We will know soon enough if you are Leonardo da Vinci, or just think you are.

Steve Jobs

(2015)

(SPOILERS) The cult of Steve Jobs rather passed me by, probably because I remained Mac-apathetic until a couple of years ago, after he and Apple’s great decade of innovation had simultaneously ceased to be. Sure, their stuff looked cool, but it was disproportionately expensive, and wasn’t it all about the packaging and status appeal, really? Danny Boyle’s film, from Aaron Sorkin’s screenplay (based on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson) is certainly all about the packaging, both in terms of the confabulated Jobs narrative, by way of a studied three act structure, and the showy shifts in the design and texture of the piece (including changes in film stock). Fortunately, unlike Jobs’ NeXTcube, there’s actually something going on under the hood here.

Steve Jobs is one long conceit on Sorkin’s part, though, much more flagrantly than his previous study of a tech pioneer (Mark Zuckerberg in The Social Network), and the result is ultimately less satisfying than Fincher’s film. Sorkin wins points for avoiding the tried-and-tiresome route taken by 99% of biopics, but he can’t quite make his confection irresistible. Focussing on three key events in Jobs’ career, and weaving in the same personal and professional relationships as punctuation points to an extended Noises Off-esque backstage barrage of signature Sorkin exchanges and interplay, the Jobs is essentially composed of three extended conversations, and could easily, with minor tweaking, be transposed to the stage. And I’m sure it will be, at some point.

The events being the 1984 launch of the Mac, in which Jobs is attempting to ensure it says “Hello” when he introduces it on stage, while dealing with co-founder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), who is pressing him to acknowledge the company’s greatest success, Apple II, during the presentation. He’s also navigating the demands of ex Chrisann Brennan (Katherine Waterston) and the daughter (Lisa, played by Makenzie Moss) whom he refuses to acknowledge as his… until they connect over MacPaint. Then there’s the 1988 launch of NeXTcube (no, I didn’t remember it either), in which Lisa (now Ripley Sobo) wants to come and live with him, and Wozniak, Apple CEO John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) and another original Mac team member Andy Hertzfield (Michael Stuhlbarg) arrive to update us on the intervening period, including the background to Jobs’ ousting from Apple. Finally, there’s the 1998 launch of the iMac, where Jobs, now Apple CEO, must make amends with his daughter (Perla Haney-Hardine) for failing to pay her tuition fees and Wozniak brings up the Apple II thing again, on account of how Jobs is laying of 3,000 staff to make the company ship-shape.

Anyone demanding factual accuracy from a movie will go to town eviscerating this, since, aside from the launch dates, pretty much everything is invented. On the one hand, Steve Jobs serves to emphasise what a hard-nosed, abrasive and dislikeable guy Jobs was, as he steamrollers through the feelings of friends, family and colleagues with the same remorseless lack of empathy. On the other, it’s pretty much a eulogy for his genius, crediting him with such foresight that the failed NeXTcube fast became an elaborate ploy to deposit him back in the Apple fold while the iMac is established as the saviour of the compaby (more accurately, it was the iPod). Jobs refers to what he does as art, with an entirely straight face and over the objections of Wozniak who feels, under such an analogy, he should be the Lennon (rather than the Ringo), since he had the technical nous whereas Jobs merely seized moments. Ironically, genius status is undermined by the conductor metaphor Jobs introduces. There’s undoubtedly skill, and flair, but you could say that of someone apt to make a fortune on the stock market.

Sorkin sets up recurring conflicts in Jobs’ life, apparently after they had been resolved (his difficult relationship with Lisa), so as to engineer a golden-hued reconciliation that makes his personal journey to responsible fatherhood and the career stratosphere over the course of 15 years seem a little too calculated. And Boyle, not the most subtle of visualists, whacks us round the head with this arc. Aspects really work; the bonding over MacPaint is corny but hugely effective, for example. But, while the first two sections represent an ‘80s-nostalgia whirl of ups-and-downs, the final chapter is less successful, succumbing to overtly grandstanding scenes (in front of captive audiences, first with Wozniak and then Lisa) that feel contrived beyond the already fully-fledged contrivance of Sorkin’s structuring and dialogue. Sorkin also rather little clumsily has marketing executive Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) deliver a ream of exposition regarding where Apple and Jobs are at, and then the next exchange (with Wozniak) renders it redundant by going through it all again (but heatedly this time).

