10/8/14 (Part Two): The Ties That Blind

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31 Days of Halloween, auteur theory, Chan-Wook Park, Chung-hoon Chung, cinema, Clint Mansell, coming of age, Dermot Mulroney, dysfunctional family, English-language debut, family secrets, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, Flannery O'Connor, flashbacks, Harmony Korine, insane asylums, insanity, Jacki Weaver, Lady Vengeance, Matthew Goode, Mia Wasikowska, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, murder, Nicole Kidman, Old Boy, Phyllis Somerville, psychopaths, psychosexual, Stoker, Sympathy For Mr. Vengeance, Uncle Charlie, uncompromising voice, voice-over narration, Wentworth Miller

Pitched somewhere between Flannery O’Connor’s Southern Gothics and Pedro Almodovar’s psychosexual jaw-droppers, Korean auteur Chan-Wook Park’s English-language debut, Stoker (2013), is quite a piece of work. Long known for films that are as impressive to look at as they are often difficult to watch, Park’s newest film pulls few punches and holds even fewer hands, coming off as more fairy-tale influenced than any of his previous films, achieving an intoxicating, if confounding, atmosphere that’s fairly close to a fever dream. For anyone who expected the transition to Western films to “tame” park, Stoker stands in towering confirmation to the idea that Park, like all true film auteurs, will always follow his muse first and popular conventions second. While the film won’t supplant Park’s classic “Vengeance” trilogy anytime soon, Stoker is a meticulously crafted, often beautiful, treatise on the destructive nature of obsession and the familial secrets that haunt us all. While the movie seems slightly more subdued than films like Oldboy (2003) or Lady Vengeance (2005), it still packs a pretty vicious bite, albeit one informed by a particularly chilly sensibility.

Stoker centers around the surviving members of the titular family, namely the neurotic Evelyn Stoker (Nicole Kidman) and her odd, 18-year-old daughter, India (Mia Wasikowska). India’s father, Richard (Dermot Mulroney) has just been killed in a car accident, an event which has, effectively, shattered what remains of Evelyn and India’s lives. At the funeral, the Stokers are introduced to Richard’s long-lost brother, Charlie (Matthew Goode), a handsome, intense young man who claims to have been traveling the world for many years. He wants to stay and help Evelyn and India make it through their current tragedy, although his motives seem to lean more towards romancing India’s mother than to helping to soothe their mental wounds.

As Charlie hangs around, India begins to pick up little hints of things that may be…well, just a little askew, as it were: a strange argument with the housekeeper, Mrs. McGarrick (Phyllis Somerville), that seems to come out of nowhere; Charlie’s strange, knowing glances at India; Aunt Gwen’s (Jacki Weaver) seeming distrust and unease around Charlie; a piano lesson that hovers at the acceptable boundaries between instruction and seduction…indeed, trouble seems to follow Charlie around like a second skin, facts which are certainly not lost on young India.

To complicate things, however, India appears to be just as mysterious and complicated a figure as her uncle. She’s a dour, serious young woman who’s constantly bullied and harassed at school (one obnoxious student draws naked pictures of India and shoves them in her face, while constantly “punching at” her face, always stopping just shy of actually making physical contact) and doesn’t seem to have any friends whatsoever. There’s one telling scene where India spends her art class drawing the detailed pattern on the inside of the vase, rather than the vase, itself, as her other classmates do: as with everything else, India just doesn’t see things in the same way as the rest of the world.

As Charlie continues to stay with the Stokers, however, the psychosexual storm gets whipped into a veritable frenzy: India’s sexual awakening seems to coincide with Charlie’s increased interest in both Evelyn and India, although her coming-of-age has started to take on certain violent aspects, not the least of which is the explosive moment where she finally strikes back at her bully. As events progress, India gets ever closer to deciphering the mystery of the key that hangs around her neck, a key that will help explain not only Uncle Charlie’s strange behavior but will also set India upon a path of self-discovery, a path that will ultimately lead to both salvation…and destruction.

