is his son, even though the corpse he has been impossibly carrying on his shoulder has washed down the river. Thinking him a lunatic, however, robbed the movie of significance. I cared more for the rational prisoners who were plotting escape in horrifying circumstances against all odds, but they weren’t the filmmaker’s concern.

Instead of a biopic, director Danny Boyle and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin tell the story of Apple’s founder in three parallel days of product launches. Instead of recreating reality, those days are representative, telescoped, dramatically heightened. Each involves a Jobs confrontation with 1) his daughter Lisa and her mother; 2) his cofounder Steve Wozniak; 3) his corporate parental figure John Sculley; 4) his creative team; and, throughout, 5) his marketing executive Joanna Hoffman. Through these confrontations we experience the strange but consistent personality of Steve Jobs, and through these confrontations we see all five relationships change. Whether any or all of this is accurate – despite being based on Walter Isaacson’s book – didn’t matter to me. The story is presented as a drama, and as a drama it is superb. The dialogue – no surprise – is fast-paced, impossibly clever and devoid of fat. The acting, especially by Michael Fassbender and Kate Winslet (whom I didn’t even recognize), is A+, Oscar-worthy. The context – the creation of the world’s most important and familiar company – adds enormous relevance. And I’m not ashamed to admit that in the final scene between Jobs and Lisa, I couldn’t stop my tears.

One weird movie that either speaks to the universal human condition (in stop-action animation) or is a Rorschach blot to engage in how you will. Then there are those mask-faces with detachable parts. Or the voices that are all the same, except for Michael and Lisa. A movie doesn’t have to make sense to move you, or to qualify as art. Like Waiting for Godot. Charlie Kaufman’s mind just happens to be different.

An absurd story with terrible acting (Domnhall Gleeson especially, but I could name others), with lots of violence and gore and amazing cinematography. You wonder first, how they could have shot this, and then second, why bother? Leonardo DiCaprio’s escapes from death were so unbelievable that they had no emotional impact. As for the dialogue and plot, it was if the director were writing in a foreign language. The conversations in Pawnee were no more convincing. Every scene I look back on, I want to complain about.

A boring portrait of L.A. studio musicians that goes nowhere, despite – or maybe because of – a multitude of musical teases. Sort of how not to make a documentary. (Airplane viewing)