EX MACHINA

Domhnail Gleason     Oscar Isaac     Alicia Vikander

 In Ex Machina, Alex Garland, writer/director, weaves a tantalizing sci-fi tale that is part horror, part ethics/morality (whether A.I.’s should be treated humanely), and part romance.  In keeping with the title, the work is constructed so that by the end of the story we have been given information that lets us know just how bad things are.  “Deus ex machina” is a literary term meaning “god from the machine”, and refers to a plot device whereby a problem towards the end of the story is unexpectedly solved by the insertion of something or someone new.   Although the “Deus” is left out of the title of the film, references are made to the god-like role the creator of the A.I. has, especially since his invention is made more human by being sentient and emotionally aware. 

            Garland is a master at juxtaposition:  An ultra-modern home/laboratory set in the beauty of nature’s flora and fauna; a research site that appears to run smoothly and effortlessly with the help of the latest technology and a researcher fully in control, yet it could be called “the house of paranoia” when suspicious activities make their appearance; opening scenes are accompanied by the tuneful music of Schumann’s “Scenes from Childhood”, but in time there is a sense of dread, and the music becomes cacophonous.  A scene that is bright and revealing will suddenly turn dark, when secrets come to light.  CEO Nathan Bateman (Isaac) is a fitness freak, yet imbibes liquor and wine constantly.

            Caleb (Gleason) is incredulous but overjoyed to learn that he has won a contest among young coding specialists in the computer search company he works for.  He will get to spend a week working on a top-secret project with the eccentric CEO who wrote the Blue Book of code.  Caleb is a bit taken aback when he is flown by helicopter to a field in the mountains and told to follow the river until he comes to a house.  Nothing else is orthodox after that either, even simply getting entry into the house.

            After entering, he encounters Nathan, who is indeed a physical specimen, and who is presently at a punching bag.  As he guides Caleb through the property with enigmatic descriptions and instructions (“Your key opens any door you’re permitted to go through, but won’t work on those you’re not”), it is also clear that he is intellectually sharp and a challenging teacher.  It is some time before Caleb learns what Nathan’s project is.  But finally, he is introduced to Ava (Vikander), Nathan’s newest creation, and told that he will be doing a Turing test on her (finding out just how sentient and human-like she is). 

            Delightful special effects show Ava’s mechanistic appearance while including sufficient human qualities to make her attractive.  Then when she unexpectedly dons wig and clothes, she is indeed a handsome woman.  Also appealing is her command of language, her soft voice, and pureness of logic.  Vikander cinches the role with just the right mixture of human and A.I. qualities. 

            Oscar Isaac’s talent shines through as a bearded, complex character with many admirable and despicable facets to his controlling personality.  Gleason is making a name for himself lately in any number of films (Harry Potter movies, Calvary with his father Brendan, and Unbroken), and was named as one of European films’ “Shooting Stars” in 2011.

            The excellent script, special effects, and acting make this the best sci-fi film I’ve seen.  I’m looking forward to what I hope will be many more productions by Alex Garland.

Fascinating!

Grade:  A                        By Donna R. Copeland

           

THE SALT OF THE EARTH

--> Sebastiao Salgado     Wim Wenders     Juliano Ribeiro Salgado

-->

The Salt of the Earth title of this excellent documentary refers to the famed Brazilian photographer, Sabastiao Salgado, who photographed life, death, animals, and nature in over 100 countries from the time he was a young married man and began using his wife’s camera.  He is now 71, and they live in Paris where they fled in 1969 after a military coup in Brazil. Although his education was in economics, when he was sent to Africa on assignment and observed the plight of people there, he switched to photography so he could make more people aware of some of the horrors taking place in our world all the time.

