Director Andrew Bujalski on 'Results'
Just watch one of writer/director Andrew Bujalsk's films, and you'll see that not only does he welcome unconventionality in his filmmaking – but goes so far as to define himself by it. "There is that part of me that's never going to go away that is proud when somebody points at me and calls me a weirdo," the five-time feature film director notes over the phone while promoting his most recent film, Results (in theaters tomorrow). We had the chance to learn more about Bujalski, by way of talking about the success of his other most recent film, 2013's '80s docu-style festival hit Computer Chess, working with "professional" actors, and keeping it new in every film ("It’s not really worth doing if there isn’t some level of experimentation involved"). We begin:
When did you start shooting Results?
In June and July of last year, which is by far the fastest (turnaround). The fact that we're talking about the movie on the eve of its release and we weren't even shooting it a year ago, is mind-boggling to me.
What was it about Results that made the filmmaking process quicker than your previous films?
Well, necessity, in part.
The first movie (Funny Ha Ha, 2002) was finished relatively quickly, but the middle three I edited myself and really took my time, about a year and a half, which is the way I like working. It's certainly not a very pragmatic way of doing things. This time around we were dealing with a little more money from slightly more conventional financiers – conventional in the sense that they were hoping for a return on their investment sooner rather than later. So there were business reasons to go a little bit faster.
In general, a lot of this movie was me experimenting with different ways of working. First and foremost, Can I survive working in a more "professional" mode? Part of that means turning the thing around faster. I did work with an editor this time (Robin Schwartz), which I had never done before. Also, my wife had our second child right at the end of our shoot, and I'm a slow enough editor as it is, but with an infant in the house, I would have been extremely slower.
This is you fifth film, and I think it's interesting that you say you're "still experimenting." Is doing so part of your style as a director?
Every film is always a different experience. For me, it's not really worth doing if there isn't some level of experimentation involved, whatever that is. You can come at that a million different ways. That's the scary part and the exciting part. Every time I get through one of these and survive it, and I think, "OK, maybe I got away with that, sort of," I think about the crutch – the thing I was leaning on in that movie that made it OK and let me get away with the things I did...and what if I kick out that crutch, what's left?
On this movie, I kicked out a lot of crutches. I am very comfortable working with non-professional actors, small crews, shooting on film, and all these things that may have been "bad for my career" were my comfort zone, and to go into this more "conventional" mode was like learning a new language for me.
Can you talk about the success of your previous film, Computer Chess?
I couldn't have been more gratified at the reception that Computer Chess got. Going into that one, I had no idea what we were going to come out with and if anybody, anywhere, would be willing to screen it. For it to be as well received as it was was a great thrill.
What was the initial starting point with Results? Was there anything in particular that you wanted to explore in writing the film?
The first spark of it came from just sitting down and trying to get my head around what it would be like to work with professional actors. I figured if I was going to do something with more recognizable folks, then I had to build it differently. I first just started thinking of who I would want to work with, and obviously there are tons of great people out there, but the first two people that came to mind were Kevin Corrigan and Guy Pearce. I thought (Pearce) was such an interesting dude, and thinking about having Corrigan and Guy in the same movie was making me chuckle.
Ultimately, it was just throwing a lot of ideas at the wall and seeing what stuck, which is how I work on anything.
On this movie I kicked out a lot of crutches. I am very comfortable working with non-professional actors, small crews, shooting on film, and all these things that may have been "bad for my career" were my comfort zone and to go into this more conventional mode was like learning a new language for me.
I think it's fantastic that you got both Corrigan and Pearce, whose characters clash so wonderfully onscreen. What did you learn from working with them?
Working with both professionals and non-professionals alike, you know they are not puppets, you can't control them. You don't want to control them. You want to sit back and be surprised by them, and that's what makes it worth the headache of directing a movie.
I will say, the closest thing to an epiphany for me working with professionals is that I might have gone into it thinking they'll be so on top of it there will be no insecurities. Then you realize the whole process of acting is all about insecurity. The whole process of directing is about communicating with people about their insecurities and yours. Insecurity is like the language of acting, and that was an interesting reveal for me.
Your directing style feels so unique, and I don't say that lightly. It feels so specific to one person's vision and comedic sensibilities. Where do you draw your comedic inspiration from?
