Tag: Oscar Isaac

Film: Ex Machina, Directed by Alex Garland

Went to see the film because it was generating some buzz. It started out as a limited release and then it was suddenly showing in a lot more theaters. 

I watched it with patience that it did not deserve. As the film progressed, my patience started to transform into curiosity as to how this is going to work out and finally it turned into disappointment. First of all – a lot of ideas were thrown out and never developed (from semantics to automated neuropschylogical testing). A lot of name-dropping occurred as well — from Wittgenstein to Jackson Pollock — without actually deriving any meaning from that. Name-dropping was a fancy backdrop and did not create a CONTEXT for the action. Some of the issues discussed were so tired and tiresome: e.g. global loss of privacy , the internet as Big Brother, behavioral patterns as source of the new enslavement of the individual by the big technology corporations. The display of the ‘enslaved’, ‘closeted’ robots (all women), interchangeable, and disposable – was the lowest point of the film. This part belonged to “dungeon” movies aesthetics, if there is such a genre.
Isn’t it sad that the underlying message of the film eventually turned out to be that the robot “becomes” human when it learns to lie, back-stab, and be manipulative? This is the test for humanness? Please…If the movie sends a cynical message that does not mean that it is very intelligent or intellectual… The final shot was quite ridiculous – the robot’s (now human) dream to stand on a cross-section and observe what happens IS accomplished!? I thought the director would at least send her to manage The Big Software Corporation …

Oscar Isaac is unrecognizable in the role of Nathan and as good as ever. Hope he gets the role he deserves in the future.

Film: Inside Llewyn Davis. Coen Brothers

A very good film by the Coens and co-produced by Scott Rudin (who I don’t think has a bad film to his credit).

Loved the opening shot – a man with a guitar in the spotlight, small stage, people smoking in the audience…A nostalgic statement for the art scene of the 60s…

Oscar Isaac’s understated performance (and this coming from a theater actor!) is one of the alluring features of this film. His slightly retro look, expressive presence, facial features that could be associated with opposing qualities, somewhere between sensitivity, integrity or depravity and decay — definitely an actor with a future. Two great scenes – one, when he performs a very inspired song for a record producer who tells him “there is no money in this”; and the other, when he performs for his senile father. The camera (Bruno Delbonnel) in that latter scene is fascinating! This cinematographer is one heartbreaking story-teller.

Did Van Gogh know he was great even though he was not successful? How does an artist know if he is making great art or if he should just quit because he sucks. How does he know if he can’t even get to an audience… And he can’t get to an audience because there is always a “middle man.” There is always someone who thinks he “knows” if “there is money in it” and who decides the fate of art. Someone – who owns the pub, the stage, the label, or the studio. And, of course, there is always someone hungry – literally and metaphysically, someone desperate to make art, desperate to get on that stage, unable to quit.

Thankfully, there are artists like the Coens who can afford to make films like “Inside Llewyn Davis”.