           The film is divided into sections that reflect to some extent his psychological journey, from seeing the millions of deaths as the result of famine, disease, and political purges to environmental concerns, and how he finally resolved the emotional turmoil, expressing his hope that humanity will rediscover itself in nature.  In the 1990’s, Salgado and his wife Lelia restored acres of their land in Brazil that was destroyed by drought into its original state, making it a nature preserve managed by a group they founded, the Instituto Terra, which is dedicated to reforestation, conservation, and increased environmental awareness.  The first section of the film is entitled The Other Americas; the other sections mirror the titles of his books: Sahel, Workers, Migrations and Genesis.  He sees his work as “a love letter to the planet.”

Salgado’s son, Juliano, and the internationally acclaimed filmmaker, Wim Wenders, directed this breathtaking view of the world as seen and experienced by Sabastiao Salgado.  The story is told primarily through Salgado’s photographs and his commentary about humanity.  At the start, we hear him talking about the lives of workers’ in a Brazilian gold mine, Serra Pelada, and see his wonderfully sculptured pictures of them.  His empathy and compassion are immediately apparent as he relates what he saw and felt when he first visited the place. 

           The film has been criticized for being too “beautiful” in showing the horrors of the world, but I disagree with this.  To me, the artistry makes even more vivid the plight of so much of humanity, I was more likely to be suffused with sadness and compassion after seeing the work and hearing the voice of Salgado than I would have been were it more like a newscast.

           One aspect of the film that might be considered regretful is that Salgado’s wife Lelia—who has always been a strong force in the family and their projects—could have had more screen time.  It would have been enlightening to hear how she managed life at home while her husband was away so much.  Toward the end of the film when she is talking about their environmental project in the Amazon, it is clear that she is a bright woman with strong opinions. 

Beautiful visual display and humanitarian concerns tell a sad, bleak story, but with rays of hope in the end.

Grade:  A                              By Donna R. Copeland

WHILE WE'RE YOUNG

--> Naomi Watts     Ben Stiller     Adam Driver     Amanda Seyfried     Charles Grodin     Peter Yarrow

-->

While We’re Young deals with the time when aging starts to get personal—personally meaningful.  Josh (Stiller) and Cornelia (Watts) are there and get side-tracked by a younger couple, Jamie (Driver) and Darby (Seyfried) whose lives seem so exciting, unlike another couple whom they’ve been friends with for years, who just had a baby.  Josh and Cornelia discuss how free they feel and lucky to start hanging out with the younger set interested in so many things—hip hop, mystical evenings with a shaman, bicycling, woodwork, music on vinyl, and so on.  Best of all, it seems, Jamie aspires to be a documentarian just like Josh and his famous father-in-law Leslie Breitbart (Grodin). 

      Josh has always preferred to work alone, but after exposure to Jamie’s apparent generosity, he attempts to be more collaborative, and they embark on a joint project, and Josh is forced to introduce Jamie to Breitbart.  Josh has always rejected his father-in-law’s attempts to advise him out of sheer determination to make his career his own.  Jamie has no such qualms; he freely borrows from others, charmingly pulling them into his circle, and making his way toward the top.

      Ever so gradually, it dawns on Josh what is happening, and he makes a scene at an inappropriate time, thinking that when he “exposes” Jamie everyone will feel just as he does.  It’s a crushing moment when it becomes obvious that no one sees anything wrong with what Jamie has done/is doing, and that even Cornelia sees him as overly suspicious.  She loves her husband, and this puts her in a bind, which she handles beautifully.

      In this sensitive part of the drama, Noah Baumbach, the writer/director, seems to be working through issues in his own mind about the nature of truth and films, particularly documentaries.  How does the filmmaker walk that fine line between being strictly truthful and ensuring that a film will be interesting, even entertaining?  Does it matter if the truth is hedged a bit or a lot if the point of the film is really about something else? 

He does make sure that the Josh character develops more insight into himself and others as a result of this painful experience, and by the end seems to be setting himself on a much more relaxed journey through life.

      Stiller and Driver have the meatier roles and play them very well.  I was sorry that the characters for the two main actresses, Watts and Seyfried, were written primarily as support for their husbands.  They are both highly talented and skilled, and it seems a waste to have them in such lackluster roles, although as usual their fine acting shows through.  Charles Grodin and Peter Yarrow in cameo roles demonstrate that age has its privileges, including professional seasoning.