That's a great question. With specific regard to pop culture, it's hard for me to say, because I feel so isolated from it. The funny thing is, it's always a surprise to me every time. Every time I make something I get (caught up) in thinking everybody has my sense of humor. And then I read reviews.
Laughter
I feel like one of my earliest memories is being on the playground in elementary school and somebody called me weird, and I felt great pride – like I had accomplished something, and this was great news. I look back to that and think that pretty much explains everything since. Even though it gets harder as you get older, especially now, where it'd be great for me to make something that everybody did understand and love and made a billion dollars – I could use the billion dollars now with two kids, a mortgage, and all of these responsibilities – but there is that part of me that's never going to go away that is proud when somebody points at me and calls me a weirdo.
Any last words that you'd like people to know about Results before checking it out?
We'll see man, jury's out. I'm so curious to see what the life of this movie is, not just opening weekend growth, but what it continues to be for me and people who see it and worked on it. It's been a crazy ride for me, it did go really fast, but look– I'm still trying to figure out what my first film meant.
Review: 'Aloft'
There is great expanse in Aloft, a contemplative, magical-surrealist drama from first-time feature film director Claudia Llosa, which comes in the form of the film's snow-blanketed great white North setting, as well as its sweeping and far-reaching themes of faith and forgiveness. Unfortunately, this also extends to its slow-trudging pace and heavy-handed storytelling, making for a passionately made film that may appease patient viewers willing to join the emotional tale, but makes for an overly-saturated, lofty, experience.
At its core, Aloft is a film about a devoted mother's absence from her young children's lives (with a supernatural element being part of that reason) and a now grown son traveling to reconnect with her. Visually, (and despite the film's ice and chill in every shot), each frame is wonderfully filled with warm and lovely performances and cinematography that is obvious of this director's heartfelt intention to drive home a fully realized artistic intention, which also comes with overly-inflated emotional scenes.
Jennifer Connelly returns to the big screen as Nana, seen in the beginning of the film as a single mother bringing her children to a sort of spiritual gathering held in the snowy outdoor terrain. Winter-dressed attendees, we see anxious hopefulness in the gathered families, with the sickly wishing to be seen by a shaman (William Shimell), who brings a randomly chosen member into a stick-built hut resembling a bird's nest to perform mystic rituals to attempt to cure one of these wishful's.
Connelly as Nana displays an assured and quiet strength while keeping hope for her children and herself, even after her young son, Ivan's (Zen McGrath) pet falcon enters the shaman's hut during a curing in process, leading her into the private ritual. Her accidental presence ultimately reveals that perhaps she, a struggling single mother, has mystic curing gifts as well, that challenge the shaman's himself.
While it may put off select audiences unwilling to stay along for its slow-paced and heavy-handed viewing, there is a reward in its intimacy and commitment from all parties to tell this strangely beautiful story.
Cut to many years later, a reporter, Jannia, (Mélanie Laurent) visits the home of an adult Ivan (Cillian Murphy) to interview him about his mother, who we learn may or may not have real healing powers, depending on who you ask. Ivan's reluctance to speak with her suggests tension since the aforementioned days of his childhood though it's not initially expressed. Ivan, with a wife and baby of his own, is all mood and sharp edges, and we learn that his reservations come from ill feelings towards his mother, which the reporter presses Ivan over. Her persistence and seriousness convinces a still stingy Ivan to travel with her, to see his mother for the first time in a long time.
That "long time" is shown in alternating timelines, with the current day travels of Jannia and the older Ivan (and his falcon) as well as with the young Ivan and Nana, picking up after the stirring introduction. Connelly is our singular lead here, as we see her exasperated, but persevering character learn of her involvement with inadvertently curing a sickly person on that fateful day, which overwhelms not only her but her son Ivan as well.
Claudia Llosa manages the effort of balancing these stories out well, especially since we, as the audience, are unsure of what childhood event caused the older Ivan to hold wounded scorn towards his mother. The revelation ties together a blame against his mother for acting on her supernatural belief, which comes at a price for their youngest family member.
The film's climax comes at the point where we see, after a traumatic family event, Nana's confrontation with young Ivan about plunging into the abyss of what may be divinity or superstition. Murphy holds onto his emotionally retreating guard until reconnecting with his mother, now gray-haired and committed to herself as a self-realized shaman and media-skirting question mark, which reveals Jannia's ulterior motives in finding Nana and an emotionally cathartic ending for all involved.
