Michael Fassbender – Back to the Drawing Board Productions

BRINGING BACK BIFF – BIFF 2008 PART I

Posted on June 22, 2018February 6, 2019 by Lloyd Marken

BIFF 2008

It’s almost comical to look back at this now, but I bought a lot of tickets in 2008 to see movies at BIFF. It even seems shameful in retrospect but oh how I love movies and I could and so I did. The 17th Brisbane International Film Festival ran from the 31st of July to the 10th August. Opening night film was Where in the Wold is Osama Bin Laden by Morgan Spurlock and Closing Night film was The Edge of Love starring Kiera Knightley and Sienna Miller. I saw neither nor did I attend Opening Night. What was odd is that there were a few films running after The Edge of Love on the last night so I don’t know if there was a party for the Vollys or when it started. I stuck with my decision to not be a Volly that year and cashed up with a full time job living at home I prepared to go nuts as a festival goer. I figured it would not take long to make back the money but little did I know that my life was about to radically change. There were a lot of great films at BIFF 2008 and it is interesting to note how some of choices were informed by simply being able to get to a cinema in time and also my own work hours so I missed festival darlings like Man on Wire, Son of Rambow, In Bruges and Persepolis which were all shown here. I still intended to see many films from many continents, sex as a subject attracted me and there was a fantastic retrospective on Australian B-grade cinema in the 1970s. Growing up I had heard a lot about the renaissance of Australian films in that decade with Picnic at Hanging Rock, Newsfront, The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith and My Brilliant Career. But these were a different type of Australian classics that pre-dated Max Max and I was anxious to see as many as possible. I’m sure I was scheduled to see a seminar as well but can’t be sure what it was now.

HUNGER: One of the great joys of going to a film festival is the discovery of new talent in smaller films before everybody comes to recognise them. I have Irish roots and am always interested in stories that cover The Troubles and so it was, I chose to see Hunger at Palace Centro cinemas at 4:30pm on the 1st of August. At least I think it was since I can’t be sure of some of the sessions I attended now. Hunger was about a hunger strike carried out by IRA prisoners in the early 1980s. Such a simple sentence cannot capture what awaited me and the care with which the director would showcase the horror of his tale. The prisoners live in cells with nothing sleeping on the ground on hard concrete. They draw in their cells on the walls but they don’t use pencils. They’re beaten as they find ways to cause trouble with whatever means they have. There’s no end to the violence and squalor and we come to realise its killing the humanity in the guards too. The leader of the prisoners is a man who really existed called Bobby Sands who starved himself. The politics seem remote from the whole damn thing, we see men suffering and we’re left to wonder what the hell could justify it but also understand that its something very real and important to Sands.

A film virtually without dialogue, halfway through what seems an exhausting observance of what we do to ourselves Sands sits down with a priest (the excellent Liam Cunningham who would go on to do Game of Thrones) and discusses his resolve to not eat. In a long unbroken take for 17 minutes they talk and then the camera cuts to a close-up on the face of the actor who plays Sands. The next few minutes leaves you speechless. This was tour de force filmmaking and acting. The actor who played Bobby Sands and director would re-unite in 2 more films so far. Those films are Shame and the Oscar winner 12 Years a Slave but I saw Michael Fassbender and Steve McQueen’s first work together in 2008 and was riveted.

THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS: On the same night I raced across to see the classic The Battle of Algiers at 7:15pm at GOMA Cinema A. This was part of a program on Resistance and Terrorism in Post War Europe. Hunger not part of this program seemed an appropriate entrée (in fact In The Name of the Father also about The Troubles and prisoners screened as part of the program). There’s not a lot to add here about The Battle of Algiers (1962) directed by Gillo Pontecorvo which is a well known classic. I probably owe watching it to Roger Ebert. Basically it covers Algeria’s war of independence against France in the early 1960s. It is shot like a documentary film, as IEDs were killing soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan it felt timelessly relevant. Not just for a small force targeting civilians but also for the way that an occupying force can have good intentions. As the French commander notes, some of them were part of the resistance against the Nazis. Easily one of the best films to see at the Festival and a pleasure to see it on somewhat of a big screen.