      James Murphy’s score and soundtrack are truly enjoyable accompaniments to the film, particularly in its perfect pairing of the drama with sound in so many scenes. 

Overall, this is a fine update in Noah Baumbach’s career; I think his finest yet.

The best of Baumbach.

Grade:  B                          By Donna R. Copeland

SEYMOUR: AN INTRODUCTION

Ethan Hawke     Seymour Bernstein

Seymour is about pianist/philosopher Seymour Bernstein, who decided to give up his stage career when he was 50, and turn to teaching full-time.  Ethan Hawke, the director, should be proud of this fine documentary, which provides an artistic, impressionistic view of a gifted musician and teacher.  It is a philosophical as well as a musical exploration into performance, the performer, and life itself.

           Hawke had been wrestling in his own mind about “why I do what I do”, and whether he was being authentic in his life.  Also, during the previous five years, he had been experiencing crippling stage fright.  About this time, he met Seymour at a dinner party and began chatting about it because he immediately felt comfortable around the musician.  Seymour’s responses to him proved to be more valuable than anything Hawke had been given before, and he conceived the idea of making a documentary about Bernstein’s life.  This is all made clearer by viewing the documentary, in which we discover the pianist is as much a philosopher/teacher as a musician.

           The format of the documentary consists primarily of demonstrating Seymour’s teaching methods with actual students, former students’ impressions of him, and his own musings about himself, the music business, and a bit of his own performances, which occurs mostly at the end of the film while the credits are rolling.  He plays the first movement of Schumann’s Fantasy in C Major, Opus 17, written for Clara, Schumann’s wife.  Seymour notes that Schumann called it “one quiet note played for a secret eavesdropper”, and went on to say to Clara, “You are the note of my life, and you are the secret eavesdropper.”

           Ramsey Fendall’s cinematography, Anna Gustavi’s editing, and the sound work by Hollie Bennett and Matthew Polis—along with a fascinating, articulate subject—make this documentary a beautiful piece of art.  It never drags, even though it is about one person, because it is populated with so many of Seymour’s students and colleagues and has so many musical interludes.

           Seymour loves his students, but emphasizes to them the importance of practice.  Upon first encountering students who refused to do so, Seymour was incredulous, especially given his personal experience.  At age six he begged his mother to get him piano lessons, even though no music was ever played in his home.  She acquiesced, and later on, after he had learned to play, he found a Schubert serenade in a book and began to play it, feeling as if he had always known it.  He found it so beautiful he wept.

           Seymour and two of his former students talk more about the importance of practicing.  Kimball Gallagher observes that each performance of a piece represents thousands of hours of practice.  For classes, he sometimes plays a piece very slowly to demonstrate how practicing like that for hours makes the piece what it is, ultimately.  Joseph Smith adds that Americans tend to think that talent is everything, and it just happens; they don’t realize the number or practice hours involved.

           When he was younger, Seymour was a successful performing musician, had a wealthy patroness, and was getting fabulous reviews.  But none of this could compensate for the nerve-wracking experience he had before a concert, periodic memory blocks, feelings of inadequacy as a performer and as a person, and the commercial aspect of performing.  He said it wasn’t until age 50 that he began to feel comfortable on the stage, yet at that time, he decided to arrange a farewell concert, which would be his last.  He found his creative identity as a teacher after he ended his concert career, when everything seemed clearer, and he became happier and more fulfilled.  Many said, “Don’t you have a responsibility to your audience?”  And his response was:  “I pour it into my students.”

           Since retiring from the stage, Seymour has been living in a one-room apartment “because I love my solitude.”  He finds order, harmony, predictability, and control in music, unlike in the social world in which a relationship can be destroyed by one careless remark.

Seymour: “I never dreamt that with my own two hands, I could touch the sky.”