As with all of Park’s films, Stoker is so carefully crafted as to seem almost like a clockwork marvel. The film is a constantly moving, evolving puzzlebox, a tricky construction that purposefully obscures key information, leaving the audience in the dark for a majority of the proceedings in a similar manner to Oldboy. This sense of complexity extends to every aspect of the film, from its narrative structure to its visual language, although the cinematography ends up being the most identifiable aspect of this structure. Quite simply, Stoker’s cinematography and shot construction, courtesy of long-time Park collaborator Chung-hoon Chung, is a complete marvel. It goes without saying that Stoker is frequently beautiful and always interesting to look at: more impressive are the myriad ways in which Park and Chung use the visual language of film to get across their subtextual themes and ideas. The scene where India is completely encircled by identical shoeboxes…the bit where a spider crawls up her leg and between her thighs…the gorgeous, surprising shot where brushed hair suddenly becomes a flowing field of waist-high grass…unrelated imagery juxtaposed in ways that seem to indicate that everything, no matter how irrelevant is interconnected…Stoker is all but bursting with subtle nuance and just-out-of-eyesight symbolism.

Into this beautifully realized visual tapestry, then, Park pours a trilogy of performances that manage to accentuate and support each other in some nicely organic ways. Mia Wasikowska, currently making quite a name for herself in just about every type of role imaginable, is pitch-perfect as the morose, guarded India. In the hands of any other actress, India might have come across as more enigmatic than necessary, a “real-life” Wednesday Addams who exists purely to pour Pernod on everyone’s ice cream. Wasikowska is amazingly subtle, versatile performer, however, and India becomes a full-realized character in her capable hands. I won’t lie and say that I found India to be likable, at any point in time, but it wasn’t hard to see things from her point of view, as twisted as it may be: her continuous voice-overs were also well-handled, allowing us insight into her cluttered little brain.

For her part, Kidman turns in another dependably solid genre performance: there’s always a thinly concealed streak of insanity running through her controlled performance but Kidman’s Evelyn never comes across as a certifiable nut. If anything, she’s a wounded, needful mother who foolishly pines for the one thing that mothers take for granted: the love of their own children. Evelyn is never a completely pathetic character, however, mostly thanks to the cold steel that Kidman brings to the performance, as if one could see the metal framework just below the skin.

Special mention must also be made of Matthew Goode’s performance as the sinister Uncle Charlie. Although I must admit to being far less familiar with his career than either Kidman or Wasikowska’s, I was completely taken with Goode’s performance. Like Wasikowska’s take on India, Goode brings an overriding sense of barely contained neuroses to his depiction of Charlie: he’s able to convey a world of information with just the barely perceptible uptick of an eyebrow or a smile that’s just slightly too curdled to instill much warmth. Goode’s performance is the epitome of restrained tension: you know that he’s going to uncoil and explode, at some point, but you’re damned if his eyes give any indication as to when that might be. By the film’s conclusion, Goode and Wasikowska make an almost unbeatable pair, playing off of each other’s mannerisms and tics in some truly impressive, startling ways. Park is definitely an “actor’s director” and his newest film comes top-loaded with some typically impressive treading of the boards.

As with almost all of Park’s films, Stoker is incredibly easy to respect, although it’s just a little more difficult to really love. While the film is constantly twisted and the narrative always unpredictable, this complexity sometimes translates into moments that are pure-headscratchers: by the conclusion, I found myself second-guessing a few “facts” that previously seemed pretty solid, mostly because I felt a little lost in the back-and-forth of the flashback-heavy narrative. The film is also just about as bleak and chilly as a film can possibly get: this sense of frigid sterility may be a little off-putting for many Western audiences, although there’s nothing in here that will challenge Western taboos in quite the same way as the plot twist from Oldboy does.