ALVIN PURPLE: The Ozploitation program featured many films that were covered in the documentary Not Quite Hollywood which screened at BIFF 2008. Sadly I missed it here but caught up with it in general release not much later. I did a few of the programmed films and the first was Alvin Purple which was scheduled to start at 9:10pm at Regent 1. One of my work colleagues from QUT who set me up with Karen noted I was going to struggle to all these films before they started and given Algiers runtime it was definite that I would miss the opening of Alvin Purple which I promptly did. I don’t know if she could understand why I would see so many films and still buy tickets to one I would miss the opening of but Alvin Purple was not often on the big screen and I liked the look of a naked girl with leather boots and a jockey helmet with whip so missing the first 10 minutes was something I was prepared to forgo. Alvin Purple starring Graeme Blundell for a certain generation is a classic (and features plenty of young Aussie actors who would go on to have long careers including Blundell and Jacki Weaver. While it was all very risqué for the time it has probably remained a favourite due to its own humour. Since it was before my time I held no nostalgic emotional baggage for it but found it light and funny and sexy. I think I read somewhere it was the highest grossing Australian film at that time (1973).

DIARY OF THE DEAD: Believe it or not it was still the 1st of August 2008, Friday when I saw my fourth film of the festival and the night at Regent 1 at 11:15pm right after Alvin in the same cinema. I had seen Land of the Dead and I think the original Dawn of the Dead by George A. Romero and so was interested to see what he did with Diary of the Dead. Diary of the Dead wasn’t a great landmark film in the way that his classic Dead films were but it was perfect for a late night Friday session at the Regent and BIFF. I distinctly remember the crowd erupting at one character’s actions in the film. Set around a zombie apocalypse it follows young film students as they capture everything on their handheld cameras. It is admirable to have seen that at such a later time in life Romero was still interested in trying new things and commenting on society through zombies. I’ve read he changed dramatically the way he shot footage to allow for the look of the film to reflect the students just capturing things in the moment. Well that was it for the first night of BIFF 2008.

-Lloyd Marken

ALIEN CONVENANT SURE WON’T BE MISTAKEN FOR ALIEN: COVETED

Posted on May 22, 2017May 24, 2017 by Lloyd Marken

Alien: Convenant has opened to mixed reviews and solid if not exciting box office. Such a reaction may spell the end of Ridley Scott’s plan to close out a new trilogy of Alien films for this decade but will this film grow in prestige with time. Setting out to serve two audiences it may fail to completely satisfy either but there’s no denying there’s good stuff here. Is it enough?

GenXers growing up in the shadow of the first two films were always keen for more go arounds when rumours would arise of James Cameron or Ridley Scott returning to the franchise. At one point long before Avatar took up his time there were even rumours Scott would direct a film written and produced by Cameron but alas that was not to be.

in 2012 though Scott returned to science fiction for the first time since 1982 with Blade Runner to make a Prometheus that would deal with origins of the Aliens and answer finally who was that infamous space jockey. The infamous space jockey turned out to be a giant, bald grey humanoid who took a shot of tequila and made human kind. Or at least one of his ilk did a million years ago. Beyond that we didn’t learn much about them but the ending of Prometheus promised us we would find out in the next film. We don’t.

Prometheus saw the Hollywood debut of Noomi Rapace who did a solid turn as Elizabeth Shaw and before heading off on a new adventure at the end setting up a compulsory sequel. Don’t expect to see much of her in this sequel.

Prometheus sported some incredible visuals but its weak point were fucking moronic characters who played cute with space cobras and took off space helmets for no good reason so they could propel the narrative forward, felt ill and possibly contaminated but still had sex with their girlfriends and in a panic ran in straight lines ahead of rolling giant objects bearing down on them.

Thankfully there were bright spots and not just some neat sexual tension between naked push-ups champ Charlize Theron and handsome Idris Elba. There was Michael Fassbender as peroxided android David. A character you definitely couldn’t trust but was endlessly fascinating whom with a mix of intelligence and naivety engaged me.

