I went into this movie with a negative attitude. I originally didn't want to see it and I feel a need to explain why. The problem I had with this movie from the beginning was Justin Timberlake. Now, before I get crucified for hating on Justin Timberlake, let me make my case.
Honestly, he's won me over as an actor. I like the guy. I know he got his stardom in a boy band. And then he switched over into acting. I don't begrudge the guy. You can't be a 30 year old man trying to catch the tween demographic. I'm not complaining he branched out. He's a very talented guy and he's not a bad actor. My problem with Justin Timberlake is that, for whatever reason, I think he chooses really bad movies. I wasn't a fan of Friends With Benefits, I HATED In time, and the less I think about Yogi Bear the better. The movies of his I liked were The Social Network and Trouble With the Curve. And both of those movies had Timberlake in a supporting role. And I didn't really like Trouble With the Curve all that much.
So when I saw that Timberlake was the lead actor, I just felt like this movie was going to suck. Not because he's a bad actor, but just because he chooses the worst movies. Seriously, if Justin Timberlake ever reads this, you are better than this.
What did I think of the movie? It's good. It's not bad, it's not great. It's good. It's just a very generic movie. It's a paint by numbers corporate intrigue movie. On the way home I was honestly trying to distinguish this from other movies just like it. In The Devil's Advocate it's about a lawyer who gets in over his head. Except in that movie there is the Devil. This movie doesn't have the Devil.
In Wallstreet it's about an ambitious guy who gets a taste of the high life and gets in over his head when the guy he works for turns out to be dirty. In this movie there's a lot more overt corruption.
So I guess as far as these movies go I liked this one more than Wallstreet but less than The Devil's Advocate.
The other thing I was thinking about on the way home was how I would change it. And I thought about what if Block, Ben Affleck's character, was actually on the level? Think about this: the vehicle of the movie was that Richie (Timberlake) had all his money stolen on an online gambling website that he worked for. He would be like a recruiter where he would find people at Princeton who wanted to gamble. The entire movie was about how everyone feels that gambling is wrong. The opening narration really spells it out: why is it okay to "invest" in the stock market or real estate, but playing poker or going to a casino is somehow immoral?
In a twist of fate that everyone sees coming, Block turns out to be a criminal. But what if he wasn't? What if he was a legitimate businessman who just has to do a lot of shady things because he's in Costa Rica and all the officials in Costa Rica are corrupt. And because all the officials in Costa Rica are corrupt and racist, the FBI is all over him because they think he's doing something illegal. So we really have all that happens in the movie, but we would have to change the ending. And now instead of a generic corporate intrigue movie, we have a movie talking about a topic that is really interesting. Now it's a movie about the cost of business, the double standard between blue collar gambling and white collar gambling. In 2013, where we see the richest people in the world gamble millions every day in the stock market, is it really any different than the working joe having a bit of fun in Las Vegas? But here in this movie we have a guy literally run out of the USA because he's running an online casino. And then we can talk about the excesses of it all. Drugs, women, rival gangs trying to muscle in, politics with corrupt officials, etc. All because this one guy wants to run a business and live the high life in paradise. Not because he wants to rob people blind in some kind of strange ponzi scheme.
I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong and what I'm proposing would be a less interesting movie. But it would be different. And when you stop to think about the laundry list of movies exactly like this one, I don't think different would be a bad thing.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Late Night Public Domain Double Feature Picture Show: 9/18/13
If you are looking for these movies, go to archive.org
1. Teenagers From Outer Space (1959)
How do you hide really crappy acting? Make them aliens! This movie is incredibly cheap. Even by 1959 standards. So why watch it? Three words: Giant Space Lobsters. It's one thing I can always say about these old school sci-fi movies; they are complete crap, but they are so imaginative that they demand to be watched... and mocked... and oddly enjoyed.
It's not recommended unless you really like crappy sci-fi movies.
2. Flash Gordon (1980)
This movie has everything I enjoy. Campy action, over the top acting, a silly story, awesome visuals, colorful costumes, and Queen doing the music. If this had some kick ass martial arts scenes in it, it would be the perfect movie. The story is simple enough: Flash Gordon must fight Emperor Ming, rescue his girlfriend, and save the world. All before next football season.
Flash! The savior of the universe! He'll save every one of us!
1. Teenagers From Outer Space (1959)
How do you hide really crappy acting? Make them aliens! This movie is incredibly cheap. Even by 1959 standards. So why watch it? Three words: Giant Space Lobsters. It's one thing I can always say about these old school sci-fi movies; they are complete crap, but they are so imaginative that they demand to be watched... and mocked... and oddly enjoyed.
It's not recommended unless you really like crappy sci-fi movies.
2. Flash Gordon (1980)
This movie has everything I enjoy. Campy action, over the top acting, a silly story, awesome visuals, colorful costumes, and Queen doing the music. If this had some kick ass martial arts scenes in it, it would be the perfect movie. The story is simple enough: Flash Gordon must fight Emperor Ming, rescue his girlfriend, and save the world. All before next football season.
Flash! The savior of the universe! He'll save every one of us!
Sunday, September 1, 2013
Jobs Review: History or Biopic?
I should start by saying that this movie is okay. It's not great but it's not bad either. It got me to think about the world I live in and reflect a little on my life.