Aloft holds a peculiar and heartfelt story with Llosa's strongly held artistically-yearning bend. While it may put off select audiences unwilling to stay along for its slow-paced and heavy-handed viewing, there is a reward in its intimacy and commitment from all parties to tell this strangely beautiful story.
Aloft opens at the Laemmle Royal this weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQ2LIDwQ49U
Review: 'The Connection' ('La French')
Loosely based on real events, the new french action-thriller The Connection follows the 1975 drug war that was led out of the crime-ridden city of Marseille, France. A counterpoint to William Friedkin's 1971 classic The French Connection, The Connection is evenly styled in its period piece dressings but plays to overly familiar drug-war conventions that leave the overall effort as a breathlessly wasted time-out.
The '70s styled policier, starring Jean Dujardin as lead magistrate Pierre Michel, is only mildly compelling in its hard-boiled investigations and tough-guy law enforcing, against central kingpin Gaëtan 'Tany' Zampa (Gilles Lellouche). Lush French landscapes effectively offer pleasantly transporting scenes, but the heart of this story tracks to the same beats that make up other formulaic policiers – credit the naturally charismatic Dujardin and Lellouche for forming a potent dynamic as cat and mouse to drive this story.
The Connection is evenly styled in its period piece dressings but plays to overly familiar drug-war conventions that leaves the overall effort as a breathlessly wasted time-out.
Directed by Cédric Jimenez from a script by himself and Audrey Diwan, the film was shot on 35mm film, which lends rich grains to a film that could have implored much more grittiness to serve its story. The sprawling lines of corruption that link drug kingpins, gangsters, police and city officials fail to hold power in any court. It's not so much a misfire in not landing power in its punches, it's that it just appears to throw so few.
The Connection spans a years-long story of the relentless efforts of Michel, who chases Lellouche and his thuggish cohorts to the point of detachment from his own family and friends. Here, around the film's second act, things track well enough as a tension-building action film, but a half-time re-launch of Michel into the case feels empty in its effort. Lellouche, meanwhile, loses his built up baddie behaviors in the third act with middling regrets and worries that attempt to humanize his character, but only deflate a story that has already lost its steam.
The Connection, while stylishly conceived and with formidable talent in front of the camera, ends up spinning its own wheels as an aimless pursuit.
The Connection (La French) is in theaters today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx41FbyvSMw
Review: 'Reality'
It’s an interesting thing to judge something about a film so early on such as when a filmmaker’s new movie holds such a gigantically-ambitious sounding title that it in some ways suggests it to be a film of universally-commentating scope and total expanse, such as say, a title like Reality. Though in the case of writer/director Quentin Dupieux (who also did the cinematography, editing, and music, as usual), his audience should know that, no matter the title, they won’t be getting a life-defining opus–or even something of grand ambition in their full course helping of his off-brand cinema. Or for that matter, a movie made with any seriousness to it at all. Which is all for the very best. No, Reality (And in its native tongue, as the French-born, recent L.A. transplant filmmaker titled originally, Réalité) once again falls in line with Dupieux’s other reality-bending comic send-ups, making this his best film yet.
With this third feature film, Dupieux (AKA electronic music heavyweight Mr. Oizo) has settled into a story that he finally seems ready to tell. Gone is his freshman debut with the easy-play killer car tire gag in Rubber, gone is the sophomoric clean-up, hitting in the further midnight-movie shenanigans-laden Wrong Cops–here, is the piecemeal story about a film director who discovers that his alternate-reality self has already made the movie he intends to make, and…ya know–other things.
New audiences might find themselves unprepared for this offbeat brand of subversively alt-anarchic movie mayhem, but those with patience to try out a new midnight-movie with flair... should find themselves pleasantly entertained.
The movie opens in a wordless sequence where a back-woods rifleman sets in his sights, and takes down, a majestic deer, which is taken back home and gutted. Much to young Reality’s (Kyla Kenedy) amazement, the young girl sees a blue VHS tape fall out of the insides, but when she presses the issue, her father dismisses the notion that a tape could get into the belly of such a woods-creature- because that would be crazy. Meanwhile, the filmmaker/documentarian Zog (John Glover), wide-eyed, waiting, and hands folded in anticipation from a remote screening room, watches Reality’s real-life drama unfold in real-time, as she stares back into the camera, all the while waiting for a climax of sorts to reveal itself.