I had time for some of the human characters in Prometheus, but I wanted to find out what happened next to David. To this end Alien: Convenant is more of the same. Michael Fassbender returning as David and also starring as Walter a newer model android is easily the most engaging performance/s of the film. Nothing against Katherine Waterston or Danny McBride who acquit themselves well but they’re types and also lambs for the slaughter. Nobody is still wearing a space helmet again but at least the word quarantine comes up in conversation and it just seems like the momentum is always against the human characters here that you understand why mistakes are made even if they are still clearly mistakes.

I guess you want to hear the plot right? Okay people on a ship in cyrosleep going to a planet. Fire on ship, people wake up. Get signal from other planet. Decide to go there because it is habitable and just had people die on fire on ship. Get there and….aliens. Sort of.

There-done. I can’t state this enough Fassbender and Guy Pearce having a conversation in a white room at the beginning of the film was far more thrilling for me than an Alien tearing down spaceship corridors in the third act. Everything with David and Walter was far more fascinating to me than the alien scares and I suspect the same for Ridley Scott. Despite this though I do think the venerable director has had a red hot go at making the xenomorph scary again and giving us fantastically gross deaths to try and top the chest-bursting scene of the original. Creatures in long grass leaping out at dusk illuminated by nearby burning wreckage. Bursting open backs rather than stomachs. Neomorphs braying quietly an inch from you like a horse. The classic cliché of a shower sex coupling interrupted by other appendages moving in are memorable images as are pathogens moving through ear canals. If there is any complaint it is that it would have been nice to up the creep factor a bit with some of these sequences. Sadly the creatures themselves often move too fast and with little weight obviously rendered by computer their movements are now too sleek compared to the haunting creature in the earlier films. However the scene much touted in the marketing where a belayed Waterston does battle with the classic xenomorph on top of a careening space vehicle while packing a modified Steyr assault rifle is the kind of sequence that couldn’t have been done 20 years ago the same way and makes great use of modern technology.

trailer alien reveals franchise covenant GIF

The film itself is less pretty than Prometheus sporting harsher colours, the planet in this film replaces the bare black volcanic rock with forests and medieval like structures but the sky is darker, the colours even more muted adding up to convey a nightmarish quality of a ruined world. Positively gothic. Which is kind of the point and maybe why this may struggle to find a huge audience. This is a dour film offering no real easy answers. There’s plenty of horror and action in it but its more interested in bigger themes. Yet saying that big themes and moodiness is why this film won’t click with some is just an excuse. Plenty of dour films can still entertain you with their effectiveness. There are interesting ideas in Alien: Convenant, some neat deaths and two compelling performances from Michael Fassbender. I was angry about the idea of having already waited five years for answers when Convenant was only going to leave me hanging for more but I am now intrigued to see where Scott takes this. Yet that does not a satisfying film make and Alien: Convenant is far from satisfying. Wait for it to come out on Disc or streaming. While Alien: Convenant seeks to address some of the criticisms of Prometheus I would argue the latter is still the better film. I’m also putting it out there in this corner of the internet, Sir Ridley I’d like to see Alien 5 with Ripley, Newt and Hicks more than I ever wanted to see this.

-Lloyd Marken

HUGH JACKMAN AS THE WOLVERINE

Posted on March 18, 2017March 18, 2017 by Lloyd Marken

When I was a kid there was one superhero and his name was Superman and as played by Christopher Reeve he was a giant. There was something noble and good to admire about the man but there was nothing square about his decency. It was something to aspire to and there was a knowing eyebrow raised at times. Looking back it is a startling performance of little gestures, he sold Clark Kent being unrecognisable with body language more than the glasses he hid behind and there was anger and humour there in the character too. Michael Keaton, Christian Bale, Tobey Maguire, Thomas Jane, Robert Downey Jr., Chris Evans, and certainly not David Hasselhoff have ever measured up to that performance and that hero. Hugh Jackman is no different but perhaps that is a time and a place. I’m no longer a kid and maybe if you were a kid who grew up on these films Logan opening this month will have some poignancy for you. Because never has an actor performed over 17 years in 9 film appearances the same superhero. An achievement in itself, for my money Hugh Jackman was always a great actor in the role in films that sometimes didn’t deserve that greatness. With that in mind let’s take a look back at these films, performances and overall sex appeal throughout the years. With these shirtless shots I should buy untold credit to post girls in lingerie for several reviews. ;-P

X-MEN (2000) ***

The Performance: Jackman had done a few indie hits here in Australia and was performing Oklahoma on the West End when he got wrangled to replace Dougray Scott (his filming for Mission Impossible 2 had ran over schedule) at the last minute and thus a star and let’s not forget a sex symbol was born. Wolverine was always the cool anti-hero Han Soloesque figure of the X-Men and while never plumbing the depths of Wolverine’s painful past here Jackman delivered the vibe of the character well. His chemistry and protectiveness of Anna Paquin as Rogue was the heart of the film and foreshadows in part his relationship with Laura (Dafne Keen) in Logan.

