New in Theaters
(Playing at Durango Stadium 9 unless noted)
Jobs
Like many a reviewer, I am typing my thoughts about “Jobs” on an Apple computer that quite likely would not exist without the visionary genius of Steve Jobs.
The keyboard on my Macbook Air is the springiest, liveliest, loveliest, most wonderful keyboard I’ve ever known, easily handling my rapid-fire pounding of 90 words a minute, and yes, I’m boasting about how fast I can type, and yes, my experience with keyboards extends all the way back to actual typewriters.
I could go on and on about my love-hate-but-mostly-love relationship with Apple products – but we are here to talk about the movie about the man who co-founded the company and became a mythic figure to millions before his untimely death in October 2011.
This is the cinematic equivalent of the Power Mac G4 Cube: nice to look at and interesting in some ways, but ultimately underwhelming.
It’s a competently made, traditional biopic about a man who disdained those terms.
From the moment the amiable puppy dog Ashton Kutcher was cast in the title role, the odds were stacked against “Jobs” achieving anything like the edgy, innovative excellence of a film such as “The Social Network.”
It’s not that Kutcher gives a bad performance; in fact, he does an admirable job of capturing Jobs’ overall look and mannerisms, including that unique gait that made it seem as if Jobs had just jumped off a horse after a bumpy ride. In the scenes where Jobs sparkles in front of an audience or leads a team of innovators through the first exhilarating moments of exploration and implementation, Kutcher’s natural charm and charisma shine through.
It’s the heavy lifting that trips up Kutcher. On more than one occasion when Jobs is sad, a lone tear trickles from the corner of one eye. And when Jobs explodes at a colleague, turns his back on a longtime friend or fires an underling, Kutcher falls far short of capturing the man’s legendary bouts of rage and nearly soulless cruelty.
The 35-year-old Kutcher is believable as the college-age Jobs, a handsome, lanky, socially blunt underachiever who wanders barefoot around the campus of Reed College in Portland, Ore., and dreams of doing something huge. Along with fellow outcast-savant Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad), Jobs founds the Apple computer company, with “headquarters” in Steve’s parents’ garage.
(The part about the garage is true, but Wozniak is already on record saying the film almost totally fictionalizes the early days of Apple. “Jobs” is, of course, a dramatized version of true events.)
After scoring a contract with a local retailer, Jobs and Woz realize they’re going to need some help, so they enlist the services of a handful of fellow techno geeks. But it’s only after Dermot Mulroney’s Mike Markkula shows up, checkbook in hand, that Apple becomes a real company.
At times, “Jobs” plays like a two-hour advertorial for Apple, with each miraculous advance treated like the discovery of fire. (In some cases, of course, the advances were pretty darn miraculous.)
Not that this is a hagiography. Stern and screenwriter Matt Whiteley spend ample time outlining Jobs’ eccentricities (he gives off a pungent odor; at one point he’s called a “fruitatarian” because he’ll eat fruit and nothing but fruit) and his serious compassion deficiencies, whether he’s refusing to acknowledge his daughter for years, refusing to give stock options to some of the guys from the garage days or screaming at Bill Gates on the phone.
Gad gives the film’s most complete performance as Woz, a corpulent nice guy who starts off worshipping Steve’s cool factor but is disillusioned by the narcissism and lack of humanity. Reliable veterans such as Matthew Modine, J.K. Simmons, James Woods and Kevin Dunn do what they can with the lightly drawn characters they’re playing. (Other than brief glimpses of Steve’s mom and a couple of love interests, women are almost entirely missing from the picture.)
Kutcher’s a handsome, likable presence, more so on TV than in the movies. He can do a few specific things quite well. He’s also one of the least complex and mysterious actor/personalities of his generation, tasked with playing one of the most complicated and accomplished visionaries of our time, and he’s in over his head. Kutcher’s just not the right OS to make this movie hum.
Open Road Films presents a film directed by Joshua Michael Stern and written by Matt Whiteley. Running time: 122 minutes. Rated PG-13 (for some drug content and brief strong language).
Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times
Kick-Ass 2 (Not reviewed) Rated R.
The high-school costumed superhero and his partner Hit Girl has inspired a small army of like-minded citizen crime fighters. Superheroes inevitably inspire super villains, and so we are introduced to the Red Mist. Apparently, the sequel is as violent as the original. Paranoia (Not reviewed) Rated PG-13.
A young corporate go-getter (Liam Hemsworth) is caught in a crime by his boss (Gary Oldman). But instead of losing his job, he opts instead to play a dangerous game of climbing the ladder of success by spying on his boss’ mentor (Harrison Ford).
Lee Daniels’ The Butler
(Playing at the Gaslight Cinema)
“You hear nothing. You see nothing. You only serve.” Such are the instructions Cecil Gaines receives as he embarks on his daunting new job at the Eisenhower White House in “Lee Daniels’ The Butler.”
But of course Gaines, played by Forest Whitaker in a moving, grounded performance that anchors the film and blunts its riskier excesses, hears and sees everything.