Beyond following that rabbit-hole, the movie mainly centers around a public-access channel camera operator by day/budding filmmaker by later-that-day, Jason (Alain Chabat), whose meeting with the eccentrically-odd movie producer Bob (Jonathan Lambert) results in having his killer-microwave B-movie (a sly wink to a former Dupieux movie) green lit–on the caveat that he find the correct “dying human shriek” sound effect. With appearances by Reality’s cross-dressing principal Henri (Eric Wareheim) and public-access show host in-an-itchy-rat-costume, Denis (Jon Heder) (it’s also obvious to see Dupieux aligning his comedy with the Adult Swim oddness of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! here), the film circles around to these seemingly non-connected stories, but finds a common (if long-shot) thread to pull the entire story together.
So, where does a film like this, one built on the honest intention of being purely meaningless and non-logical, stand with his other films, and movies moreover? Where Dupieux’s wheelhouse is in all-out absurdity, Reality finds itself operating in a much more operatically-meta stage, and somewhat more narrative-driven. Jason the director, trying to take his mind off of the stress of finding that perfect excruciating scream, goes to the movies- and sees his movie about a killer microwave playing, and, panicking, tries to block the projection and tell the audience that they aren’t supposed to be watching a movie that hasn’t come out yet.
No doubt, as much as Dupieux wishes to claim that he is all detached dead-pan shenanigans, he is at his best when he allows himself to dip his toes into the pool of substance, but only just-so. New audiences might find themselves unprepared for this offbeat brand of subversively alt-anarchic movie mayhem, but those with patience to try out a new midnight-movie with flair, and definitely for his fans already familiar with his devilish brand, should find themselves pleasantly entertained. Because, as he’s proven in his third time out, even when this director seems to be spinning his wheels, the wheels ends up finding the ability to grow telekinetic powers and kill an entire town. Or something.
Reality opens at the Arena Cinema in Hollywood this Friday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr6D6Z7IAAg
Review: 'Playing It Cool'
As its title might suggest, there's a smug satisfaction and self-assuredness that drives this middling celebrity smile-and-hangout affair. Fortunately, Playing It Cool has an overall lightheartedness to it that keeps the thing from feeling offensively heavy-handed, even though it attempts to use the all-too-familiar convention of being self-aware of its own genre, acknowledging rom-com cliches while simultaneously playing right into those hands for a tired watch.
If you like your romantic entertainment slow-pitched and soft-balled, or really as more of an excuse to have a fun outing with famous friends, you'll find a playful time here and without having to give up much in return. All others should be able to smell this stinker miles out.
Chris Evans, buzzed hair and Venice Beach cool, stars as our male lead named Me, which should show you right off the bat just how shamelessly self-referential this story intends to get, and which it plays off of for the remainder of the movie.
Me, who spends nearly the entirety of the film providing voice-over narration, is more or less a needy and selfish guy, blaming his hesitations over true love to the abandonment by his mother as a child as the catalyst that keeps his movie-star self from believing in such things with such beautiful women.
Especially because Me proceeds to meet Her (Michelle Monaghan), and sparks fly – or more specifically, CG'd electricity courses through their hands upon touching. Again, it's small and unexpected instances of fun that give the film its defeating charm.
The laid back Venice Beach cool will certainly distract you from the fact that Playing It Cool is a bargain-bin offering that will only entertain the most forgiving of audiences.
There's a lot of half-ideas that are jammed into this thing, and not totally insufferable, mostly because Evans and Monaghan are beautiful movie stars with enough easy-going casualness and chemistry between them to keep the thing at least watchable. Me is also a struggling screenwriter, sort of working on a romantic comedy script before he can work on a generically-named "action movie" and spend six weeks in Malaysia, which Me's sleazy agent (Anthony Mackie) riffs on over how the women are ready for the action, in colorfully crass detail. Not the movie's most redeeming part.
But Cool's real saving grace is its lassoed effort of its cast. Between Evans' and Monaghan's googly-eye making is the "comedic relief, "coming from the likes of Topher Grace, Luke Wilson, Anthony Mackie, Martin Starr, Aubrey Plaza, and Philip Baker Hall.