Boyle, while his decision to shift from 16mm to 35mm to digital is the manoeuvre of someone in search of a gimmick rather than a passionate believer in the material, is mostly more restrained than he has been of late. He keeps that camera moving, perhaps too much, but he’s generally focussed on the performances rather than eliciting visual fireworks. That said, there are times when he becomes intrusive or unnecessarily tricky; do we really need flash frames of Jobs’ daughter to tell us he has her on his mind? Or projections on a corridor wall to support his argument when he is holding forth to Hoffman? It whiffs of a director easily bored, and so contrasts negatively with Fincher’s cool, calm, compelling reserve.

There’s also a problem with Fassbender as Jobs. Not that he doesn’t look like him, or that he isn’t effortlessly commanding to watch (he doesn’t, and he is) but that he’s too essentially likeable. It’s only in the third chapter that Jobs’ bastardishness really begins to be felt over the dazzle of the actor’s charisma, and then the character goes and gets offered redemption. Far better, in terms of getting across a guy so many intimates loathed, would have been original choice Christian Bale. Or Sean Penn; I’m sure he could have made him thoroughly unpleasant with very little effort.

Talking of which, boorish oaf Seth Rogen is surprisingly solid as Wozniak, particularly when it comes to the third act shouting match with Jobs. Everyone here is accomplished though, from Stuhlbarg and Daniels to the three Lisas. Particular praise goes to Kate Winslet, who I somehow failed to recognise for the first couple of minutes of Hoffman’s screen time. Joanna has the patience of a saint, and Winslet dominates the screen at least as effectively as the showier Fassbender (albeit her Polish accent does seem to come and go).

Why the box office failure of Steve Jobs? I think probably most people, like me, don’t really care much about the guy. That, combined with a self-consciously clever narrative form from Sorkin. It’s too transparently devised and poised to truly satisfy, too tidy and symmetrical; to go back to the NeXTcube for a comparison, the succession of dramas and stand-offs lack the intentionally imperfect measurements built into cube. As a result, the picture isn’t as accessible or compelling as Moneyball or The Social Network (both of which conveyed a point of interest in their titles, even if you weren’t intrigued by the main players).

Although he’s less frenetic in terms of editing, Boyle’s nevertheless in similar pulling-out-all-the-technical-stops mode as the also-restricted-in-setting 127 Hours. There’s a feeling that, even though this is his best picture in a decade, someone more subdued might have been more suitable (the way David Mamet’s screenplays are often best serviced by Mamet’s own no-frills direction). Steve Jobs might yet get awards recognition to counterbalance the nonplussed audience response, but I think the non-attendance reflects that this is diverting rather than essential. If nothing else, though, seeing the stunning 1984 ad again is a reminder of how Sir Ridders used to really floor us with his visuals. His Prometheus (which I liked, but was no Alien) ought to be instructive to Boyle, also about to revisit and sequelise one of his earliest and best films.

I’m smarter than a beaver.

Prey (2022) (SPOILERS) If nothing else, I have to respect Dan Trachtenberg’s cynical pragmatism. How do I not only get a project off the ground, but fast-tracked as well? I know, a woke Predator movie! Woke Disney won’t be able to resist! And so, it comes to pass. Luckily for Prey , it gets to bypass cinemas and so the same sorry fate of Lightyear . Less fortunately, it’s a patience-testing snook cocking at historicity (or at least, assumed historicity), in which a young, pint-sized Comanche girl who wishes to hunt and fish – and doubtless shoot to boot – with the big boys gets to take on a Predator and make mincemeat of him. Well, of course , she does. She’s a girl, innit?

This entire edifice you see around you, built on jute.