Ultimately, Park’s Stoker is an impressive English-language debut and a mighty fine film on its own rights, even if it’s not quite as incendiary or feral as the Korean films that preceded it. On a craft-level, the film has few equals: quite frankly, it’s one of the most astoundingly beautiful films I’ve ever laid eyes on. If the narrative/thematic elements of the film don’t get me quite as jazzed as the visual/aural elements…well, that’s alright, too. I respect and trust Park enough to stay with him on his cinematic journey into the darkness of the human soul: in a world where more and more things seem to get “dumbed down” for the masses, it’s always refreshing to find an uncompromising voice who trusts that we’ll “get it,” even if we’re not quite sure what “it” is.

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6/6/14 (Part Two): Alpha Males

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action-adventure, adventures, Alaska, Alaskan wilderness, alpha males, based on a short story, Bronson, cinema, Dallas Roberts, Dermot Mulroney, faith, fighting animals, film reviews, films, flashbacks, Frank Grillo, Greg Nicotero, guy movies, isolation, Jack London, Joe Anderson, Joe Carnahan, killer wolves, Lee Marvin, Liam Neeson, man vs. nature, Movies, Narc, Nonso Anozie, oil riggers, Ottway, plane crash, Smokin' Aces, snow, stranded, survival, survival-horror, The A-Team, The Descent, The Grey, voice-over narration, wolves, writer-director

Mankind likes to think that it’s the master of any domain it comes across but the reality isn’t quite as optimistic. Sure, we can go into frigid Arctic areas, travel deep below the sea and even walk on the Moon: if we put our minds to it, nothing seems impossible. Throw humans into any of these situations wearing just the frail skins we were born with, however, and see how far we get. We may be able to use technology and innovation to take us further than anyone has gone before but, at our core, we are shockingly fragile, insignificant little things. Without the various safety nets we establish for ourselves, like clothing, shelter and weaponry, humanity is very much at the mercy of the natural world. Hunters are all-powerful when they’re armed but look an awful lot like food when they aren’t. A shady banker with a computer can bring down the world: a shady banker, in the forest, with no protection, will get eaten by a bear…that’s just the way the world works.

Writer-director Joe Carnahan’s The Grey (2011) (an adaptation of Ian Mackenzie Jeffer’s short story, “Ghost Walker”), is yet another examination of “man vs. nature,” one of those time-honored tales where disparate and diverse personalities must come together in order to survive a greater threat. In the process, the characters will do lots of surviving, lots of dying and lots of personal discovery. While this type of story is certainly nothing new (hell, Jack London may have invented this subgenre all the way back in the 1900s), The Grey ends up being an extraordinarily powerful film, anchored by a quietly explosive performance from Liam Neeson and a strong, viscerally violent atmosphere. While popular jokes at the time may have cast The Grey as nothing more than “Liam Neeson punching wolves,” the film is a helluva lot more than that. In fact, it may just be the best survival-horror film since Marshall’s classic The Descent (2006).

We’re immediately dropped into the desolate, snow and wind-blasted wilderness of Alaska, where we meet Ottway (Liam Neeson), our guide through this particular wasteland. Ottway is a master outdoors-man and responsible for protecting the rugged members of an oil-rigging crew from the hungry wolves that endlessly patrol the icy wastes. Ottway is also a hopelessly damaged individual, suffering from some sort of unnamed loss (we get lots and lots of flashbacks) that drives him perilously close to eating a bullet. He doesn’t, however, and boards a plane with the rest of the crew, including Diaz (Frank Grillo), Flannery (Joe Anderson), Talget (Dermot Mulroney), Henrick (Dallas Roberts) and Burke (Nonso Anozie). When the weather gets worse, the plane freezes over and ends up crashing in a spectacular, absolutely thrilling sequence (talk about edge of your seat…literally): the lucky ones are killed in the crash. The unlucky ones, led by Ottway, must now survive in the harsh elements with only the clothes on their backs and a few canisters of pilfered airplane fuel to start fires. They need to get back to civilization but there are plenty of eyes watching from the woods…hungry eyes.