And that means that over more than three decades on the job, he has a Forrest Gump-like view not only of the White House under seven presidents, but of the long arc of the civil-rights struggle in 20th-century America.
Much has been said about this movie’s potential future as an Oscar powerhouse. The speculation is natural – especially given its star-studded cast – but it takes away from the more important discussion of its simpler virtues, as an absorbing film that has the potential to teach a new generation (and remind an older one) about these crucial events.
The story is inspired by a Washington Post profile of Eugene Allen, a White House butler from 1952 to 1986. Some anecdotes remain, but much is different. Most importantly, Daniels and screenwriter Danny Strong create a father-son dynamic between Gaines and a rebellious older son, Louis (a terrific David Oyelowo) that serves as a backdrop against which the civil-rights struggle can play out – through the eyes of black characters, not white ones, for a refreshing change.
This is done most strikingly in a key montage in which Cecil and his fellow White House workers set up an elegant state dinner, china and crystal and all, while down South, Louis is protesting at a segregated lunch counter, leading to a harrowing confrontation.
But the story begins in 1926, with the death of Cecil’s own father at the hands of the barbaric son of a landowner on a Georgia cotton farm. The elderly landowner (Vanessa Redgrave, beginning the celebrity cameo parade) takes Cecil into her home, where he first learns to be a butler – how to act, she tells him, like the room is empty even when he’s in it.
Years later, working in a Washington, D.C., hotel, Cecil is noticed by a White House official, leading to a job there. His wife, Gloria, is immensely proud. Gloria, as you may have heard, is played by one Oprah Winfrey, and her performance is often restrained and quite moving. To her credit, you’re not thinking “Wow, Oprah!” in every scene; that in itself is no small triumph.
Not all the star performances are successful. When we first see Robin Williams as Eisenhower, his head bald, it almost feels like we’re about to witness a “Saturday Night Live” skit. Williams doesn’t overdo it, but the casting choice seems forced.
James Marsden, on the other hand, is a good choice as John F. Kennedy, with his handsome grin, boyish demeanor and Boston drawl. Liev Schreiber is amusing if a little broad as LBJ, and John Cusack is interesting as Richard Nixon, even though he looks nothing like him. Alan Rickman and Jane Fonda, making the most of her one scene, make a surprisingly satisfying Ronald and Nancy Reagan.
But what makes the film work, finally, are the soft-spoken Whitaker, whose dignified portrayal rivals his Oscar-winning work in “The Last King of Scotland,” and the powerful Oyelowo, whose Louis progresses over the years from determined and brave to angry and cynical, and ultimately to a seasoned older man.
Their relationship gives structure to the broad story of civil rights in America – a story crucial to tell, and crucial to hear. Daniels and company may not have made a masterpiece, but they have made a film you should see.
“Lee Daniels’ The Butler,” a Weinstein Co. release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “some violence and disturbing images, language, sexual material, thematic elements and smoking.” Running time: 132 minutes. HHH½ out of four.
JOCELYN NOVECK, AP National Writer
Still Showing
Durango Stadium 9
(Next to Durango Mall, 247-9799, www.allentheatresinc.com)
The Hunt. (Wednesday only.) A teacher is the subject of a horrible lie; it’s an examination of how quickly a lie can become truth and ruin lives. Mads Mikkelsen won the Best Actor Award at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of a teacher who loses his job and life as he knows it after a student falsely accuses him of impropriety. Rated R.
Planes. (In standard format and digital 3-D with surcharge.) If they can make it talk, they’ll make a movie out of it. This one has planes. They talk. Rated PG.
Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters. (In standard format and digital 3-D with surcharge.) The next book-to-film installment in this latest mega-gazillion-dollar moneymaker. Rated PG.
Elysium. All the rich folks move to a paradise in the clouds while the poor folks wallow in squalor back on Earth. Some seek a better life. Rated R.
We’re the Millers. Jason Sudeikis creates a family from a bunch of derelicts to cover his drug-running activities. Rated R.
2 Guns. Denzel and Marky Mark do the buddy-cop flick, but they’re not really buddies. Rated R.
The Wolverine. Hugh Jackman has played Logan/Wolverine six times now. If it ain’t broke ... Rated PG-13.
Despicable Me 2. The Steve Carell-voiced Gru completes the transformation from supervillain to good guy when he’s recruited by the Anti-Villain League. Rated PG.
Back Space Theatre
(1120 Main Ave., 259-7940, www.thebackspacetheatre.org)
A Highjacking. If you like Somali pirates like I like Somali pirates, you’ll love this one. The crew of a Danish cargo ship is taken hostage by the pirates in the Indian Ocean and a life-and-death game of negotiation ensues between the CEO of the shipping company and the rapscallions. Rated R.
Ghosts of the West. (Saturday only.) The stories behind the many lost mines and ghost towns still hidden throughout the mountain West. Not rated.
Gaslight Cinema
(102 Fifth St. Next to the railroad depot, 247-8133, www.allentheatresinc.com)
The Way Way Back. An introverted 14-year old tries to survive summer vacation with his mom and her boyfriend (Steve Carell). Rated PG-13.
Ted Holteen and Associated PresS