Not to go unmentioned – there are also a solid handful of cut-to scenes, funny asides where Me will, upon listening to any person's story, or even his own voice-over, envision himself in the lead role of these scenarios, with Her face in the lover's role: in one scene, he's in Korean traditional dress, in another he's an astronaut, even throwing in a graphic novel animated scene for eclectic's sake. There's a whiff of The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, but even bringing it up as comparison feels cheap and untrue.
If you're willing to wade through the generic and mediocre storytelling, all you're going to get is a whiff of another self-referential romantic comedy movie. The laid back Venice Beach cool will certainly distract you from the fact that Playing It Cool is a bargain-bin offering that will only entertain the most forgiving of audiences.
Playing It Cool is in theaters this weekend.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JlvyE_Rhzy8
Review: 'Misery Loves Comedy'
Last year's tragic death of Robin Williams shook a culture at large. Most regrettably, the devastating announcement was only a heartbreaking reminder of the pains and inner-torment that comes with the life of comedians and their life's work, an extension of a fractured sense of self at the root of it all.
Misery Loves Comedy, a new documentary that rounds up an impressive group of comedians, attempts to address the underlying darkness inherent in the art form, and ultimately, ask whether or not misery is needed to be funny.
Unfortunately, what we receive is nowhere near the definitive answer to these questions, and is a less than stimulating watch that offers no advancement or worthy takeaway on this subject, that could and should have otherwise shined in these revelations.
Director Kevin Pollak's Kickstarter-backed project drags from start to finish, in what is the film's most fundamental problem: its looseness and unfocused vision, the antithesis of what any of these veteran comedians would tell you makes for good entertainment.
The famous names and faces here, from Tom Hanks to Jimmy Fallon, to Larry David, are the film's most impressive part of this show, but the sheer number of comedians, from Judd Apatow to Martin Short, to Amy Schumer, continuously reminds us that these talents' time and generics are being largely wasted.
Does Pollak really expect each of these comedians to open up honestly in answering whether they themselves deal with the darkness, and can talk in detail of it to our entertainment?
It's a dead paced film, most attributable to all of the unforgiving elements that Pollak chooses to dress the thing with. Butt-ended interviews of recognizable faces and voices desperately need music underneath or in transitions, or at any point really, and the absence of it denies any fluidity.
The interviews, in their simple and flat staging, lack any depth or movement that could have animated these stories and moments in more revealing and honest fashions. Instead, Pollack proves cold, choosing to sit off-screen and dumping heavy-handed questions onto the talent for them to make the thing work. It's a dynamic that seems to be felt throughout the film, and since the talent seems to be aware of this, uneasy dispositions lend to making the viewer think these sit-downs were captured in fleeting moments between these comedians other engagements.
Every talent seems to hit the same east target that's in front of them, answering about their earliest awareness of "being funny," the respective comedy "scenes," the inevitable relationship with drugs, and the personal insecurities and fears that stem from it all.
These answers go about as far as the interviewees can reach, an extension of this film's problem as the questions (broken up with a reappearance of title cards) are so simply asked. Basically, everyone answers Pollak's awkward questions however they choose to appear on camera. Some are more open and vulnerable while the majority remain composed and un-offering into the mind of what we are so anxious to be.
The film continues to run through an uneven list of anecdotes, stories, memories, and other waxings on comedy philosophies. However, the truest highlights of the film also happen to, perhaps unsurprisingly, come up in some of these comedian's more emotionally-baring confessions and honesties. Nick Swardson opens up about struggling with drug addiction at the age of fifteen until he was uplifted by Adam Sandler and moved his charged obsession to comedy. Maria Bamford offers the most insightful look into what this film should have been about, revealing her struggle with mental illness and her time in a psychiatric ward. These surprising and almost unsettling moments shine a light on what the rest of these comedians quietly struggle with.
Perhaps there is an inherent flaw in the set-up of this doc that limits it from being anything more. Does Pollak really expect each of these comedians to open up honestly in answering whether they themselves deal with the darkness, and can talk in detail of it to our entertainment? These comedians mostly skirt these ideas or pull at these threads much too lightly. For as interesting a premise, we're mostly left in the same head space, none-the-wiser, or happier.
