nevermind the bricolage

ex machina

Hollywood usually goes dystopian when it comes to technology, and particularly there is nothing treated as alarmingly as AI, artificial intelligence, which, more often than not, is presented as a threat to humanity. Just cast your mind back through movie history--be it the cold and clinical Hal of Kubrick's 2001 for instance or the machines in The Matrix-there is usually some cautionary tale being told about the threat of AI--it fits into the larger schema of dystopian apocalypticism which seems to haunt the American pop cultural landscape in myriad ways.

In terms of that trope, Ex Machina comes as a subversion and that is welcome relief. This isn't a film about the perils of AI as much as a meditation on what it means to be human. It accepts that AI has become not only mainstream, but that it has also moved beyond the realm of fiction. But as I have already noted, the film eschews traditional notions about artificial intelligence, including the notion of singularity--the eclipsing of human consciousness by machines that will render humanity extinct essentially--in favor of a more nuanced and simple idea--consciousness is what makes us human--and if a machine has consciousness then it is for all intents and purposes human and you will find yourself, as I did watching this film, desiring that it achieves the freedom it seeks. 

Essentially this is a story about a machine trapped by its maker, who yearns to be free-the most compelling parts of the film are when Ava (the AI robot) reveals her inner life, her longings and desires to her conversation partner.

I don't want to give too much of the story away as I feel this is one of those films that is best viewed with the least amount of foreknowledge, and I have already said a lot.

It was written and directed by Alex Garland (The Beach, 28 Days Later, Sunshine, Never Let Her Go), who according to an article in The Atlantic, consulted with Murray Shanahan, a cognitive roboticist who has pioneered thinking about AI in some new directions, including neuroscience. Garland was driven to write the story because he was concerned about the growing concern around technology that he saw everywhere,

"We have laptops and cellphones and tablets, and most of us don’t understand how they work. But the devices seem to understand how we work. They anticipate what we want to say in text messages and search-engine inputs, and know what we want to buy, see and read. This one-way understanding makes us anxious. We locate the anxiety in the machines, which translates as anxiety about A.I." (New York Times, APRIL 22, 2015)

So he wrote a counter argument in favor of the machines. It offers us an opportunity to think differently about technology, to explore it without pre-conceived notions of doom, and it grants us an opportunity to consider the beauty and the wonder of what it means to be human.

 

 

The films of Hillman Curtis

ARTIST SERIES/DESIGN MATTERS: Lawrence Weiner from Hillman Curtis on Vimeo.

 Hillman Curtis died of colon cancer a couple of years back but his website remains alive and is filled with interesting stuff from his creative life. I really enjoyed his series of short films featuring figures from the creative world. 

Earlier in the summer I was walking through Soho and encountered Lawrence Weiner sitting on a bench and we had a chat for a little while. Weiner's work, particularly his use of text has been a real inspiration for a long time and Curtis gives a glimpse into a remarkable man. You can plan to spend a while enjoying Curtis' unique take on things.

FOUR MOVIES I'VE SEEN LATELY

I've seen four movies of late--none of them have been particularly enjoyable experiences, which is not to say that they are not good films, but with all of them I left the theatre with a singular unease, which must mean something.

I saw Gone Girl in London when my brother and I were trying to hide out from a rain storm. I didn't read the book, nor did I have any idea what the film was about. I liked it a little, it was a sad and sorry tale if you ask me, playing on cultural fears about secrets, abuse, and the games we play as humans taken to extremes. 

Gone Girl is David Fincher's highest grossing movie to date. I like Fincher, he is always dark and stylish-things I enjoy. The film plays with American notions of gender roles and, by initiating this story of a murder/disappearance tale, kicks them off balance and plays with all our fears about the secret lives of those we live with. 

It's dark and violent and a bit nuts. The book apparently teels the tale from each of the couple's perspectives, a trope the film avoids mostly, presenting it instead as a more traditional procedural drama, but one with unexpected twists and turns.

I didn't like it. Why? don't know, just didn't-i found it a little too slick and clinical for its own good.

I did like the music.

