Steve Jobs
Writer Aaron Sorkin and director Danny Boyle take a visionary approach to their biopic Steve Jobs, crafting an appropriately intense and completely engrossing profile of Jobs’s history with Apple, Inc.
Sorkin and Boyle understand that a man so self-aggrandizing and obsessed with design deserves a treatment that is both. Sorkin’s wordplay – always of the smartest-guy-in-the-room variety (because, let’s face it, he often is)-is piercing and ambitious, barely leaving room to come up for air before another sharp line finds its mark.
Michael Fassbender delivers a masterwork as Steve Jobs, making him an utterly fascinating enigma.
It is a movie that’s overly dramatic in spots and yes, idealistic as well, but that feels more than fitting for a look at the wages of genius. Challenging, ferocious, powerful, brilliantly conceived and performed, Steve Jobs is nothing short of thrilling cinema.
The Last Witch Hunter
Perhaps it’s for the best that I find it nearly impossible to understand the words that come out of Vin Diesel’s mouth. I don’t think a greater understanding of the dialogue would have significantly improved The Last Witch Hunter, though. The strength of this supernatural/detective/action movie lies in the visuals.
800 years ago, Kaulder (Diesel) took on a Witch Queen and won, getting cursed by her with immortality in the process. Fast forward to modern day. He works with an organization called the Axe and Cross to keep the peace between witches and humanity.
Diesel is completely unconvincing as an 800 year-old man and the plot of the movie is also rather thin. However, the investment in visual effects pays off, and the action sequences look great.
The Final Girls
Part of the satisfying lull of a slasher film is its predictability: idiotic characters behave lasciviously and are repaid for their indignities with the hard justice of a machete. The Final Girls celebrates the genre and its fans with a meta-flick brimming with genre affection and upbeat carnage.
Max (Taissa Farmiga) never really got over the loss of her mother, scream queen Amanda Cartwright (Malin Akerman). She and her friends find themselves pulled into Mom’s most famous film – the ‘80s slasher Camp Bloodbath – and need to use their knowledge of slasher conventions to survive.
Director Todd Strauss-Schulson deconstructs the overly familiar genre, replacing its mean spirit with broad strokes of goofiness. There are flat spots, and the film is never the laugh riot of other recent horror comedies (Deathgasm, for instance), but it is a spot-on send up that entertains throughout.
Also opening in Columbus this week:
EXTROARDINARY TALES
JEM AND THE HOLOGRAMS
MUST DATE THE PLAYBOY
THE NEW GIRLFRIEND
PANORMAL ACTIVITY: THE GHOST DIMENSION
ROCK THE KSBAH
Reviews with help from George Wolf and Christie Robb.
Read full reviews at MADDWOLF and listen to Hope’s weekly horror movie podcast, FRIGHT CLUB.
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