Misery Loves Comedy opens at the Sundance Cinemas West Hollywood today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3v2ewpePpO0
The Beautiful Mechanics of 'Ex Machina'
"Deus ex machina," meaning "god from the machine," refers to an ancient Greek plot device used in storytelling that refers to the inexplicable saving or resolving of an assumedly unsolvable problem by the sudden and unexpected intervention of some new character or event, through miraculous, divine hand.
You might notice that in the title of the new science fiction drama. Ex Machina, the Latin "Deus," or "God" ("divine") is removed. Appropriately, God doesn't exist in this film's science-ruling near-future here either, and with that, allowing for moral ambiguity.
In Machina, humans have evolved highly enough to assume the role of creator of life, taking out the need for such deity's reverence. Yet as writer and director Alex Garland shows, there can be devastating effects in playing God, creating self-aware sentiments that show that when all you have left is "from the machine," the state of "life" itself is one that might not only apply to humans.
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"I didn’t even really plan to be a novelist..."
English-born Alex Garland, best known for his screenwriting efforts for big-screen event pics, particularly the Danny Boyle films 28 Days Later... and Sunshine, as well as Never Let Me Go and Dredd, is a revered voice in sci-fi cinema for creating such unique and long-standing films that rile not just imaginations, but so to their more intelligent quotients. Which is why it's a breath of fresh air to see his first directed feature film hit theaters, as it is already showing promise of one of the year's best.
Machina tells the story of a young programmer, Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson), who is selected to participate in the opportunity to test an artificially intelligent robot, Ava, (Alicia Vikander) created by the tech-wiz recluse and quirk-capitalist Nathan (Oscar Isaac) and discover what qualities make it human enough to possibly pass.
The stylishly beautiful compositions and camerawork might allude to the work of a director with ample film experience. And you'd be right, but not if you thought directing was his plan to do all along – or movies, in general, for that matter. "I didn’t even really plan to be a novelist," Garland relays to me, referring to his hit The Beach that was later adapted by Danny Boyle. "Like the whole thing that set the thing in motion was never, in a strange way, an intention. It actually came from having worked in comic books, drawing rather than writing. And realizing I was never going to cut it. And I’d been writing for stuff that I was drawing, and I essentially ditched the drawings and, therefore, ended up writing. And if you’re writing without drawing you’re kind of writing a novel, and that’s sort of what happened."
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"I did really like the way it was planned to be executed, in sort of this sort of chamber piece vibe, because it’s very exposing. It doesn’t give anyone anywhere to hide."
There are only three characters, and yet any more would throw the whole thing off course, or at least be a different movie. The small dynamic provides, to Garland, a tonal view of how these big ideas could be most effectively understood and related to these very tight characters and relationships: "I did really like the way it was planned to be executed, in this sort of chamber piece vibe, because it’s very exposing. It doesn’t give anyone anywhere to hide. You can’t hide behind sort of action sequences, you can’t hide behind momentum, to push you past an awkward plot point. One of the ways you get past awkward plot points, of the sort we were just talking about, is you just drive past them. But then something like this is too slow and reflective to be able to do that."
Garland further notes this in the rest of the production: "And that actually applies to everybody. Like, the composers have nowhere to hide. If they’re trying to write a bit of music for Ava as a theme, that feels kind of beautiful…if it’s not beautiful and innocent sounding, and they fail to pull it off, it’s very stark, how kind of the degree to which it’s failing. Likewise the camerawork. If the camerawork’s not beautiful, it’s just going to sit there in this real obvious way. And if the performances aren’t good then that would be the same."
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"I’ll have one script that I think works for every thing I write."
For all of Machina's big ideas and heavy genre, the film is a whole lot of fun. Heck, a surprising portion of it is actually quite funny. But hiding just behind those humorously settling moments are the planted workings of story misdirections, fake-outs, and twists, that give the whole thing increased gains in excitement, as the intoxicating experience becomes clearer.
"I think approximately, I write three scripts," Garland says of his scripting process. "Like, I’ll have one script that I think works for everything I write. I mean that’s a kind of loose average, but it’s actually pretty close when I look back at the projects I’ve sort of got on my desk."