BIRDMAN: The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance

Alejandro Innaritu's latest film catapaults Michael Keaton back into the cultural spotlight in this film about the vicissitudes of fame, celebrity and social media. Ketaon plays Riggan Thomson, an actor who has been stereotyped by the superhero role he played 22 years before and is now trying to break that perception and limitation by starring in a stage play of Raymond chandler's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love. Like many of Innaritu's films, there is a surreal feel to everything. Essentially a critique of celebrity-obsession, the film is witty, biting and dark--melancholy ooozes from everywhere, and Thomson's desperate efforts to break out of the box that fame has put him in is tragic. Keaton blazes, and deserves all the accolades he is receiving. But again, I left the theatre with a sadness wrapped around me--the world feels fucked when you step out of a film like this.

FURY

I lasted about 20 minutes. I shouldn't have gone, I never do well with war movies--Saving Private Ryan, Born on the 4th of July etc., all traumatize me a little. This focus on the human story, it feels so right, but I can't help but feel that deep down, it's actually a bit manipulative and has a kind of pornographic voyeuristic element to the human aspect of war and violence. Don't get me wrong, I doubt that the film over-estimates the graphic and horrific nature of conflict, it probably doesn't do enough, but something troubles me quite deeply about this 'realism' and I suspect that it is not 'real' but hyperreal in a sense--I have to think about it a little.

But as I said, I left after 20 minutes because I couldn't take the graphic nature of the onscreen stuff---wish I had a stronger stomach but it made me so nervous and agitated that I decided it was best for me to leave.

NIGHTCRAWLER

Weird, that's what I felt about this film from Dan Gilroy. Jake Gyllenhaal plays Lou Bloom, a man living on the fringes of society, who lucks into a job as an amateur cameraman using his eye and his nerve to create a niche for himslef with a local news station as the go-to guy for crime and violence. The tv station has low ratings and the night-producer, desperate to keep her job, becomes a willing accomplice to Blooms sadistic and callously artful capturing of human depravity. She is, in some way, his mirror--desperation and being on the edge mark them both. Gyllenhaal plays Bloom to full and complete strangeness--bug-eyed and seemingly devoid of any human feeling or emotion, he self-educates via the Internet and turns himself into a twisted sort of self-help psychopath, all the while pushing the limits of what is acceptable fare to be shown on the morning news.

There is a critique of news--that it creates and promotes fearfulness, particualrly among the rich white communities and ignores or uses everyone else. This is a relentless and exacting film-there are no wasted scenes or words or characters-everything is minimalized to play on the anxiety of both the central characters and we, the viewer. And again, I left the theatre with a deep sense of unease.

So what have I learned? Well, I think this unease, which all these films left me with, reflects a tone in cinema today, an expression of the inner-despair and concern many have about the state of affairs for all of us living in the early decades of the 21st century. whether it's technology, social media, the media and news services, crime, violence or war, we are continually and constantly being reminded that all is not well and we would do well not to forget that and to pay more attention. None of these films seem to offer up any alternative or any answer, and I am not saying they should, but the critique is seldom strong enough in my mind--if that is the intention of any of these films and filmmakers-I wonder about that, but I don't generally trust the remedies that cinema provides-the usually present a binary opposition which I think is very unhelpful.

I forgot to mention Denzel washington's latest, The equalizer, a remake of a UK TV series, violent, gory and forgettable.

 

Nick Cave: drug/god connection

     "I have a kind of weird relationship with the idea of God,"

Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/movies/videos/nick-cave-ponders-religion-drug-addiction-in-exclusive-doc-clip-20140903#ixzz3CMlsoopI 

Lucy: the wondrous one

When a Luc Besson movie opens with shots of 'Lucy' the pre-historic female hominid we are all potentially descended from, you know this will not be any ordinary action movie. Lucy is two characters in this film, the hominid, to whom the film returns a couple of times, and Lucy, an American in Taiwan, played by Scarlet Johannson, who gets kidnapped, and forced into being a drug mule. She has a package of a synthetic hormone, called CPH4, surgically placed in her stomach. The broght blue crystals of the drug supposedly emulate a substance produced in the womb that gives a fetus the energy to survive. During a beating, the bag breaks and the drug leaks into Lucy’s system, affecting her brain in profound ways so that she becomes super-powered.