The Film Itself: Not long after the Batman series of films had stalled, The Usual Suspects director Bryan Singer kicked off the next era of comic book films which have become the most dominant form of blockbusters in the past decade as Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings have faded away. The 90s had seen two great cartoon series based off old comic book storylines in the form of the X-Men and Spider-Man. Two years later Tobey Maguire put on the spandex and we were off to the races. If you ask me the first great comic book film of that decade was Spider-Man 2 but it all starts here and it is a solid fun film brimming with potential for the sequels.

Shirtless Rating: Jackman getting hired late in the game supposedly meant he didn’t quite achieve the look he wanted for this film. In recent interviews he’s even pointed to photos and remarked how he’s quite not cut enough. Yeah very disappointing Mr Jackman.

X-MEN 2 (2003) ***1/2

The Performance: Jackman was pushing to show off more of that berserker rage and when the X-Mansion is attacked and he’s the lone adult defending it you see a bit of that. Brian Cox’s performance as a pseudo father figure Colonel Stryker is brilliant and we start to see more of Logan’s aimlessness caused by not knowing his own origins. Jackman was still in a happy blockbuster but there is a heart to the performance and him clearly taking more of a centre stage role as the star. Special note to his stunt work where he did jump off that stair case onto some waiting mattresses below. To have his arms outstretched like that takes some discipline.

The Film Itself: Easily the best of the first trilogy and arguably the best X-Men film full stop. More a chase film with characters racing to the next predicament, there’s not too much character development but Xavier has a nice turn as a captor, everybody else is on fine form and the action is first rate. At the time, the opening setpiece in the White House was a game changer. I saw this film 5 times at the cinemas with different groups of friends, I’ve only done that for one other film.

Shirtless Rating: 34 year old Jackman was on fine form here even nudeing up for the ladies and fellas that way inclined. Think of all the chicken cutlets he had to endure for your entertainment.

X-MEN 3: THE LAST STAND (2006) ***

The Performance: Hugh Jackman, Ian McKellen’s Halle Berry’s stocks were pretty high at this point and so they feature pretty well in this film but Berry never got a fair shake at the part and I never got over wanting them to have cast Angela Bassett as Storm. Famke Janssen came to the fore and whatever the film lacks, Jackman and her played well the pain of loving someone but knowing they were dangerous. That ending is truly operatic in emotion and scale.

The Film Itself: We’ll never know what could’ve been if Bryan Singer has gotten to complete the trilogy but I think Brett Ratner did fine. Some things are cheesy or appear low rent but he got the finale right and he let his actors play the roles they had established. Who doesn’t feel something when that house comes toppling down. This was made back in the day when studios did trilogies not shared universes and there’s some emotional weight and a sense of finality here. In some ways the series has been always struggling to want to go back and nail the Phoenix story so we’ll see what happens but I myself yearn for the day when doing trilogies meant you wrapped up characters stories.

Shirtless Rating: Jackman brings the rain again but that haircut ain’t quite right. This would be the last time Jackman played Wolverine where I didn’t have Karen in my life. I wonder what she made of these first three films?

X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE (2009) *1/2

The Performance: Jackman is every bit the movie star here in his first solo effort, getting into rip roaring shape, assembling younger beefcake all around him like a group of back-up dancers and playing a range of emotions. It’s just…well you don’t really feel it. Fatigue had set in, this gave us all the answers we ever wanted about the character and his past but very little reasonated and while I love Jackman I’m putting some of that at his feet as the star.