Asked whether it was his intention to always direct this film, he deflects to the intention of just writing the story, which is telling of his work's process, that simply writing the story is, in and of itself, all the intention that is needed. "At the time I was writing it, and this is always true when I’m writing a script, the only focus in my head at that moment is “Does this work?” In the terms like I’m hoping it works. And the reason that is is because most scripts I write, at the end of that process no it doesn’t work.
At the writing stage, I’m really just testing it, and I’m not talking about it to anyone and I’m not thinking of showing it to anyone, I’m just, for my own purposes, wanting to know if this works or not. And all of those other things about who’s attached to the film come later, because I would feel like I was doing something very premature if I was talking to anyone in those terms, because like, to me, it’s genuinely uncertain. I never know if an idea works until I write it out, cause there’s too many ways you can trick yourself in like a script breakdown or like a treatment or just in thinking about it, there’ll be some problem and your brain just glosses over it. And then when you sit down to write it you realize, no, this is like a fundamental problem and you can’t get around it. So yeah I’m a bit of weary I guess.
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"There's this sort of other magic (Alicia's) got. And that, in essence, is exactly the kind of quality Ava needed to have."
Of course, with such lofty and fantastical ideas, the film required a fundamental connection from audience to character, no small feat for its actors but is exactly what Garland's troupe provides. A familiar face to Garland's past projects, Domhnall Gleeson plays the film's guinea pig Caleb, who is selected to interact with the AI and show whether it passes with "human-like" consciousness. Caleb as the control group, however, learns that there may exist underlying motives to his testing, which Gleeson charters seamlessly here. Asked if he had written any parts in mind for any of the actors, Garland only says that he knew Gleeson could do this character, and so he called him up and offered it to him.
To play the role of Nathan, a question mark of a character that slowly shades into darker territory, is one of the most fantastically slippery actors working today. Garland noticed this too, and praises the work of Oscar Isaac, whose recent films are as prestigious as it is eclectic (Look to the whiplash turns from Awards-aimed headlining acts in 2013's Inside Llewyn Davis and last year's A Most Violent Year to this December's Star Wars: The Force Awakens for a short example).
"Oscar, one of the things you notice, is he just vanishes, in part to part," Garland praises. "He's an incredibly talented actor and he just simply vanishes. It's really hard to keep track of what Oscar Isaac is, in some ways, because the performances are so different from film to film. They're all good, but the characters feel so different. It's hard to draw lines between them."
Yet providing perhaps the most stirring and captivating performance here is that of Ava, the sleekly designed AI whose plastic and metal fixtures and artfully exposed wiring make her appear as an iPod in its most beautiful human form. If audiences are unaware of Swedish actress Alicia Vikander, they won't be for long, who will be starring in many releases in just this year alone.
"I'd seen her in a Danish film called A Royal Affair, where she plays opposite Mads Mikkelsen...Mads Mikkelsen is obviously an incredibly charismatic character actor, very experienced. But, you'll see that you just get hypnotized by this girl. She's probably then maybe like twenty or twenty-one years old, and has an amazing presence. She just really owns scenes, and your eye tracks whatever she's doing on screen. And she's very good at acting, but she also has this other thing which is just, she makes you want to look at her, she makes you want to watch her. And that's not just to do with being beautiful.
She's obviously very beautiful, and she's a very good actress, but there's this sort of other magic she's got. And that, in essence, is exactly the kind of quality Ava needed to have."
••
"(Ex Machina) is the only project I've ever worked on where I just feel a kind of undiluted sense of contentment with it."
As Machina has already shown in its first-wave limited release, its connecting in the specialty-film market, arousing audiences' senses of smart spectacle, high-brow concept served in stylish and thrilling movie tones as only as skilled and veteran a storyteller as its writer/director is.
Machina, as opposed to Garland's other accomplishments in film, stands out in particular, as only a creative type would acknowledge: "I just feel really good about it. It's the only project I've ever worked on where I just feel a kind of undiluted sense of contentment with it. There's always like some big caveats to me, there's always some thing, and it's usually a compromise. There'll be a compromise I made somewhere, and I look at it, and it just sits there right in the middle of the movie, sort of like an accusation almost saying like, 'Why did you compromise on this thing?'
I'm not sure I'll ever get the chance to do that again. There was like a combination of factors that led to proper creative freedom, and that's hard to get in film for any number of reasons. I feel truly lucky that we did it and somewhere in my working life at least once I managed to do that."