I'm 32 years old now and I've seen innovations in computers in my lifetime that boggle the mind. When I was a kid, the first computer I ever saw was in school and we were using those giant floppy disks. The ones that really were "floppy" and held about 1.2 megabytes on it. The computer was monochrome and really the only thing we did on it was learn to type and play Oregon Trail. I had better learning sessions playing educational games on the Atari 2600. Next thing I know, I'm in 4th grade and now were using the hard 'floppy' disks and they had even more memory on them. Those we actually used to write documents because we had a full 2 megabytes of space now! Nowadays were talking gigabytes and even terabytes of memory on computers. We walk around with portable computers every day of our lives.
The cellphone was a new invention in my lifetime. The first one I ever saw was bigger than my head and had exactly one function, making phone calls. Now we have smart phones that do everything except cook breakfast in the morning.
That is ultimately what this movie is about. The innovation of the last 30 years. And that's the biggest problem this movie has. The movie really can't decide if this is a biopic about Steve Jobs or a history of Apple Computers. It tries to do both and it becomes unsatisfactory either way. There are plenty of movies dealing with the Apple/Microsoft/IBM wars... this movie glances past it. It never really digged into the life of Steve Jobs enough to say it's a biopic. What did we learn about Steve Jobs after watching this movie? He's brilliant, driven, and a world class jackass. Throughout the movie we see him abandon his first-born child. His daughter Lisa. Then we fast forward to her as a teenager and they are all one big happy family? I felt like I fell asleep during the movie and missed about a half hour. But no the pacing really is that quick. And for a movie that is over 2 hours long, that tells me they had way too much material to be doing this kind of movie. Because there clearly was a lot cut out!
This really should've been more like The Social Network. That movie had a clever vehicle for telling the story. It is interspliced with the lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg. As the hearing goes on, we learn about the backstory of Facebook. As the characters hear the story, we the audience hear the story. Jobs never goes deep enough and focuses way too much on the Apple products being designed by Steve Jobs to ever tell us about the man. We never really get to know him. We don't understand how or why he's such a womanizer or his relationship with his parents, or why he doesn't believe his daughter really is his, or where all his trust issues come from. I never understood why he couldn't keep his damn shoes on! Quirky I guess but just something would've been nice.
If this was meant to be a history of Apple Computers, it never digs into the drama of the competition it had with IBM and Microsoft. Major events in the history of the company are glanced over. Once Jobs left Apple, the company took a nosedive and quickly. But we never see that. It just fast forwards through about 10 years of history so we can see Steve Jobs become CEO.
The lack of focus leads to bad pacing for the movie. It's guilty of just trying to do too much. It's worth seeing but probably only once.
I'm 32 years old now and I've seen innovations in computers in my lifetime that boggle the mind. When I was a kid, the first computer I ever saw was in school and we were using those giant floppy disks. The ones that really were "floppy" and held about 1.2 megabytes on it. The computer was monochrome and really the only thing we did on it was learn to type and play Oregon Trail. I had better learning sessions playing educational games on the Atari 2600. Next thing I know, I'm in 4th grade and now were using the hard 'floppy' disks and they had even more memory on them. Those we actually used to write documents because we had a full 2 megabytes of space now! Nowadays were talking gigabytes and even terabytes of memory on computers. We walk around with portable computers every day of our lives.
The cellphone was a new invention in my lifetime. The first one I ever saw was bigger than my head and had exactly one function, making phone calls. Now we have smart phones that do everything except cook breakfast in the morning.
That is ultimately what this movie is about. The innovation of the last 30 years. And that's the biggest problem this movie has. The movie really can't decide if this is a biopic about Steve Jobs or a history of Apple Computers. It tries to do both and it becomes unsatisfactory either way. There are plenty of movies dealing with the Apple/Microsoft/IBM wars... this movie glances past it. It never really digged into the life of Steve Jobs enough to say it's a biopic. What did we learn about Steve Jobs after watching this movie? He's brilliant, driven, and a world class jackass. Throughout the movie we see him abandon his first-born child. His daughter Lisa. Then we fast forward to her as a teenager and they are all one big happy family? I felt like I fell asleep during the movie and missed about a half hour. But no the pacing really is that quick. And for a movie that is over 2 hours long, that tells me they had way too much material to be doing this kind of movie. Because there clearly was a lot cut out!
This really should've been more like The Social Network. That movie had a clever vehicle for telling the story. It is interspliced with the lawsuit against Mark Zuckerberg. As the hearing goes on, we learn about the backstory of Facebook. As the characters hear the story, we the audience hear the story. Jobs never goes deep enough and focuses way too much on the Apple products being designed by Steve Jobs to ever tell us about the man. We never really get to know him. We don't understand how or why he's such a womanizer or his relationship with his parents, or why he doesn't believe his daughter really is his, or where all his trust issues come from. I never understood why he couldn't keep his damn shoes on! Quirky I guess but just something would've been nice.
If this was meant to be a history of Apple Computers, it never digs into the drama of the competition it had with IBM and Microsoft. Major events in the history of the company are glanced over. Once Jobs left Apple, the company took a nosedive and quickly. But we never see that. It just fast forwards through about 10 years of history so we can see Steve Jobs become CEO.
The lack of focus leads to bad pacing for the movie. It's guilty of just trying to do too much. It's worth seeing but probably only once.
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