The Film Itself: Easily the worst of the bunch but there are some good things here. We see Logan had a painful childhood, the war montage is good and Ryan Reynolds was funny in his first scene and I like the line “I come with you, I’m coming for blood. No law, no code of conduct. You point me in the right direction, you get the hell out of my way. ”

Shirtless Rating: Jackman seemed to step up the routine even more as he got older looking more and more ripped. Here he re-created scenes from X-Men 2 around about the time he turned 40. During his nuddy run I looked over at Karen practically inhaling popcorn as she watched transfixed at the images onscreen. I didn’t have the heart to tell her in the moment CGI seemed to be being used. Shame really.

X-MEN: FIRST CLASS (2011) ***

The Performance: Hugh is essentially in this in a very celebrated cameo. PG-13 films in the U.S. are allowed one F word and Wolverine got it for his 25 second appearance. Long term readers may note, inspired by this I tend to put one swear word in every review. It’s not a rule I strictly enforce but I like the idea of it being an ongoing gag. Anyway the cameo was the epitome of fan service without ruining the film. Loved it.

The Film Itself: Sir Ian McKellen was brilliant as Magneto and at one point there were plans to do an Origins film of him. Instead they recycled some of the plot for that film into this. The best bits are Michael Fassbender as Magneto going around the 1960s like a young James Bond. Fassbender and McAvoy got the relationship right between Charles and Erik. There was also a great subplot with Beast (Nicholas Hoult) and Mystique (Jennifer Lawrence). Too bad they just played variations on this in subsequent sequels.

Shirtless Rating: Sadly in the half minute of screentime Jackman doesn’t get his kit off but Karen has helpfully suggested I get the bath scene from Australia in here somewhere so why not here. hugh jackman GIF

THE WOLVERINE (2013) ***

The Performance: Every time a new X-Men film came out Jackman would promise he was finally releasing the berserker rage in this one. I’d argue that didn’t really happen until Logan but after his first solo run tanked Jackman put in the hard yards in this sequel. Following his loss at the end of The Last Stand, Jackman perfectly conveys Logan’s grief and need for redemption.

The Film Itself: Directed by James Mangold maybe the finale falls a bit flat, maybe some of the dialogue ain’t great but he’s got a cool sidekick in Yukio (Rila Fukushima), some great lines (once again getting the sole F-bomb of the film at the perfect moment) and the story taking us to Japan. The train sequence looked terrible in the trailers but was fantastic in the film.

Shirtless Rating: Now 45 Jackman got into even more rip roaring shape. At this point I think Karen was more self conscious when Jackman got shirtless so there was no popcorn devouring this time. Must have been me knowingly turning to her in this scenes with a great big grin on my face and an elbow in her ribs that took her out of the moment. Can’t say for sure.

X-MEN: DAYS OF FUTURE PAST (2014) ***

The Performance: After a couple of solo efforts, Logan was back in an ensemble X-Men film for the last time really. Him and Jennifer Lawrence’s prominence on the poster tells you that even after all these years Jackman was enduring as a star like few. He’s charming and cool here as he’s ever been and generous with his co-stars with Bryan Singer returning to the helm.

The Film Itself: Fox’s answer to The Avengers and regarded by many as the best of the series. It’s tougher for men because there are not pays offs here I would have liked but it rights the series, has the famous setpiece with Quicksilver and for all the wonderful spectacle the finale is essentially old friends ironing out their differences. That takes courage, I rate X-Men 2 higher maybe even The Wolverine but this was a good return to form.

Shirtless Rating: The man is a machine. This was him in training for the film, if the bar ain’t bending you’re just pretending. At one point he bench pressed 136 kilograms. Judging by his nude butt scene he also did a few squats because that 46 year old arse was tight yo!

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016) **1/2

The Performance: Essentially re-doing his alkaline lake scenes again but this time better than X-Men Origins. This is the closest you could get to Logan at his most savage without an R Rating and I for one didn’t mind the extended cameo.

The Film Itself: Reviewed on this blog previously, the film fails to draw you in with plots that have already been done before and a villain that mostly fails to engage. Bryan Singer has delivered better in the past and I don’t know where the series goes from here but there are possibilities. In a way the series started off as a film adaptation of a cartoon series that it has mostly now done the plots of. It might be time to head off in new directions but if they bring back some of the cast here I would like to tie up some storylines like Beast and Mystique.