As Ottway does his damnedest to keep the survivors alive, he finds himself butting heads with the worst aspects of humanity, including greed, fear and the selfish desire to survive at the cost of everyone else. In particular, Ottway finds himself at odds with Diaz: while the vicious wolves circle in the darkness, Diaz and Ottway circle each other in the light, sniffing for weakness and constantly struggling for domination. Even as Ottway discusses the need to find and slay the alpha male wolf, the struggle for alpha dominance within the survivors threatens to tear them all asunder. Will Ottway be able to overcome his own emotional issues in order to fulfill his duties as group protector? Will the men learn to work together, against all odds, or will they continue to be picked off, one by one, until only their bones remain to remind of their existence? In order to survive, the men will not only need to overcome the wolves: they will need to become the wolves.

The Grey is, first and foremost, a glorious return to the kind of big-screen adventure-survival epics that used to be de rigueur at the box office back in the ’70s. In many ways, the film isn’t such a huge departure from films like Deliverance (1972), Jaws (1975) or Sorcerer (1977) but a much closer parallel would be the aforementioned one with The Descent. In many ways, The Grey is definitely a survival-horror film: the wolves are introduced in a way that establishes them as monsters (the glowing eyes and frightening baying) and the alpha male wolf is established in a way that sets him up as the “chief bad guy” (the scene where Diaz tosses the decapitated wolves’ head into the darkness, only to be met by the angry response call from the alpha male, isn’t much different from any scene where an evil leader reacts in anger to the death of a subordinate at the hands of the heroes). In this way, the wolves are very similar to something like Peter Jackson’s orcs or Marshall’s cave dwellers and serve a similar function in the film.

An action-adventure film lives or dies by its action sequences and, in this regard, The Grey is a complete stunner. From the initial plane crash to the heart-in-mouth scene where the survivors rappel down a craggy mountain-side to the final confrontation with the alpha wolf, The Grey is one incredibly intense scene after another. Carnahan masterfully coils and uncoils the tension, building up quiet, personal dialogue scenes into explosive action beats, prompting me to (literally) jump out of my seat on at least a half-dozen occasions. One of the scenes, which begins as a confrontation between Diaz and Ottway but ends as a confrontation between Diaz and a wolf, is so perfectly executed that it’s almost a textbook example of how to set-up and execute such a moment. I’ve never been a huge fan of Carnahan’s other films (I positively abhor the empty-headed Smokin’ Aces (2006)) but he displays an absolutely deft touch on The Grey that has me eagerly anticipating his next project.

The film almost always looks and sounds great (the sound design is particularly strong) but I wasn’t fond of cinematographer Masanobu Takayanagi’s (who also shot the Oscar-winning Silver Linings Playbook (2012)) frequent over-reliance on blown-out visuals. His landscape cinematography was so beautiful that it was frustrating to have such an obvious visual aesthetic for the more intimate scenes: I get that it’s a cold, white, desolate place…no need to rub my nose in it. Additionally, in the minor quibble department, I felt that Ottway’s frequent flashbacks/dream sequences wore out their welcome pretty early into the film and frequently killed the forward momentum. The sequences did a little to help establish Ottway’s character, although this type of character development seems particularly heavy-handed and unnecessary.

Ultimately, however, no discussion of The Grey can be complete without singling out Liam Neeson for some special recognition. Although the rest of the cast is solid (Dermot Mulroney is particularly good as Talget), this is definitely Neeson’s film. Over the last few years, Neeson has been gradually morphing into an action star, not too far removed from what Bronson and Eastwood were doing in the ’80s and ’90s. In fact, it’s pretty easy to imagine someone like Bronson, Eastwood or Lee Marvin playing the part of Ottway: it’s a quiet, brooding role that requires not only plenty of ass-kicking but also some degree of wounded vulnerability. Ottway may be a man of action but he’s still just a man: Neeson shows us the confusion, fear and conflict beneath his stoic visage, without doing anything to denigrate his inherent heroism. Ottway is not some unrealistically pure “white knight”: he’s just as fucked up as everyone else, yet manages to work through his issues to do what needs to be done. It’s a truly multi-faceted performance made all the more impressive by how little (relatively speaking) Neeson says. Those flinty eyes tell a helluva story, however, and Carnahan/Takayanagi take full advantage of this with plenty of intense closeups, ala Eastwood and his similarly flinty orbs.

