jOBS

jOBS - the too cutely titled Steve Jobs biopic - is a ruthlessly efficient but frustratingly unenquiring film that is ultimately saved by the convincing central performance by Ashton Kutcher.  Kutcher goes beyond his striking similar resemblance to adopt the loping walking and speaking style of the iconic computer developer, and allied with superb production design and authentic Los Altos locations, this make the film compelling despite its stylistic problems.  These must rest with the director Joshua Michael Stern (SWING VOTE) and debut screenwriter Michael Whiteley..   To be sure, they don't sugarcoat Jobs - they show his immediate and early ripping off of fellow collaborators - his harsh rejection of his daughter - his frustrating single-mindedness - but they never investigate it.  Why - on the first deal they did together - did Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) off?  Where did he get the drive and knowledge to cut such a financially astute deal with venture capitalist Mike Markkula (Dermot Mulroney)?  Why did he cut out early collaborators such as Daniel Kottke (Lukas Hass) out of the lucrative Apple IPO?  Why did he deny he was his daughter's father for so long?  And why did he then recant?  This latter issue is perhaps the most frustrating.  In a movie that uses Jobs' eviction from Apple a major psychological turning point it's incredibly annoying to reunite with him a few years later where he's apparently turned into a doting father, husband and zen father. 

So if we're not getting psychological depth here, what are we getting?  A fairly straightforward corporate history of Apple. It reads as follows.  Woz is the IT genius who creates the PC but Jobs is the marketing and design guru who sells it to the financiers and then to Wall Street.  His search for perfection and naivety leads him to a position where the greedy capitalist CEO John Scully (Matthew Modine) forces him out, causes a personal crisis for Jobs and a corporate crisis for Apple. Years later he's called back, annoints his design successor Jonny Ive (Giles Matthey) and announces the design of the iPod.  The rest is final credit success and deliberately avoided death.  I'm no expert on Apple's corporate history so I can't tell you if the account is broadly accurate and fair, but it IS compelling, if a little bit TV movie of the week.  And that's how I'd advise you watch this: on the small screen.

JOBS has a running time of 128 minutes and is rated PG-13 in the USA.

JOBS played Sundance 2013 and was released earlier this year in the USA, Singapore, Canada, Turkey, France, Argentina, Kuwait, Portugal, India, Pakistan, the Philippines, Australia, Israel, South Korea, Brazil, Poland, Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, Iceland, Croatia, Serbia, Thailand, Estonia, Greece, Hong Kong, Finland, Lithuania, Spain, Taiwan, Colombia, Latvia, Mexico, Bangladesh, Macedonia, Japan, Norway, Peru, Sweden, Italy and Chile. It does not yet have a UK release date.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN

Roland Emmerich is not a director whose movies win the hearts and minds of critics. 2012, 10,000 BC, THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW are pretty mindless, boorish, loud, overlong action movies that combine heavy CGI effects with a squidgy slurpy schmaltzy underbelly.  It's fair to say that WHITE HOUSE DOWN combines all the worst elements of these previous movies and adds a few more. Every line of dialogue is cheesy.  Every character is a caricature.  Every situation implausible.  And yet, and yet.... I enjoyed every single minute of WHITE HOUSE DOWN. I laughed at it and with it.  I cared about its main characters.  I was genuinely surprised by one of its plot twists.  And when the geeky tour guide finally manned up with a gun I was cheering on the inside.  For me, WHITE HOUSE DOWN is the DIE HARD of this decade - good-hearted wholesome, cheesy action fun.  I can't recommend it highly enough!

The plot is, of course, worryingly similar to this summer's earlier White House Under Attack movie, OLYMPUS HAS FALLEN.  Channing Tatum plays a security guard called John Cale with dreams of protecting the President, partly because he's just a gosh-darn patriot, and partly because he wants to impress his plucky little super-patriotic daughter Emily (Joey King).  On the morning that he's rejected from the Secret Service by old flame Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), Cale and his daughter find themselves in the White House when a disgruntled employee decides to take the President hostage.  This allows Cale (and his daughter) to prove just what a hero he is.  