Shirtless Rating: Still looking good Wolvie and who doesn’t like a man with his shirt off and his helmet on.

Logan (2017) ***1/2

The Performance: Hugh Jackman finally delivered everything he promised, he got to the guts of the character’s pain, had a deep meaningful relationship with Xavier (Patrick Stewart), showed Logan’s inherent goodness and nailed the berserker rage. This has always been an old broken down man and here we finally experience that with all its despair and resilience. Since his wonderful turn in Les Miserables I’ve been saying Jackman plays middle aged really well and I can’t wait to see what he’s done next.

The Film Itself: Some kids will tell you they don’t see a point in comic book films that aren’t comic book films. I shake my head. This is a story, a good one because it involves you and it makes you feel. Blockbusters can do that as much as kitchen sink dramas can bore the shit out of you with terrible dialogue and performances. This is easily my favourite alongside X-Men 2 and a very different film from the former.

Shirtless Rating: Well now that Logan is old and ravaged Jackman of course he won’t look as appealing as he did in previous entries.

Oh for fuck’s sake! Well I wonder if Karen liked the extra grizzle on Mr Grizzly. I’ll go out on a limb and say yeah.

In closing thank you Hugh Jackman for all the hard work over the years and the passion you put into getting the role right. It’s been a bumpy road but in the end you’ve stayed true to the word and given us one last great performance in the role to send the character off in style. As I once said of Christopher Reeve as Superman, I’m sure a few kids say now Hugh Jackman was, is and always will be Logan – The Wolverine.

-Lloyd Marken

X-MEN A GO-GO

Posted on September 29, 2016September 29, 2016 by Lloyd Marken

X-Men: Apocalypse appeared in a crowded market of sequel s and comic book films this summer. The series was coming off a high of X-Men: Days of Future Past which combined the cast of the original run of films from 2000-2006 with the reboot X-Men: First Class kids ala like a Marvel Avengers team-up film. Intended as a trilogy capper to the young First Class crew, the scale of this X-Men film is bigger than any previous efforts with real world ending threats and yet the film is quite underwhelming. Where other films however muddled have felt fresh this year, this X-Men outing feels like a call back to better earlier trips. Even James McAvoy pointed out on Graham Norton “Charles goes bad again, I try to appeal to his inner humanity again.” That’s not what the main problem is though, Apocalypse is to put it mildly A bit of a fuckin mess. Too many characters, too many plot strands, an underwhelming villain and a finale that looks impressive at first but ends up like they always do being a big overblown cartoon that makes the audience feel no impact nor sense of stakes in the choreography. That is not to say it is without merit though. Their biggest mistake here is to not give closure to their cast of characters instead choosing to leave open the door for more profit-I mean storytelling.

Picking up from the events of Days of Future Past which was set primarily in 1973, Apocalypse takes place in 1983 with everybody fairly happy. Prof Xavier (James McAvoy) is running the School with Hank McCoy (Nicholas Hoult) and doing a bang up job. There are some particularly gifted students in attendance in the form of Scott Summers (Tye Sheridan) and Jean Grey (Sophie Turner) who we all know will become Cyclops and Phoenix. Jennifer Lawrence who proved the be the big break out star of this franchise due to her own one The Hunger Games, is back as Mystique rocking a leather jacket and being a bit of a symbol for mutants world-wide. She rescues them and is still fighting the good fight of mutants against humans who would hate, enslave or murder them or you know just humans in general. After almost killing the President, Magneto went back to Poland and raised a family. These early scenes with Fassbender are low key and enjoyable. It feels like a natural progression for the character in middle age having fought the war for mutant rights and decided to go back where he came from, to where it all started and try to live a simple life as a man. The problem is we all know where this will end so it’s hard to get too involved with characters that will be the fate of an inevitable plot development. At least though there is something dialled down and interesting going on in Poland. Quicksilver is back in this film too which makes you think something inevitable will happen there too since he mentions Magneto is his father. Inexplicably this does not take place and I think it has less to do with character motivation and more to do with copyright legislation.