While The Grey could, perhaps, be considered the ultimate “guy movie,” (the only women in the film appear in flashback/dream sequences, which is probably rather telling) I think that there’s a lot more bubbling beneath the surface than mindless chest-beating and machismo. This is definitely an action film, through and through, and packed with enough hardcore, visceral violence to please even the most discerning gorehound (the film doesn’t skimp on the “wolves eating people” visuals and there’s one bit involving half of a guy that’s pretty difficult to watch). Along with action and violence, however, there are some surprisingly deep conversations about the nature of faith and there’s one particularly moving scene where Ottway helps a dying man pass on peacefully. They’re rare moments of beauty and serenity in an otherwise unforgiving, harsh landscape but they make the film an overall richer experience.

Ultimately, I found myself quite taken with The Grey: perhaps future viewings will help push it into the neo-classic status of films like The Descent but, for the time being, it simply stands as an extraordinary, ridiculously exciting adventure film. That being said, the film also features one of the most perfect final scenes I’ve ever seen (ruined only so slightly by an unnecessary post-credits tag), a scene that manages to be simultaneously regal, sad and ruthlessly badass. It’s a scene that stops right before it begins, leaving the viewer’s brain to fill in the gap. It’s a wonderful, powerful, amazingly cinematic moment: it’s what movies are all about (in my non-humble opinion) and any modern film should be proud to feature anything close to it. If the finale doesn’t find you on your feet, fist thrust heroically into the air…well, let’s just say that there may not be any hope for you, after all. The Grey is vicious, vital, bloody filmmaking at its very best: you’d be wise to give it a look sometime.

 

4/6/14: This Mimic is an Ape

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Apple Computers, Ashton Kutcher, Atari, bad films, bad movies, based on a true story, Bill Gates, bio-pic, biographical films, cinema, Dermot Mulroney, Ed Wood, film reviews, films, impersonation, James Woods, jerks, Jobs, John Sculley, Josh Gad, Joshua Michael Stern, Lesley Ann Warren, Lukas Haas, Matt Whiteley, Matthew Modine, Mike Markkula, Movies, nonsense, Punk'd, Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Swing Vote, terrible films, That '70s Show, unlikable protagonist, worst films of the year

There’s an old saying that goes, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” In certain cases, that’s definitely good advice…after all, our modern world is already stuffed to bursting with enough snark, sarcasm and extreme eye-rolling to last us for the next thousand years. Moreover, if someone (or something) really makes an effort and gives it all that they have, who are we to completely destroy their efforts? By all accounts, Ed Wood was an awful filmmaker but he seemed to be a pretty decent guy. Why needlessly pee in his Cheerios? We’re surrounded by the continual evidence that good intentions don’t always produce good results but we can’t always be successful: that just part of the human experience. For my money, if something is good-natured, honest and ambitious, but inherently crappy, I tend to cut it a little slack. After all, we all had to learn to walk before we ran, entertainers/content-creators included. I appreciate the nice guys, even if they aren’t always the best guys.

On the flip-side, however, there are certain bits of “entertainment” so devoid of quality, craft, individual thought or reason for existence that they become the equivalent of the gum-bedecked underside of a groody road-side-diner-counter. Whether they be “movies,” “albums,” “TV shows” or some unnamed, terrifying “other,” these lazy tax write-offs exist for one reason and one reason only: commerce. There is no “art” to these festering piles of elephant dung, merely the depressing notion that some office-bound bean-counter has determined “this” (whatever it may be) to be the next step in whatever corporate plan they’ve downloaded from the internet. Such “entertainment” tends to be overly glossy, empty-headed, obvious, lazy and, above all else, inherently bored with itself: this, after all, has nothing to do with art and everything to do with business. Audiences around the world may laugh at Tommy Wiseau’s ridiculous “film” The Room but at least the film was made with passion…inarticulate, wrong-headed, mumble-brained passion, but passion, nonetheless. The best that can be said for Jobs, the outrageously terrible, unbelievably obnoxious “biopic” about the titular Apple co-founder, is that the film eventually ends. Strong viewers will eventually make it out, albeit in a slightly damaged, shell-shocked manner. Those unlucky enough to have their brains melted by Ashton Kutcher’s highly-slappable sneer, however, will find themselves trapped in a cinematic purgatory that’s one part Visa commercial, one part litter box liner. Gentle readers: you’ve been warned.