Of course, Channing Tatum is perfect for this role, looking good in a wife-beater but also pulling off the wholesome charm of a loving father.  I also really liked Joey King as his daughter, very much styled in the Alyssa Milano- COMMANDO role.  But the real hilarity comes from Jamie Foxx who geeks up as peace-loving President Sawyer - a liberal fantasy President who wants to bring peace to the Middle East and earns the wrath of the military-industrial complex.  There are endless scenes where Foxx plays it for laughs, struggling to turn action hero, earning Cale's mockery. 

In fact, it's worth saying that this movie is really funny.  There are hilariously stupid lines: 

Bad guy number one: Cake? 

Bad guy number two: No, I don't want cake! I'm diabetic! 

Or this one from President Sawyer: Get your hands off my Jordans! 

As well as the visual brilliance of seeing the Leader of the Free World racing round the White House lawn in a pimped out hummer shooting a rocket launcher.  The word for this film is Ridonkulous.  But all that hilarity and the slurpy schmaltzy patriotism shouldn't blind you to the fact that it's actually very well made. The CGI effects are spectacular but don't overwhelm the story.  There are just enough great character actors (Richard Jenkins, Jason Clarke) to keep it this side of spoof. And I like the way that little plot details come back to be of significance, and even minor characters, such as the tour guide, have complete narrative arcs.

So, don't be put off by Emmerich's back catalogue. If you loved early 80s action flicks, and go with the intention of having a good time, WHITE HOUSE DOWN is the movie for you!

WHITE HOUSE DOWN has a running time of 131 minutes and is rated PG-13.

WHITE HOUSE DOWN was released earlier this year pretty much everywhere.  It opens on September 11th in Belgium; on September 12th in the Netherlands; on September 13th in the UK and Ireland; on September 19th in Denmark and Greece; on September 20th in Norway, Sweden and Venezuela; on September 26th in Italy and on November 1st in Bulgaria. 

SURF'S UP - the dude abides!

SURF'S UP is one of those films that puts you in a happy, sun-kissed mood. It's charming, it's funny, and it made even the most evil greedy capitalist bastard all warm and fuzzy inside. This is because the writers do old fashioned things like having a proper story and like-able characters. What you won't find are machine-gun-rapid pop-culture references and movies spoofs. (Shrek, anyone?)

The movie takes the form of a reality TV show following a young surfing penguin called Cody Maverick on his way to the annual Big-Z Memorial surfing championship on the island of Pen-gu. The writers send up the genre, but don't overdo the smart jokes. Cody (the omnipresent Shia LaBeouf) is befriended by a cute life guard (Zooey Deschanel), a stoner chicken (Jon Heder) and the now reclusive Big Z himself (Jeff Bridges). So begins a patiently-told, coming-of-age story interspersed with a scene-stealing side-plot featuring Jon Heder's junior dude, Chicken Joe. Seriously, this is probably the most innocently expressed animated movie since the original TOY STORY. Not to be missed.

SURF'S UP is on release in the US, Russia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Portugal, Indonesia and Turkey. It opens in Egypt, the CZech Republic and the UK next week and in Spain, Argentina, and Hungary the following week. It opens in Belgium and Serbia on August 23rd and in Iceland on August 31st. It opens in Australia and Germany in September and in Italy, the Netherlands, France and Brazil. It finally rolls into Sweden, Finland, Norway in November and in Japan in December 2007.

Random DVD round-up 4 - PRETTY PERSUASION *

PRETTY PERSUASION is a weak-ass attempt at the kind of satire of social and political mores that HEATHERS and ELECTION pulled off with great style. It wastes the talents of Evan Rachel Wood as a sexually precocious, cynical fifteen-year old who is willing to set up her sleazy school teacher on sexual harrassment charges just to get revenge on her boyfriend-stealing best friend and break into TV. There are also wasted performances from James Woods - who provides the only real belly-laughs as the girl's ranting racist lawyer father - Jane Krakowski as the lesbian local TV reporter, Ron Livingston as the teacher and Selma Blair as his girlfriend. The film is a lot less clever and biting than it needs to be to sustain the conceit and the run-time. A noble effort, but a sheer waste of 110 minutes.

PRETTY PERSUASION played Sundance 2005 and was released in the US in 2005 and in the UK in August. It is available on Region 1 and 2 DVD.