Added into this mix is the villain En Sabur Nur or Apocalypse, a very old mutant maybe the first who used to make life tough back in the day for Egyptians and now has returned to……Sigh. You know it really doesn’t matter. You’d be better off seeing Oscar Isaac in A Most Violent Year or Inside Llewellyn Davis or Jennifer Lawrence in Silver Linings Playbook or James McAvoy in Filth or Tye Sheridan in Mud or Sophie Turner in Game of Thrones or Evan Peters in American Horror Story or Olivia Munn in The Newsroom or Nicholas Hoult in Mad Max: Fury Road or Michael Fassbender in any movie he made with Steve McQueen or Lucas Till in…..in…actually this is probably Lucas’s Till’s best work. Still you get the point, there are better movies out there but I guess this one is not bad.

Look back in Egyptian times there was a mutant who ruled over the world with four deputies which allude to the Four Horsemen of the Biblical Apocalypse. I’ve heard Highlander the TV series did this idea more justice than this movie…… let that sink in for a moment. Awakened in modern times Ennie Sabie No feels a bit out of sorts and decides this old world of ours needs a bit of a renovation sensation which coincidentally includes our annihilation. How a victim of the Nazi’s final solution gets on board with mass genocide is beyond me but little Magneto has had a rough time of it. A startling close up of Isaac describing our world while connected to a TV is oddly compelling but sadly his motivations or how he draws in his followers of four is less convincing. There are some tantalising Meta jokes, references to past relationships but no real payoff. Hoult and Lawrence had a nice chemistry in First Class and it would have been nice to develop their love story to some resolution in this film. More inroads are made with Rose Byrne and McAvoy but still no cigar. There is another stand out Quicksilver sequence which has less impact this time around but there is a good joke with Peters and Lawrence. En Zanzi Bur is a powerful figure with immense power but without a proper motivation the finale lacks emotional power. Things blow up, pixels play across the screen, and some actors even go flying through the air on wires but ask yourself in 3 months if you remember any of it. You’ll remember Han Solo on the bridge a damn sight better or even Superman throwing that Kryptonite Spear into Doomsday.

Yosub Kim, Content Strategy Director x-men purple olivia munn sword Make a good film and everybody will beg you to be the only one to do a sequel, make a less than great film and everybody says it’s time to put the franchise to bed. Both are knee jerk reactions that don’t necessarily hold true. Bryan Singer has directed some fine films and been with these characters a long time, for me the best remains X-Men 2 which was 14 years ago. I wish him and 20^th Century Fox well with the franchise and any choices they make in the future. In the end this could be as good a time as any to end this part of the story but if not, the directive should be simple – make it good. X-Men Apocalypse ain’t bad though.

-Lloyd Marken

STEVE JOBS GETS THE SORKIN TREATMENT

Posted on April 24, 2016April 24, 2016 by Lloyd Marken

Steve Jobs is a good movie; let’s get out of the way right now. Written by Aaron Sorkin, directed by Danny Boyle and starring-wait for it-Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Jeff Daniels, Seth Rogen, Katherine Waterston, Michael Stuhlbarg and Sarah Snook. A biopic about a high profile personality that changed the way we live, it followed a familiar path for awards season hopefuls. Launched first at Telluride Film Festival, and then given a limited release where it scored the highest per screen average gross of 2015 before opening wide to have it on everybody’s mind when award nominations were considered. Sadly the film did not open with big numbers in America and was pulled from wide release after only two weeks before limping through foreign territories. Kate Winslet and Aaron Sorkin did pick up Golden Globes for their efforts and the film did receive two Oscar nominations but compared to the similar The Social Network, Steve Jobs was seen as a failure. This is a shame because it boasts the same kind of quality we’ve come to expect from all involved.

Steve Jobs is not really supposed to be about the man we all know; sure it takes facets of that myth that we know all and sprinkles them throughout. It’s widely reported that he may not have been a very nice man, at least not in the beginning of his career and the film asks an age old question. Can only great things be done by people who are so driven they cannot sustain any sincere and worthy relationships. The film is structured around three acts like a play with each act taking place behind the scenes leading up to a presentation to launch a new product. I could tell you what they are but it doesn’t really matter. The film is about a father and a daughter, there’s a lot of noise about, various work colleagues and what their relationship was to Jobs, how they changed him and were changed by him, whether they pushed him into failures or better decisions. None of it is as important as the relationship between parents and children.