Jeeves and Wooster 3.3: Cyril and the Broadway Musical (aka Introduction on Broadway) Well, that’s a relief. After a couple of middling episodes, the third season bounces right back, and that's despite Bertie continuing his transatlantic trip. Clive Exton once again plunders Carry On, Jeeves but this time blends it with a tale from The Inimitable Jeeves for the brightest spots, as Cyril Basington-Basington (a sublimely drippy Nicholas Hewetson) pursues his stage career against Aunt Agatha's wishes.

Just because you are a character doesn't mean that you have character.

Pulp Fiction (1994) (SPOILERS) From a UK perspective, Pulp Fiction ’s success seemed like a fait accompli; Reservoir Dogs had gone beyond the mere cult item it was Stateside and impacted mainstream culture itself (hard to believe now that it was once banned on home video); it was a case of Tarantino filling a gap in the market no one knew was there until he drew attention to it (and which quickly became over-saturated with pale imitators subsequently). Where his debut was a grower, Pulp Fiction hit the ground running, an instant critical and commercial success (it won the Palme d’Or four months before its release), only made cooler by being robbed of the Best Picture Oscar by Forrest Gump . And unlike some famously-cited should-have-beens, Tarantino’s masterpiece really did deserve it.

I think it’s pretty clear whose side the Lord’s on, Barrington.

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Poetry in translation is like taking a shower with a raincoat on.

Paterson (2016) (SPOILERS) Spoiling a movie where nothing much happens is difficult, but I tend to put the tag on in a cautionary sense much of the time. Paterson is Jim Jarmusch at his most inert and ambient but also his most rewardingly meditative. Paterson (Adam Driver), a bus driver and modest poet living in Paterson, New Jersey, is a stoic in a fundamental sense, and if he has a character arc of any description, which he doesn’t really, it’s the realisation that is what he is. Jarmusch’s picture is absent major conflict or drama; the most significant episodes feature Paterson’s bus breaking down, the English bull terrier Marvin – whom Paterson doesn’t care for but girlfriend Laura (Golshifteh Farahani) dotes on – destroying his book of poetry, and an altercation at the local bar involving a gun that turns out to be a water pistol. And Paterson takes it all in his stride, genial to the last, even the ruination of his most earnest, devoted work (the only disappoint

Death to Bill and Ted!

Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) (SPOILERS) The game of how few sequels are actually better than the original is so well worn, it was old when Scream 2 made a major meta thing out of it (and it wasn’t). Bill & Ted Go to Hell , as Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey was originally called, is one such, not that Excellent Adventure is anything to be sneezed at, but this one’s more confident, even more playful, more assured and more smartly stupid. And in Peter Hewitt it has a director with a much more overt and fittingly cartoonish style than the amiably pedestrian Stephen Herrick. Evil Bill : First, we totally kill Bill and Ted. Evil Ted : Then we take over their lives. My recollection of the picture’s general consensus was that it surpassed the sleeper hit original, but Rotten Tomatoes’ review aggregator suggests a less universal response. And, while it didn’t rock any oceans at the box office, Bogus Journey and Point Break did quite nicely for Keanu Reev

I’m the famous comedian, Arnold Braunschweiger.

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If you ride like lightning, you're going to crash like thunder.

The Place Beyond the Pines (2012) (SPOILERS) There’s something daringly perverse about the attempt to weave a serious-minded, generation-spanning saga from the hare-brained premise of The Place Beyond the Pines . When he learns he is a daddy, a fairground stunt biker turns bank robber in order to provide for his family. It’s the kind of “only-in-Hollywood” fantasy premise you might expect from a system that unleashed Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man and Point Break on the world. But this is an indie-minded movie from the director of the acclaimed Blue Valentine ; it demands respect and earnest appraisal. Unfortunately it never recovers from the abject silliness of the set-up. The picture is littered with piecemeal characters and scenarios. There’s a hope that maybe the big themes will even out the rocky terrain but in the end it’s because of this overreaching ambition that the film ends up so undernourished. The inspiration for the movie

Everyone creates the thing they dread.

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Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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