Most biopics, particularly those which stick us with a character for decades worth of screen-time, live or die by the actor portraying said role. These performances can be iconic (who doesn’t think of George C. Scott when they think of General Patton?), meticulous (Meryl Streep as Thatcher, Jim Carey as Kaufman) or ridiculously over-the-top (Barry Bostwick may not be regarding as the best-ever FDR but he’s certainly the best-ever werewolf-killing FDR and I’ll rabbit-punch anyone who says otherwise). A good biopic will do something to get to the heart of its subject, try to make a (perhaps) overly legendary subject into something a little more palatable for the average Joe. Good biopics teach us a little history, of course, but they also teach a little something about the human condition.

Bad biopics, on the other hand, are like little kids playing dress-up in their parents’ clothes: it’s all stage-dressing, with no inherent understanding of the forces beneath, the tics, traits and beliefs that made Andy Kaufman more than just a tall, gawky guy or Ed Wood some guy wearing Angora sweaters. There needs to be a basic level of understanding, something that cuts deeper than makeup and wardrobe: it’s this basic understanding of the character that is completely missing from Ashton Kutcher’s tone-deaf portrayal of Steve Jobs the dead-on-delivery Jobs.

In most cases, I would begin one of these with some sort of synopsis of the plot. In the case of Jobs, however, this is pretty much unnecessary: there really isn’t a plot. In fact, Jobs seems to exist for two reasons, reasons which wouldn’t inherently seem to go together but which become the twin pillars which hold up this entire house of cards: to depict Steve Jobs as the biggest asshole in the history of the world and to revere him as a god. To that end, the film enlists the capable assistance of Kutcher: when one is attempting such a feat, one must go right to the top of the food-chain.

Full disclosure: I don’t dislike Kutcher by default, although I do find that he wears out his welcome in anything more than small doses. I always thought he was brilliant in That ’70s Show: perhaps my inability to see him as anything but Kelso has unfairly clouded my perception of his post-’70s Show output. That being said, I don’t think that Kutcher is a talented actor: more like an entertaining individual. Unlike a more capable rubber-faced “funny man” like Jim Carey, Kutcher is all surface-level mugging: if he can’t communicate the particular emotion with an upraised eyebrow, sneer or sense of privileged ennui, he just doesn’t bother. As such, Kutcher’s Jobs is never anything more than a one-sentence descriptor, perhaps something along the lines of “sneering, driven, egotistical idea-man.”

The main problem with this “acting choice,” among many, is that the audience never gets any kind of feel for why we’re supposed to stick with Jobs throughout the film, much less stick up for him. Unlike a film such as A Beautiful Mind, where we get to witness some of the abstract “thinking” in action, we never witness anything relating to Jobs that comes close to explaining how the real-life man was held in such high esteem. We’re told that Jobs has dropped out of school but still hangs around his college campus, thanks to the kindly attention of a dean that seems to see more in him than we do. Jobs walks around with an arrogant bearing, conducting himself in much the same way as a feudal king might. The problem, of course, is that we never get any sense as to why anyone would put up with this pompous jackass for more than a few minutes.

Even worse, the filmmakers shoot the whole elongated mess with all of the visual flair and glossy color scheme of a Visa commercial, right down to the silly, “serious” musical score which seems to portend something greater than the film ever delivers. At every available opportunity, the film seems to draw attention to the grandeur of its themes while missing out on one very important bit of information: it’s never about anything. Ever. Time and time again, the film seems to strain and burst at the seams, pushing outward to become as big as it thinks it is, something like those little foam pellets that grow in size once they’re introduced to water. Unlike those cheerful pellets, however, Jobs is formless and ugly, a strange little piece of nothing that never resembles anything, no matter how many times you turn it over.