Mackenzie Moss plays Lisa in 1984 when Jobs wants to put a personal computer in every home and change the world. He’s young, ambitious and furious that ex-girlfriend Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston) is claiming her child is his. Seth Rogen is Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak who is trusted and cared for by Jobs seen as someone very tech-minded but not necessarily as strong willed as Jobs. Apple CEO John Sculley appears at the launch to offer advice and show his support, they have a warm relationship. Backstage Andy Hertzfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg) is being pressured to fix glitches or face consequences as an original Mac team member. Some people are treated well by the icon, others stand up to him, and others seem to know how to deal with him. Only one is truly able to communicate with him and that is marketing executive Joanna Hoffman played by Kate Winslet.

In every subsequent act the relationships Jobs has with these people changes, arguably one for the better, but the relationship with Hoffman never changes. She is his confidant, his moral compass and while her patience wears thin as the years pass by she never leaves his side or stops being close to him. If half of what this film says is true Joanna Hoffman would be a fascinating person to meet and talk to. Jobs remains an enigma played as a real man by Michael Fassbender with volatile emotions but always able to keep something to himself. We see him angry, his pride hurt, his mind frantic for a way to win, smug in victory. The intelligence and energy of the man are on display but tellingly there may only be one genuine significant smile throughout the film. Talk about driven but for true thoughts and feelings maybe only Joanna knows. Kate Winslet plays her as firm when she needs to be but gentle as well, she appeals to his good side in a way most people wouldn’t dare.

Ripley Sobo as Lisa in 1988 and Perla Haney-Jardine as Lisa in 1998 effectively convey a child struggling to be acknowledged by their parent in some way and the anger and confusion that will result from that. Their story is the one building to a climax, not Jobs triumphant return to Apple. Rogen has an opportunity here to sprout Sorkin dialogue and be in a different type of movie and acquits himself well. Possibly now as celebrated and recognised for his contributions as Steve Jobs, you don’t ever hear too many stories about Steve Wozniak being an unpleasant person to work with and there is something in that given quiet dignity in Rogen’s performance. Jeff Daniels who got to play leading man on Sorkin’s The News Room here is an unwilling antagonist as John Sculley. The Sorkin scripted showdown between Sculley and Jobs are riveting but far more important are there scenes in 1998.

I still can’t shake that for all the talking that goes on in a Sorkin screenplay, Fassbender’s main achievement is to convey so much of Job’s growth in subtleties. One of the greatest actors working today, Fassbender is so consistent we may start taking for granted how good he is. Sorkin writes clever dialogue for smart characters but always with an emotional through line, this is another tour de force by him.

After David Fincher’s collaboration with Sorkin yielded The Social Network, Danny Boyle being attached to this movie sounded like an exciting prospect and Boyle doesn’t disappoint. Lacking most of his more energetic flourishes from other films there has still been distinctive technical chances that make the film look and sound interesting and reflect the growth of the technology and the characters in the story. Cinematographer Alwin Kuchler shoots in 16mm for the 1984 scenes, 35mm for 1988 and digital in 1998. At the same time score composer Daniel Pemberton used analogue synthesizers for the 1984 scenes, a more orchestral score for 1988 and digitally produced music for 1998. These are all great touches that you stop noticing after a while but help create mood and reflect the changing of time and characters. Similar choices were made in terms of production design and where each launch would be set. This is high end filmmaking that can’t be faulted, not only does it look great but it serves a purpose. For example notice where late important conversations occur in and with whom in each act. Act I a walk around outside from one building to the other. Act II down in the bowels of a theatre in a dark hallway. Act III in a high up in a rooftop carpark out in the open again.

There were better films that came out during Oscar season like Spotlight. Something is off here, maybe Jobs himself remains too aloof or maybe we can’t care too much about rich business people being mean to each other. Maybe the people involved have delivered for us too much that we now expect more. If you haven’t seen it, give it a chance the film effectively and movingly tells a story about a father and daughter reconciling and maybe a man who finally figured out what was truly important.

-Lloyd Marken

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