In ending our phone conversation, I ask if I can sell the movie to friends and audiences-at-large alike as "Jurassic Park meets I Robot meets The Shining." In a humbled laugh, Garland allows. "That's a good pitch. I like that."
So, for audiences looking for a film like Jurassic Park meets I Robot meets The Shining, then I know of one...
Ex Machina is in theaters nationwide today.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGzRB4Pnq8
Review: 'Adult Beginners'
Opening at the ArcLight Hollywood this Friday is Adult Beginners, an adult-aimed comedy about struggling thirty-somethings trying to embrace and make sense of newfound adult living. It's light-hearted fare and an easy watch that will effortlessly entertain young audiences with its humor and heart. Just don't go into it expecting it to add anything new to the genre.
The film stars Nick Kroll as Jake, a young jerky entrepreneur seen living the good life in a swanky Manhattan pad, celebrating the launch of his promising new tech company that is set to make him and all his donor friends rich. That is, until he learns of a defect in the device that leads to the folding of his up-start, sinking his along with all of his friends' investments, and deeming the last three years of his life a waste and forcing him to reevaluate a new life plan.
With no other options, Jake leaves New York to temporarily move in with his estranged and very pregnant sister Justine (Rose Byrne), brother-in-law (Bobby Cannavale) and three-year-old nephew. As a Big City transplant in the small-town suburbs, Jake prolongs his stay, becoming their "manny," looking after the kid with the hopes of grounding himself and figuring out next step. At this point, the movie leans into the comic hijinks of seeing Jake's self-centered sleaze-ball so hilariously taking care of the kid ensuing in the sort of generalities of a kid being looked after by a bigger kid that you might expect.
Adult Beginners works fine in the gimmicky laughs of Kroll as Jake so ineptly skilled at taking care of a kid. He wheels the kid to the park in a suitcase-as-stroller and hits on the single mothers. It's all fine, quippy banter, but the movie is more or less saved by its complimenting and balanced out other half, the more warm and honest reflections and admissions of young married and family life, which Jake is forced to confront with his sister, as well as with her and her husband's rocky moments.
If you decide to take the plunge with Adult Beginners, just know that you won't be leaving the shallow end – but you might end up still having a little fun anyways.
There are whiffs of the Apatow-styled man-child hero that is forced to grow up in an age of stunted maturity epidemic that has grown to define the generation, but there is more of a connection to the 2011 feature Jeff Who Lives at Home and the HBO series Togetherness, both of which were made by the film's producers, Jay and Mark Duplass (Duplass Brothers Productions. It's a watered down version of this Duplassian comedy, as half-laughs are given the same treatment as its dramatics, involving the expecting of children, infidelity, and commitment to family, that makes the film a very lukewarm experience comparatively.
Kroll and friends work as a strong, three-piece dynamic, in a film that certainly needed each of its leads to be able to navigate the waters between playfully humorous and seriously relatable to earn this film's keep. Kroll as Jake dials in his slacker charms that make his character's story, about his ignoring of his sister and ailing mother while he was off making his dreams come true, that much more effective. Cameos by familiar-faced comedians Joel McHale and Jane Krakowski add a further touch of comedic do-gooding.
Applaudable strides are given to Kroll who pushes himself here in more dramatic moments than he has in any other opportunity. For fans of the comedian's signature Alt-style comedic stylings, they'll only be treated to the film's opening sequence: a fake commercial ad for his company "Minndsi," in which he's able to use the weird format to best serve his signature "Tim and Eric" chops, however briefly.
In the end, Adult Beginners isn't exactly proof of what a terrific low-budget festival-style film is, but what one inspired by those is. Its simultaneous meandering and heavy-handedness could come off more dissuading to others, such as its forced title into the story: "Adult Beginners," as it turns out, is a swimming class for the age-pushing crowd ("Get your feet wet!" is on the brochure and an almost eye-rolling metaphor), and wouldn't you know – Jake and Justine were both never taught how to swim. Suffice it to say, the film's emotional climax centers around embracing family by reconciling differences, and jumping into the pool.
If you decide to take the plunge with Adult Beginners, just know that you won't be leaving the shallow end – but you might end up still having a little fun anyways.
Adult Beginners is Rated R for language and some drug use.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSDKkMS78H0