Posted on January 18, 2015 at 8:00 am
Imagine they were beta-testing Samantha in “Her,” or one of the replicants in “Blade Runner” and you were brought in to try out the latest model. That’s the idea behind “Ex Machina,” with two of today’s most fascinating actors, Oscar Isaac and Domhnall Gleeson. Opening in April 2015.
Posted on January 15, 2015 at 5:58 pm
B+| Lowest Recommended Age: | Mature High Schooler |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated R for language and some violence |
| Profanity: | Very strong language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking, smoking |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Crime and violence including guns, suicide |
| Diversity Issues: | A theme of the movie |
| Date Released to Theaters: | January 16, 2015 |
| Date Released to DVD: | April 6, 2015 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00RNELG5E |
After three very different movies, we know two things about writer/director J.C. Chandor. First, he is already one of today’s most original, thought-provoking directors, with a remarkably mature and insightful eye, and second, he is vitally interested in the survival instincts of characters who are under the direst of pressures. His “Margin Call” is the best take we have seen yet from Hollywood on the Wall Street meltdown, taking place in one day as a huge financial firm finds out it is on the wrong side of a bet that will bring down the entire company. It is filled with sharp, smart, character-defining dialogue that all but sizzles. His second film was “All is Lost,” an almost-wordless, one-character story with Robert Redford trying to stay alive a boat that is damaged in a collision, and an ending that viewers are still debating. And now, his third film is his first period piece, set in 1981 New York, one of the most violent years in the city’s history.
Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain star as Abel and Anna Morales, husband and wife and ambitious owners of a home heating oil company. The company is doing well and they have the chance to take it to the next level with the purchase of some property on the water that will reduce their delivery costs. But they are under tremendous pressure, moving into an expensive new home, on the hook to come up with the money for the land in 30 days, under investigation by a prosecutor who is equally ambitious (“Selma’s” David Oyelowo), and being pushed hard by cut-throat competition from his competitors, who harass his drivers, hijack his trucks, and steal his oil.
Like Michael Corleone, Abel wants to be strictly legitimate, but he is not there yet.
Both husband and wife are trying to move past their origins into the upper middle class. Abel is an immigrant who began as a driver for the company when it was owned by Anna’s father, a gangster. They love each other deeply, but each is by nature mistrustful and secretive. “You won’t like what happens if I get involved,” Anna tells Abel, and they both know he is right. Anna and Abel may have some trust issues but Isaac and Chastain, who have been friends since they studied together at Juilliard, as actors have a fearlessness with each other that requires complete trust as actors. Every scene they are in together crackles.
We first see Abel running through the streets. This was when running first became popular as exercise. But Abel is running all the time. Isaac is always calm and reassuring in his manner, but he has a white-hot inner fury. That is probably what drew Anna to him. He wants it all — money, respectability, family. And he knows that in order to get it he will have to deal with some very bad people and some very weak people and that means he might have to do some very bad things and some people might get hurt.
In his first period film, Chandor creates an atmosphere so authentic we can almost taste the smog. He has been compared to Sidney Lumet for the gritty, layered texture of the settings and the storyline. He is extraordinarily gifted with actors, starting with the casting. Alessandro Nivola is superb as a highly civilized gangster who lives in a home so fortified it tells us how thin that veneer of civilization really is. He creates a complex and fully-realized world that brings home Faulkner’s famous line: “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”
Parents should know that this film includes very strong language, and some peril and violence including guns, suicide, and criminal activity, drinking, and smoking.
Family discussion: How would this story be different if it took place today? Why does the film begin with Abel running?
If you like this, try: “Margin Call” and “All is Lost” from the same director
Posted on January 15, 2015 at 5:58 pm
It really happened. Four undocumented high school kids from the poorest of communities took on the most brilliant engineering students from the country’s top colleges in a robotics competition and won. The contest results were one in a million, but once it happened, the movie version was inevitable. George Lopez produced the film and stars as the students’ reluctant coach and teacher, Fredi Cameron (based on the two real-life teacher/coaches, Allan Cameron and Fredi Lajvardi).