Grade:  A                               By Donna R. Copeland

DANNY COLLINS

Al Pacino     Annette Bening     Bobby Cannavale     Jennifer Garner     Christopher Plummer     Giselle Eisenberg

The script for Danny Collins written by Director Dan Fogelman is so smart and true to life it’s scary at times (such as the accurate portrayal of ADHD), and the fine actors make it shine even more.  Loosely based on a true story about a British folk singer, Steve Tilston—whom the movie calls “Danny Collins”—who discovered years later that John Lennon had written a letter to him that was delivered to someone else.  The film uses the letter to tell its story about a rock star who, by this time, is aging and performing the same material he has for 30 years.  Then his agent (Plummer) surprises him with the letter, and it has an immediate impact on him in a positive sense of straightening up his boozy, drug-filled life and starting to write music again.

           Danny remembers the son (Cannavale) he never met, who is now grown and living in New Jersey with a wife (Garner) and child (Eisenberg).  The son, Tom Donnelly, has made it clear that he wants nothing to do with his father and wants him to stay away from Samantha, his wife, and their daughter Hope.  But Danny is committed to his self-styled rehabilitation, and makes offers Tom can hardly refuse.  They go back and forth, with Tom trying desperately to hold onto his anger, and Danny never giving up on his plan.  Their interchanges—which include wife and daughter—are both funny and agonizing at the same time.  In the midst of it all spunky Hope takes in everything that is being said and voices her opinions in a way that an indulgent father has to listen to.

            Danny has rented a room at the local Hilton, where he’s had a grand piano shipped in, clearly intending to work; but he’s not above trying to have a little fun with the all-business hotel manager, Mary (Bening).  They get into verbal jousting, and when she finally relents and has some tequila, they actually get close and start sharing their troubles.

The story has many developments on all fronts as Danny progresses and slips backward, and money starts to become an issue.  All of this has to be worked out, and Fogelman’s script never lets the viewer down. 

           Pacino is a master at portraying complex characters with precision and fullness, and Bening is well placed in being his counter force.   The performance of Cannavale is at its usual level of excellence, and Garner, who has a less well fleshed out role, still has to convincingly be the go-between in father-son struggles—which she does.  Plummer, like Pacino, has a long history of fine performances, and his presence in this film is true to form.  The child Giselle Eisenberg steals the scene every time she is on, and I SO appreciated her lines being authentically child-like and not obviously written by an adult.  They are so true to life, I wondered if Fogelman was getting that part of the script from his experience with a real child.  Giselle clearly has a future in acting if she maintains an interest in it.

         I hadn’t expected much from Danny Collins the movie, and was thrilled when it became clear that it was going to be so good.  It is fresh, believable in terms of character development, and it maintains suspense throughout.  Of course, much of what happens could only occur if at least one character had access to big bucks, but still, it is a fine work of art nevertheless.

An insightful, entertaining look at a modern family’s dilemmas.

Grade:  A                                    By Donna R. Copeland

WOMAN IN GOLD

--> Helen Mirren     Ryan Reynolds     Katie Holmes     Charles Dance     Elizabeth McGovern     Daniel Brühl     Max Irons

-->

Beautifully filmed, Woman in Gold tells the story of one woman in about 100,000 whose family’s art works were stolen by the Nazis during World War II.  Maria Altmann (Mirren) and her well-to-do Jewish family lived in Vienna at the time, and had acquired now-famous paintings and jewelry, most notably Gustav Klimpt’s Woman in Gold.  Newly wed, Maria and her husband Fritz (Irons) arranged to flee before they were sent to a concentration camp, but had to leave her parents behind along with, of course, all valuables. 

      The two made it to the U.S., and her sister followed.  Years pass, her husband and sister have died, and Maria finds some old correspondence that reminds her of her aunt—of whom she has very fond memories—and the Klimpt painting of her.  She questions why it is in an Austrian museum instead of being returned to the family heirs.  She has a friend whose son is a lawyer, and Maria asks to talk with him and show him the letters.

