“He got me invested in some kind of fruit company,” commented Forrest Gump as he read a letter emblazoned with a rainbow, partly-eaten apple. This fruit company—or to be more precise, Apple Computers—has swept across college campuses and the world with unparalleled speed. From MacBooks to iPods to iPhones to iPads, its success stems largely from its peculiarly iconoclastic founder, the late Steve Jobs. Danny Boyle’s film Steve Jobs attempts to recreate this icon’s story, tracing his professional relationship with Apple through three vignettes—each the launch of a new product—and spotlighting Jobs’ personal relationships with his daughter, her mother, and his friends and colleagues. Although the film takes an original, psychoanalytical approach to the biographical genre, it ultimately fails to convey a coherent analysis of Steve Jobs, played by Michael Fassbender, and likewise fails to show the critical role he played in Apple’s genesis and growth.
Category Archives: Film
A Time for Mourning, Not Satire
With a title like Chiraq, the controversy surrounding the preview for Spike Lee’s latest film was inevitable. The title is a portmanteau of Chicago and Iraq, drawn from the estimation that the homicide rate in Chicago has surpassed the death toll of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq. In Lee’s trailer, a smiling Samuel L. Jackson in a loud orange suit greets the audience warmly, disturbing the serious tone expected of the film. Luckily, Chiraq is satire, based on the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata. In Lysistrata, Greek women pledge celibacy until their partners negotiate a peace deal to end the Peloponnesian War. In Chiraq, the women of Chicago aim to bring an end to the city’s gun violence by doing the same. The colorful trailer sets gunshots and funerals against barbershop laughter and men gawking in strip clubs. Lee is asking substantial favors of his audiences: to trust that the comedic elements of Chiraq will not eclipse the severity of the actual gun violence that plagues the city and that he as a director can rise to such a sensitive task. But satire or not, is the city of Chicago prepared for such a film? It was only weeks ago that 9-year-old Tyshawn Lee was shot dead in an alley in the city, a tragic result of gang violence. No matter Lee’s intention, perhaps it is far too soon for the subject to be broached with anything other than a solemn tone.
Chiraq opens in select theaters on December 4th.
Spirit, Opportunity, and a Sojourn into the Humanity of Disaster
The stress, the urgency, the ingenuity, the sense of wonder. Ridley Scott’s The Martian masters them all. While most space movies rely on sensationalized drama and special effects, this one is different. Don’t get me wrong, the special effects are stunning and the drama is engaging, but neither rules. The scientists are real, NASA seems simultaneously human and political, and the zany solutions and discussions at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) all read as if from the history books of space programs. The Martian is a very human story that is surprisingly feasible and realistic, leaving you mesmerized while watching and for a good while after.
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Memories, Innovations, and a Whole Lot of Snoopy
The opening scene of Blue Sky Studios’ The Peanuts Movie begins with four black lines outlining the edge of the screen, magically creating the borders of a comic strip. Inside this box several small circles are drawn. From these simple lines, it seamlessly transitions to a 3D winterscape, somehow maintaining the look and feel of a comic strip. The characters are painstakingly replicated, staying true to the five-decade comic strip from which they originate. I was consistently surprised by how accurately the characters’ expressions were reflected in 3D. In short, the movie remains ‘authentically Peanuts,’ from beginning to end.
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Over-Seasoned and Undercooked
Start with a charismatic ‘bad boy.’ Add a dash of troubled past. Sprinkle in former enemies, and simmer in some old flames. Fill to top with food close-ups. Mix vigorously. With an all-star cast and an established director, Burnt should have been a recipe for success. Instead, this predictable redemption story is a disappointing flameout.
Twinsters: Truth Is Stranger (And More Heartwarming) Than Fiction
Imagine finding out that you have an identical twin. She lives halfway across the world from you and has grown up in a completely different culture with a family you’ve never met. For 25 years, you had no clue she existed. That’s what happened to Samantha Futerman and Anaïs Bordier. Their story was captured in a documentary called Twinsters, which was released on Netflix in early November after the twins raised over $40,000 in funding through Kickstarter.