I wish that I could say that there was something of value to be found here, anything worth justifying the over two-hour running time. Alas, there’s really not much to write home about, lest one is feeling in a particularly spiteful mood. As mentioned, the film’s look is overly slick and commercial, coming across as nothing more than one of those “feel-good-and-spend-money” television adverts to always seem to show someone else having a great time. The dialogue, thanks to first-time writer Matt Whiteley, is overly obvious and trite, leading to moments like the one where Jobs looks profoundly at Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) and proclaims: “This is freedom to create…to build…” Build me a boat and sail me out of here, Ashton: I ain’t buying it. As an audience, we don’t get any new insights into the subject or those around him…if anything, I was more confused about Jobs after watching the film than I was before-hand. If this film was an accurate portrayal of Steve Jobs (which, I’m fairly sure, it wasn’t, due to the endless other problems with the production), I’m left with only one thought: how the hell did he keep from getting his teeth kicked in? Truly, if Jobs was anything like Kutcher’s portrayal in the film, he must have been one of the nastiest, most petty and down-right obnoxious individuals to walk the earth. Which, of course, seems a little strange when one considers that every other character in the film treats him like an earthbound god. It makes absolutely no sense, especially because we’ve never been shown Jobs being innovative: his normal default seems to be angry, smug and smelly for most of the film.

Are there bright spots here? Not really. The acting, once one gets past Kutcher, is decent, although everyone has the tendency to overact whenever real “emotion” is called for. In particular, one of the film’s many low points has to be the howlingly bad scene where Wozniak and Jobs, in effect, “break up”: Josh Gad’s tearful performance is so ridiculous, so cringingly bad, that I found myself embarrassed for him, as an actor, rather than even mildly invested in whatever silliness his character was going through. There’s not one moment of the film that rings even faintly true or authentic, save for one single example: the 1984 commercial.

If there is anything successful about Jobs, it would have to be the short scene that recreates the famous “1984” commercial. For some reason, this scene ends up with some real impact, although I’m not sure why. Perhaps, subconsciously, I was remembering the original commercial. Perhaps, for once in the film, the filmmakers allowed a little genuine emotion to invest the proceedings. Whatever the reason, the scene ends up being highly effective which, ironically, only goes to underscore how bad the rest of the film is.

Is Jobs a bad movie? Absolutely…perhaps one of the worst films I’ve seen in the last decade or so. The film manages to fail on nearly every single level: acting, script, cinematography, editing…it’s almost a greatest hits of ineptitude. At times, the film almost (note that I say “almost”) achieves a dada level of absurdity, something closer to a Sharknado than an Ishtar. Often, I was left wondering if this were some sort of ultra-high concept prank, a Sacha Baron Cohen-esque attempt to portray its subject in the worst, most banal light imaginable. By the tenth or twentieth “raised eyebrow/cocky smile” combo, I was still ready to give them the benefit of the doubt and settle in for some “American Badass” levels of stupidity. By the 100th “raised eyebrow/cocky smile” combo, however, I had effectively abandoned hope: this was no satire or parody, unfortunately…this was just bad filmmakers making a bad film.

If you’ve ever wondered if Ashton Kutcher could carry a “serious” film, Jobs is for you. If you’ve ever felt like equating the introduction of the Ipod with a saintly vision, complete with blinding white, ethereal light, Jobs is for you. If you’ve ever wanted to witness Kutcher stride boldly through a convention center wearing a suit-vest combo guaranteed to induce epilepsy, Jobs is for you. If you’ve ever wanted to see Kutcher, wearing a bad bald cap, pretend to work peacefully in the garden, Jobs is for you. If, however, you find that you have zero tolerance for poorly made, self-indulgent crap, I might offer one kind suggestion: steer far clear from the steaming pile of “product” that is Jobs. If there were any justice, all those involved with its creation, including Kutcher, would be required to wait ten years before attempting another production.

Now that would be innovation even I can get behind.