      The two don’t exactly hit it off; he seems slightly boorish to her, and she seems troublesome—even rude—to him.  But there is something that compels them to persist in the project to reclaim the paintings legally.  This will be a difficult task, partly because the Austrians have so “owned” the Klimpt paintings, they’ve become a national treasure, and obviously, the museum will not let the paintings go lightly. 

      The film draws on the lives of two real people, E. Randol Schoenberg and Maria Altmann for the story, from which Alexi Kaye Campbell wrote the screenplay.  That gives it an authenticity and a sense of history-in-the-making that a film such as this needs.  The film The Monuments Men (2014) attempted a story on the Nazis’ making off with thousands of art works, but it lacked the personal and present connection that this film possesses, which might make a difference in its popularity with the general population.

      Simon Curtis’ (My Week with Marilyn) art in directing is visibly apparent, with Campbell’s strong script, Martin Phipps’ and Hans Zimmer’s music, and the cinematography of Ross Emery.  Adding to the artful mix are the performances of Helen Mirren and Ryan Reynolds.  Mirren is at her usual inimitably strong talent for bringing a character alive, but the surprise is Ryan Reynolds who, as the attorney showing persistence, frustration, dismay, and sheer determination, gives his very best performance.

A heart-rending and historically meaningful film.

Grade:  A                            By Donna R. Copeland

FURIOUS 7

Vin Diesel   Paul Walker   Jason Statham   Michelle Rodriguez   Ludacris   Dwayne Johnson 

                                Tyrese Gibson   Kurt Russell   Nathalie Emmanuel   Djimon Hounsou

In Furious 7, 7 refers to the 7^th iteration of a series of action films that make up a franchise of revving cars, high speed chases, fearsome artillery, high tech equipment, and just plain old fist fights that seem to go on for hours.  In an odd play on carnival bumper cars, two regular cars intentionally come at each other full speed not once, but twice.  (If something’s really good you always do it twice, right?).  Not only that, cars in 7 can actually fly up into the air and more than once drive off cliffs, and miraculously, no one is killed (that is, the good guys).

            What story there is, is about the brother of Owen Shaw, Deckard (Statham), coming over from Britain to avenge his death; he’s a fierce fighter who carries around bombs like they were confetti he likes to toss.  He’s lethal as well in smarts and skills, in that he used to be in British special forces until he was dismissed. 

            Another strain of the story involves a billionaire, Mr. Nobody (Russell), who engages the team of Dominic (Vin Diesel) et al. to rescue a professional hacker who has devised software that will locate anyone anywhere any time.  Bad guys are after the software creator (Emmanuel), but Mr. Nobody realizes how dangerous such an invention would be in the wrong hands, so engages Dominic’s (Vin Diesel) team to intercept them.  What follows is harrowing scene after harrowing scene with engines revving, furious car chases (even cars flying through buildings), bombs going off, people jumping from car to car or jumping out and rolling to safety, helicopters that rain down fire on their targets, drones that do the same, and on and on and on.

            Obviously, millions of people like these kinds of movies that are almost entirely action (a la the above), no matter how unbelievable, with only a dab of emotion and a smidgen of intentional comedy in the plot.  Oh, a tender relationship is thrown in here and there (Dom and Letty; Brian and Mia), and family is referred to in capital letters, but mostly the film is very loud with special effects violence and well-choreographed fights between men and between women.  Roman (Gibson)—a driver, a distracter, and a blowhard—is something like comic relief, but the lines written for him are not actually laugh-out-loud funny.  But after all this, at the end of the film, there is a moving tribute to the actor Paul Walker who plays the part of Brian O’Connor and who was killed in a car accident last year that was devastating to his fans as well as his family. 

            Clearly, this is not a film I would choose to go see on my own, but I do acknowledge some interest in the plot (such as software that will track everyone, and, like Mr. Nobody says, change police searches forever), and admire the talent of director James Wan, the actors, and crew.  Still, I can’t see the purpose or value in films like this that are mostly loud and more like watching a video game that has little relevance to reality.

A movie for Nascar fans.

Grade:  C                                    By Donna R. Copeland