Comic-Con 2015: This is the “Star Wars” Panel That Had The Audience Cheering and Crying
Posted on July 13, 2015 at 1:26 am
People camped out for days to see this panel — and it was worth it!
Ex Machina
Posted on April 16, 2015 at 5:18 pm
A-| Lowest Recommended Age: | Mature High Schooler |
| MPAA Rating: | Rated R for graphic nudity, language, sexual references and some violence |
| Profanity: | Very strong language |
| Alcohol/ Drugs: | Drinking and drug use, intoxication |
| Violence/ Scariness: | Violence and peril, characters injured and killed |
| Diversity Issues: | Diverse characters |
| Date Released to Theaters: | April 17, 2015 |
| Date Released to DVD: | July 14, 2015 |
| Amazon.com ASIN: | B00XI057M0 |
Movies about artificial intelligence or computers achieving consciousness are, of course, really about what it means to be human.
When software and hardware combine to mimic or exceed human qualities in “Her,” “Chappie,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Terminator,” or the upcoming Avengers sequel, even “Planet of the Apes,” it is a way to think about what it is that defines us. Alan Turing of “The Imitation Game” used our ability as humans to recognize each other as the famous Turing test to determine whether artificial intelligence has been created. The test is passed when a person cannot tell whether the entity on the other side of a conversation is human. If we cannot tell the difference, then we have to rethink our exceptionalist notions of human supremacy. We accept, sometimes reluctantly, the notion that computers are vastly superior in computation and memory, that they can whomp us in chess or on Jeopardy. But can a machine achieve what we think of as consciousness? Or conscience?
Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a computer programmer who gets the equivalent of Charlie Bucket’s golden ticket. He wins a chance to spend a week at the home of the brilliant founder of his company (think Steve Jobs), a man who at age 13 invented the most powerful search engine and now lives in a home so remote that a helicopter flies over the thickly wooded property for two hours before they reach the residence. They are in the middle of nowhere. (The film was made at the stunning Juvet Landscape Hotel in Norway.)
Nathan (Oscar Isaac, all brutish charm, feral, and entitled, with shaved head and beard), welcomes him with a rough candor, explaining that he is hung over, and giving Caleb a keycard, so that he will have access to those parts of the home where he is welcome and be kept out of those where he is not. It turns out he has been brought there for a purpose. Nathan has been working on what he describes as the greatest scientific advance of all time. He is not creating a robot. He is trying to create life. He wants Caleb to perform the Turing test on his latest creation, named Ava (Alicia Vikander of “Anna Karenina”).
But it turns out that it may not be Ava who is being tested.
Ava is gorgeously designed. Nathan admits that he created her to be intensely appealing and she is, both her humanoid face and her transparent neck and midriff that allow us to glimpse her mechanics. Vikander gives her a tentativeness and innocence, with a sweet seriousness and (at least at first) an endearing wish to please. She tells Caleb to wait while she gets a surprise and it turns out to be clothes that cover up the machinery so well that it is not just the human part of Caleb that recognizes her as a part of the same species; it is the depths of the lizard brain instinct. We may have wondered why Nathan’s test was conducted in a glass box that separates Ava and Caleb. Perhaps it was to prevent him from abandoning the Turing test for a more animalistic evaluation based on smell and touch.
There is that always-compelling hubris/Frankenstein/Jurassic Park/sorcerer’s apprentice element of foolish, narcissistic grandiosity in creating something out of a grant vision without appreciating how dangerous it will be. Something always goes wrong. And anyone who does not realize that does not really understand that part of the essence of humanity, for better and worse, is the chasm between our ability to dream and our ability to execute.
First lesson: Isaac Asimov was right. Second lesson: the qualities of human-hood go beyond syntactical complexity and conversational non-linearity. To be human means independence of thought and action, and the pesky thing about independence is that it overlaps with rebellion. We know computers can outsmart us. Can they out-human us, too? Is it any wonder that Caleb flays his own arm just to check that what is inside is not made of gears and chips?
Screenwriter Alex Garland (“28 Days Later,” “Sunshine,” “Never Let Me Go”), directing for the first time, has an eye for gorgeous visuals and a superb sense of balancing the future-wow with the ordinary to make his sci-fi-style extrapolations amplify and illuminate who we are.
Parents should know that this film has very strong language, substance abuse, explicit nudity and sexual situations, and violence.
Family discussion: What is Ava’s most human quality? What is Nathan’s least human quality?
If you like this, try: Read up on the Turing test and watch movies like “A.I.” and “Her”
Trailer: Ex Machina
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.
A Most Violent Year
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
Oscar Isaac on “A Most Violent Year”
Posted on January 3, 2015 at 3:11 pm
Oscar Isaac (“Inside Llewyn Davis”) is one of my favorite actors. In “A Most Violent Year” he plays an immigrant in 1981 New York trying to keep his very successful home heating oil business both legitimate and competitive in a world of rivals who are not as concerned with ethics and staying within the law as he is.
Meredith Alloway interviewed Isaac for Press Play, and his comments on creating the performance with writer/director J.C. Chandor are fascinating.
It was a very dense script. Obviously he’s very formal. He doesn’t use contractions. He speaks very formally. As an actor you have a choice, you’re like I want to make it more human and talk like I do. I chose to lean into the formality in a way almost like a memory of your grandfather. I would ask all these questions–“What’s he feeling here, what’s he going through?”–and he would say, “The hair’s going to be amazing.” And I’d be like, “What?” Then, “What’s going on inside…?” He’s like, “The suits, you got to take a look at the suits!” I would get so frustrated! I even wrote him, “I don’t care about suits. I don’t care about the hair! I need to know what’s going on inside!” And then at one point he said, “The suits are not about fashion, it’s a suit of armor.” Suddenly that hit me in a much different way. As an actor, that’s completely actable….This is war and this is his suit of armor. That influenced how I wore it. It wasn’t wearing a suit to look cool. It was wearing a suit because it was his armor and his way of defense against other people. Even the way he’d sit, come into a room. He wouldn’t really have angles. He always squared off at everyone.