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Joy Meets World
Have you been wondering when someone would finally make a film about the inventor of the Miracle Mop? This reviewer certainly hasn’t. A comedy-drama loosely based on the life of single mother and entrepreneur Joy Mangano, David O. Russell’s third and most recent collaboration with Jennifer Lawrence tackles a subject few, if any, would consider prime material for a big-budget Christmas film. While I remain somewhat skeptical of her ability to believably portray a mother of three in her late thirties, Lawrence is predictably charming and magnetic as she introduces the film via monologue. For all the enigmatic appeal of its principal actor, however, Joy’s trailer commits the familiar fault of dragging on a little too long and giving away a little too much. Upon watching the trailer one may as well have seen an abridged highlights reel of the film, complete with the most memorable lines and moralizing subtext. If only for a strong performance by Lawrence already receiving Oscar buzz, Joy will likely still be worth your time. That said, the choice to not only cast but purposefully create roles for Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, and Robert DeNiro alongside one another again so soon seems questionable at best. With Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle both fresh in recent memory, a palate cleanser may have been in order.
Grade: D
Joy’s trailer is no masterpiece, but it doesn’t have to be. People will watch the film for its star-studded cast even if Russell can’t seem to move on.
Steve Jobs’ Overvalued Celebrity
We have a cultural obsession with Steve Jobs. We quote Jobs like we do philosophers or poets. And now, we have another movie about him. This newest biopic, uniquely structured and well written, tackles Jobs’s inflated celebrity and corrosive personality, only to prop it all back up at the end. Admittedly, deeper commentary on celebrity is a peculiar issue for a biopic. After all, it’s a movie that hopes to sell as many tickets as possible by exposing us even more intimately to Jobs—an approach which only feeds his already mammoth celebrity. But by showing us a broken, albeit brilliant, Jobs, Danny Boyle takes us well past idolatry.
A Bridge Built Too Quickly: Structural Work Needed
My dad grew up in Miami Beach in the late 50s and early 60s. He told me about the duck and cover drills they ran every day in elementary school. He told me that, during the Cuban Missile Crisis, they’d duck and cover twice or three times a day. He told me there was no fear, only anxiety. ‘If’ was a forgone conclusion, but ‘when’ drove everyone nuts. In Spielberg’s newest film, the Cold War historical drama, Bridge of Spies, there’s no genuine anxiety. There isn’t even real fear. There’s simply a story of the ultimate, incorruptible American hero. The Cold War atmosphere just feels obligatory.
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The Complicated Feminism of Magic Mike XXL
Can a film about male strippers really be feminist? On the surface, Magic Mike XXL certainly tries. However, the first time a woman speaks is 22 minutes and 27 seconds into the movie. Normally, going one-sixth of the way through a film before introducing a female character would be quite noticeable, but since there are only three or four named women in the movie, the missing dialogue is subtle. For a film so obviously targeted to women, does this movie do enough productive work? Continue reading The Complicated Feminism of Magic Mike XXL
Nothing Grows from the Martian Surface
Full disclosure: I’ve never read Andy Weir’s The Martian, the novel from which Ridley Scott’s newest film by the same name was adapted. I have no idea how strictly Scott stuck to the novel’s plot and characters, or if the only thing he took from Weir was the title. Maybe, if I’d read the book, I’d have known how silly the movie was going to be. Maybe, but who knows.
One Ted 2 Many
Sequels don’t have to suck. Recent surprises like The Dark Knight and Toy Story 2 are proof that second servings can be just as good, if not better, than the first. Unfortunately, this exception does not apply to Ted 2, since this second iteration of Seth McFarlane’s talking bear does nothing to dispel the popular notion that sequels, almost always, come up short.