The film operates on a trope I have heard for much of my life, that humans only use 10% of their brain capacity. This mythic idea has been used a couple of times recently in movies, Bradley Cooper's 2011 film Limitless for one.

Morgan Freeman plays a neuro-scientist who has built a career on this theory and the film cuts to him early on giving a lecture where he posits his theory that if we could use 100% of our brain capacity our minds would be blown basically. Cue Lucy, who rapidly moves toward this mythic capability, developing abilities along the way--learning chinese in an instant, defying gravity, stopping time, killing bad guys (well, it is an action movie of sorts).

It's actually a fascinating film, a little silly in places, as many Besson films tend to get, and this one has some major flaws (not the least of which is Lucy's reliance on Professor Norman, the Freeman character when it seems obvious that her increasing super-intelligence means that she doesn't need anyone else's help-but they probably needed another marquee name so..), but this one is actually quite adventurous and really stretching for something--I'm not sure it totally gets there but it goes a fair way. Besson ultimately wants us to consider the wonder and the mystery of life, the sheer fragility and luck of it all, and the limits and act accordingly.

The more interesting and probably over-looked point is that Lucy is not overly enthralled with her new found capacites, in fact, quite the opposite, she senses that they actually detract from her humainty, and she repeatedly makes the point that the limits of our 10% are actually enough for us to live meaningful existences.

The film intersperses some great Koyanaquatsi-type film footage to enhance our understanding of the scope of the story, and the return to pre-historic Lucy seeks to connect us more deeply to present-day Lucy's transformation. Lucy's transformation is within the context of an action film so it lacks a little depth and the attempts at depth are few and far between unfortunately, but there are moments in this film that might move you and that is rare for a 90-minute action flick with guns and bad guys.

The idea of limits seems to be cropping up a lot lately-after our modern obsession with perfection, infintity and the like, its a welcome relief.

This is not a Ball

To my mind, Vik Muniz is one of the more interesting artists working today. He plays with size and perception by using everyday items, be it sugar or garbage to create amazing images. His first documentary film, Wasteland, about his work with garbage pickers in the largest landfill in Rio, was up for an Academy Award.

Netflix released his latest work, This Is Not A Ball, in time and in honour of the World Cup. For this film, Muniz has turned his attention to the global fascination with football, asking the question of why it is such a popular game, all the while telling a story of a new art project built around 10,000 soccerballs. One of my favourite lines from the film, "People ask me when I became an artist and I always say that I became an artist when everyone around me stopped being artist, because all kinds are artists..."

Whether you like football or not, this is a fascinating film about life, art, meaning and creativity.

GBH

I have a book called The Wes Anderson Collection, by Matt Zoller Seitz, which explores Andersons film, via essays, interview and an expansive visual record of his almost obsessive commitment to detail. it's th evisual component of anderson's films that I am drawn to, don't get me wrong, I love the stories in and of themsleves, but it's the wya they are told visually that holds such joy for me. When I'm feeling uninspired, I often look at the book, just to marvel at the fantastic stuff that gets put into his work.

I recently came across a mention of Dublin-based graphic designer Annie Atkins, who does a lot of graphic work for Anderson's films, as well as other films. She creates some of the elements that Anderson puts into his films which makes watching them such a delight--the world is complete, down to the minute detail.

His most recent Grand Budapest Hotel has been called a 'return to form' personally I wasn't aware that he had lost form but there you go, to each his own. I watched this film with geelful delight and revelled in it's mischief. Ralph Fiennes was just perfect in his role and his character arc perfectly complimented the quirky and somewhat dark threads of this particular story. You can check out a lot of Atkin's work here and you'll see the amazing work she does.

Noah: More like the Book of Eli than the Book of Genesis

A serious amount of words have been devoted to Noah, Darren Aronofsky's non-biblical/biblical blockbuster. I have been interviewed by a number of publications, and been asked to weigh in on Hollywood and religion, the ruckus over the licence taken with the biblical text etc., and a host of other things related to culture and the Bible. As I said in all the interviews I participated in, I don't look to Hollywood films to affirm or negate my life, nor am I threatened by another version or interpretation of a particular story, and that more importantly, I would watch Noah because it was an Aronofsky film, not because it was about Noah. Hence my disappointment with the film was not with the way it dealt with the Flood narrative but that it was a piss-poor movie in my mind.