Unlike its robotic superstar, there is not much ingenuity in the storyline. Everything added on, especially the fictionalized backstory for Cameron, is predictable and superfluous and distracting. Lopez is an amiable presence, but these detours reveal his limits as an actor. We want to focus on the students and their robot, to see them solve problems in engineering and teamwork (which is a form of engineering, too). But too much of the running time is devoted to Cameron’s past and his possible romance with a fellow teacher, played by the always-wonderful Marisa Tomei. If she played the coach, this would have been a much better movie. Still, with a storyline like this one, it cannot help being fun to watch.
Cameron is an engineer with a PhD who tells the school’s principal (Jamie Lee Curtis, in a performance of great warmth and wit) he wants a temporary job as a substitute teacher. She notes that he has moved around a lot, but she does not have any alternatives. He agrees to coach the school’s engineering club because he is assured no one will want to join.
Oscar (Carlos PenaVega) shows up with a flier. He is an outstanding JROTC cadet and was crushed to learn that he cannot join the US Military without proof of citizenship. He thinks participating in a NASA-sponsored robotics competition will make it harder to be turned down. Cameron reluctantly agrees to help.
They assemble a team that includes the brain (David Del Rio), the kid who always gets into trouble but is a whiz at mechanics (José Julián), and the muscle (Oscar Javier Gutierrez II) — one problem they cannot engineer around is that someone has to be strong enough to lift their robot. Each has his own challenges. The brain is bullied at school. The troublemaker is under a lot of pressure to take care of his brother. The muscle has to be able to pass a tough oral exam at the competition to show that every member of the team understands the details of the robot. Oscar falls in love with a pretty classmate named Karla (sweetly played by PenaVega’s real-life wife, Alexa), but worries that his illegal status puts her at risk. All of the students are hiding from the ICE, which has already sent one of their mothers back to Mexico.
And then there is the challenge of the competition itself. Not only does this robot have to operate underwater, it has to execute an immensely complicated series of tasks in a limited time period. When the team shows up, they are so certain they will lose anyway that they decide they might as well compete with the college teams instead of the other high school teams. The night before they have to compete the robot has a disastrous leak. Their very creative and inexpensive (and hilarious) solution is one of the film’s high points.
The film’s name refers to more than the repurposed junk used to assemble the robot. Their triumph is bittersweet because their undocumented status prevents them from taking the opportunities available to those who are citizens. This film makes it clear that it is our loss, as it prevents our country from benefiting from the perseverance and skill that made an $800 robot created by kids kick the robotic butt of the $18,000 robot from MIT.
Parents should know that this film includes some teen crime including armed robbery, violence including bullying, some strong language and tense family confrontations and teen kissing.
Family discussion: What was the team’s most difficult challenge? Who was the teacher who inspired you the most and why?
If you like this, try: the book by Joshua Davis, Spare Parts: Four Undocumented Teenagers, One Ugly Robot, and the Battle for the American Dream
Posted on January 15, 2015 at 10:16 am
David Heyman was selected by Entertainment Weekly as one of the smartest people in Hollywood. It may be because he grabbed the rights to a children’s book called Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone
Paddington is known for his “hard stare,” and that is one of the highlights of the film. Have you ever tried doing a hard stare yourself?
Not frequently, but yes I have. I’m not sure I’m quite as effective as Paddington or can make people feel quite as uncomfortable but every once in a while I have to call upon my own hard stare.
It seems like Paddington’s hard stare would be a special challenge for the animators.
I think that one of the reasons why it has taken so long for Paddington to get the film to actually happen is because the technology was not around to realize the bear. To have a bear who you are meant to feel with and care for, you know it’s the emotional center of the film. To have that little digital creation would not have been possible 10 years ago. To have eyes that listen, to make you look into them and make you feel sympathy and when he had the hard stare make you feel frightened is a great challenge and is a real testament to the brilliant people at Framestore who did the visual effects. They also did a film I made last year called “Gravity.”
Did Ben Wishaw, who provided the voice for Paddington, get wired up like Andy Serkis?
No, the difference between “Planet of the Apes” and Gollum and Paddington is Paddington is not a humanoid. So that motion capture we felt wouldn’t work and Framestore works more with animation than taking lots of reference. They did take some reference from, the brilliant clown called Javier Marzan who did a lot of comic work and tWhishaw, we filmed him performing as well.
Ben Wishaw’s voice is just perfect for Paddington.
Well, thank you. We began with Colin Firth who we thought we were so lucky to have and Colin was brilliant but his voice was just too chocolatey and velvety and mature for Paddington. And when we put his voice inside as we began to animate it just didn’t feel right. And it was quite interesting, it was a process and we realized we need someone more youthful, more innocent, with a bigger sense of wonder, a little bit off-center. And Colin obviously came to that realization before we did and so we went to Ben. As soon as we heard his voice it just felt right. He seems less confident, less assured and that felt right for that bear in that particular story.
What makes Paddington such an enduringly popular character?
We all in some ways feel like an outsider and that’s what Paddington is, he’s an outsider. So Ben’s voice really seemed to capture that. What I love about it is that it is about the kindness offered to strangers, it’s about embracing people who are other, it’s about being yourself. Paddington learns to not try and fit in but to be himself and in being himself he finds a home and a place that he belongs. And the Brown family, in our versions they are not the perfect family. They are a little dysfunctional. But through this bear, through embracing him they become whole again. And I think that in today’s world where there is so much friction and there’s so much pointing fingers at people because they’re not like us, I think that message of the kindness to strangers, of embracing others, is a really positive thing. t’s actually is a human story. It is a story about a family coming together it’s a story about an outsider finding a home, it’s about kindness, it’s about generosity, it’s about warmth.
I enjoyed the relationship between Mr. and Mrs. Brown, with him so risk-averse and her so spontaneous.
Sally Hawkins and Hugh Bonneville had almost a theater-length rehearsal period and over that time they begun to shape their characters. And in so doing I think gave it the truth that is not just paper thin.
And, not to give too much away, even your villain was acting out of slightly distorted but genuine family devotion.
There’s a wonderful Graham Greene line: to hate to lack imagination. And hate actually is so diminishing. There’s a context for why people do what they do, good or bad. And it doesn’t mean it’s okay. I’m not saying it justifies it but it explains it. And I think through explaining it in film and in life, in understanding the enemy you allow that not to be repeated. If you don’t understand it then it can just happen again and again if you just hate it you are diminishing it will happen again and again and again. To provide that motivation makes it more truthful.
I think that ultimately if you want to educate, encourage, effect change you need to make people realize the possibilities in life and embrace them. One thing I’m very proud of with this film is that it’s message is implicit but it’s not explicit. We don’t talk the message but the message is there. Because I think the danger with a lot of films, when you become polemic you end up preaching to the converted. That is why there is something in it for all ages. Seeing Paddington with my six-year-old and with my mother who is 77 and to share in that experience was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had in my life.
Posted on January 12, 2015 at 3:17 pm
Did you know there was not one major romantic comedy release last year? What happened to all the Jennifers and Jessicas? All the meet-cutes and misunderstandings? All the quippy best friends and quirky roommates? All the cute pajamas and strolls through the farmers’ market and walks on the beach?
If Hollywood won’t provide, it’s time to crowd-source. Kevin Smith is here to help. Yes, Kevin Smith. Come on, you know he’s just a big old softie who believes in love.
It’s the 30 Second Rom Com Movie Challenge from Studio 360.
The meet cute, the first kiss, the misunderstanding, the chase, the wedding — we all know the scenes that make a romantic comedy both predictable and irresistible.
Your challenge: write and shoot a scene that plays with any or all of those tropes, in just 30 seconds or less.
Your judge: Kevin Smith, DIY master and director of Chasing Amy and Clerks. Win Kevin over with your creative twist on the classic genre. We’ll play the winning movie and have you as a guest on the show on Valentine’s Day weekend.
Extra Credit: 30-Second Rom-Com
HOW TO ENTER:
STEP 1: Create your film• Use Vine, Instagram, Super 8, or using any other method to create an original rom-com.
• Your entry must be 30 seconds or less.
STEP 2: Submit your film• Upload your movie to Youtube or Vimeo — and post the link on the Studio 360 contest page.
• Submit as many movies as you’d like.
• By posting your movie, you represent that: you have the right to post it; that it does not infringe on the copyright of any other person; and that, if you are under 18, you have permission from a parent or guardian to do so. (Be sure to follow Youtube and Vimeo’s Terms of Service.)
• Your video will be posted on our website and may be used in other Studio 360 platforms.
The deadline to be considered for our challenge is Sunday, February 1 at 11:59pm ET.Kevin Smith will be back on the show to announce a winner.
Good luck, and if you win, don’t forget to thank me in your acceptance speech!