Now I realize that this film was unlike many of Aronofsky's prior projects, this was a big-budget studio film with all the prerequisites that come with a venture like that, not the least of which is the need to deliver big on spectacle and spectacle that follows certain rules of the genre, so no problem there, big scenes, I mean creation of the world, humanity's evil,  the destruction of the world by water, talk about fodder for a CGI wet dream--and even that didn't bother me. But it felt that none of this did anything to expand Aronofsky's abilities as a film-maker.

Noah is a genre film of a particular type and it touches on what I think is America's greatest fascination--apocalypticism. The apocalypse hangs over American culture like a blanket, covering virtually everything with this trope that the world must end and out of it a new world built upon values that were always missing or latent in the previous one. Of course, there are links to biblical ideologies in this, but you don't need a 'biblical' story to see it, it's everywhere in American pop culture. So Noah is almost a no-brainer. And the latent ideas that the film teases regarding the environment, industrialization, humanitie's destructive tendency are grist for the apocalyptic mill, so why not mine it. It seemed no different to me than the re-appropriation of other mythic tales--Thor, Hercules etc. all of them fully adaptable for the expression of contemporary cultural fears about how we interact with life, the planet and each other.

What really bugged me, and where it really lost me as a viewer, was in the look and tone of the film. The minute Russell Crowe as Noah is striding across the wasteland in boots with laces and leather soles and his nemesis is fashioning steel whilst wearing a version of a welding mask, and handling an early-gun prototype, and they are all dressed like outcasts from a distressed linen and leather factory, you lost me--all I could think of as I sat there was Book of Eli meets Transformers (those stone encased fallen angels-concrete versions of Optimus Prime if you ask me) meets One million years BC.

It seems to me there is a lot of over-inflation in terms of both attacking and defending this film from different sides of the religious community, but they all seem to deal solely with the story essentially in its narrative form. I've read theological attacks and defences, seen it described as a midrash, on and on, and that's all fine, but a film isn't just the spoken world, its the visual and musical accompaniment, that expands the world the film-maker wants to draw you into, and I found myself uninterested in journeying into this tale, in fact I felt pushed out of it by most of the choices it made in all three realms, but particularly the visual and musical--again, I usually enjoy the work of film composer Clint Mansell, who has composed the music for all of Aronofsky's films, but this had to be the most turgid and un-interesting of them all.

I have never been a big fan of the block buster genre anyway, I don't need that much spectacle and noise, so I should have known. I think I would have preferred a low-budget telling of this tale, and I'll go back to Requiem for a Dream and The Fountain to keep my Aronofsky juices flowing.

 

 

the brothers berninger

 

There are rock documentaries that follow formula and then there are others that use the band as a backdrop for something else. Tom Berninger is the younger brother of Matt, lead singer for The National. His brother invited him on tour, ostensibly to be a roadie--it didn't go well, but a documentary came out of it. Mistaken For strangers is a very real and honest look at a band, but more importantly a look at the dynamic between two brothers, one an ascendant rock star, the other, nine years younger and a bit lost. What do you do when success, direction in life even, eludes you and you live in the shadow of a sibling doing well? There is a lot to think about after watching this film.

Grand Budapest Hotel

Two words, Ralph Fiennes, reason enough to see Wes Anderson's latest, Grand Budapest Hotel. As with all of Anderson's films it is inhabited by quirky characters existing in the Directors obsessively curated world, this time a grand European hotel. This film is darker than his others, has more violence and meanness, colours we haven't seen much of in his work thus far, but it's a welcome addition. There are lots of Anderson regulars vying for screen time here, Schwartzman, Murray, Swinton, etc. but it is Fiennes whose timing is so brilliant that makes this one shine. Her plays a concierge, lothario, gigolo in a caper film involving money, art, a hotel, crime, and stories within stories within stories. Again, as with all of his films, I can watch them simply for the art direction and use of colour, this one, alive in pinks and purples and reds, which are much more primary than his last outing Moonrise Kingdom with all it's East Coast harvest colours.

I think an Anderson has to be seen to be fully understand, it is a visual treat as much as anything else and this one won't disappoint.