The Grand Budapest Hotel (5/5 Stars)

A love poem to Civilization

There is a moment in “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” that stands out to me. Our hero, M. Gustave (played by Ralph Fiennes) the concierge of the Grand Budapest Hotel has been unjustly imprisoned for the murder of his frequent hotel guest and late lover played by Tilda Swinton. His loyal lobby boy, Zero (introducing Tony Revolori) conspires to help him escape. He engages his fiancé/baker’s apprentice played by Saorise Ronan to hide metal tools in the pastries he regularly sends to his mentor. Unfortunately every gift from outside must pass the rigorous inspection of the prison, i.e. a big man with a big butcher’s knife who unceremoniously cuts up everything that comes his way. But behold when this big man with this big knife sees these pastries so elegantly crafted with grace and artistry his heart grows and melts. He cannot bear to destroy them and lets the pastries (and the escape tools) pass onto our hero. And if this one scene was all you saw you should know from experience by now that you are in a Wes Anderson movie.

‘The Grand Budapest Hotel’ is another masterpiece. That makes two in a row for Wes Anderson who is absolutely flaming red hot right now. Arguably it is his best film. When I reviewed ‘Moonrise Kingdom’ I outlined Anderson’s improvements in his style over his first six movies. Namely that he had cast actors in sufficiently dramatic roles with enough stage presence to burst through his overly saturated and inevitably stifling style. Second that he had provided his film with an actual climax and not an existential sigh of an ending. Third: that he had switched from telling the stories of rich people with bullshit problems to poor people with actual problems. All of that is here in this story. We have Wes Anderson’s best villain to date, an evil Adrian Brody, intent on usurping justice, stealing his inheritance, and killing those who get in his way. He employs a hit man played by Willem Defoe. In addition almost everyone employs colorful language. This is a must in a Wes Anderson film. It shocks one out of the sublime contemplation of the art direction and refocuses attention on the characters. The climax of the story involves not only a sled race down a snowy mountain but also a shootout in the hotel. Also there is the aforementioned break out from the prison, which involves some ingenious sight gags. And the story is about the servants of a hotel, in particular a refugee lobby boy whose entire family was killed during World War I.

On On top of all of this Wes Anderson has added something extra special that has never before graced his movies. He has added reason and purpose to his overly stylized approach. In this movie it is called for from the story itself, not simply because this is a movie made by Wes Anderson. First, the story is told in several flashbacks. The movie starts off with a girl in present day reading a book by the statue of its author, a hero of the Eastern European Country she is resident. The movie moves into a flashback of the elderly author played by Tom Wilkinson who starts telling us the story of how he came upon the story as a young man. The movie flashbacks to Jude Law, the younger version of the author, who is staying at the now decript communist version of the hotel when he meets the now elderly lobby boy played by F. Murray Abraham. The two have a catered dinner in the ballroom of the hotel and F. Murray Abraham narrates his story. All throughout these several flashbacks the production design of the movie gets more and more fanciful till it becomes clear when we get to the lobby boy’s story that we are witnessing a visual game of telephone. The story is real but the telling of it has become overly stylized as it has been passed on from generation to generation. Obviously the invading force is made up of Nazis although they are not named so in the movie. And surely the Grand Budapest Hotel did not look so pink and red or so much like a minature model in real life. It’s costuming has been the work of several permutations of the same tale over the course of time.

Second and more importantly the movie has a philosophy on why such costuming is important even noble. The little niceties of civilized life, the grandeur of the lobby, the manners and rituals of a many course meal, the way the hotel staff righteously guards the privacy of their guests, all are contrasted with the barbaric cruelties presented in this time period of epic slaughter. At a particularly dark time in the story, the tale is interrupted by the serving of a dessert and a special desert wine. And it is a relief. The comforting ritual is an escape from the random slaughter of the outside world. Somewhere someone cares about your experience. That is what the ‘Grand Budapest Hotel’ means. It is a precious love poem to civilization. It is the prison guard that can’t bring himself to destroy something so beautiful.

We live in a world that so often takes the most cynical route possible because it is the easiest and perhaps the most truthful. But Wes Anderson cares about your movie going experience. He has made this extra special gem just for you as a brief escape from all the nihilistic meanness out there. This movie has love poured into every detail of the story and production.

What enormous amount of respect Wes Anderson commands in the Hollywood community now! Just take a look at this cast most of which are in very bit parts. Jason Schwartzman, Owen Wilson, Ed Norton, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Adrien Brody, Tilda Swinton, Mathieu Amalric, Harvey Keitel, Willem Defoe, Jeff Goldblum, Lea Seydoux, Tom Wilkinson, F. Murray Abraham, Jude Law, Ralph Fiennes, Saorise Ronan, and introducing Tony Revolori. Apparently most of them just wanted to hang out on the set because the atmosphere excited them. I’ve heard that Wes Anderson employs a friend chef of his who cooks a great meal for dinner for everybody in the production every night of shooting. If tickets were sold to these dinners they would be priceless.

One more thing: Tom Wilkinson’s character speaks about writing not as a solo art but as the result of merely being open to the ideas and stories of those around you. Well, Wes Anderson may deflect admiration all he wants but one thing is for certain. He can be credited with recruiting an incredible team around him. The production design of this movie was led by Adam Stockhausen (also worked on Moonrise Kingdom). The art direction was led by Stephan O. Gessler, Gerald Sullivan, and Steve Summersgill. The set decoration was led by Anna Pinnock. The costumes were made by Milena Canonero. If they aren’t remembered come Oscar time next year, it isn’t my bad taste; everybody else are uncivilized barbarians. 

OSCARS 2013

Party! Party ! Party!

The word for 2013 was Party. Oh so many parties, so little time. We started the year off down in Florida with a dreadlocked grilled James Franco in Spring Breakers and the pumped up likes of Mark Wahlberg and Dwayne Johnson in Pain and Gain. April gave us a new Baz Luhrman extravaganza in the perfectly adapted The Great Gatsby. The summer introduced to two parties so debauched they could only be broken up by an apocalypse. First the Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg rapture This is the End and then team Wright/Pegg/Frost went on an epic beer crawl inconveniently invaded by beings that were not necessarily robots. Finally, the year ended with two dazzling and outrageous displays of the dark side of American ambition, David O. Russell’s sophisticated con-artist film American Hustle and Martin Scorsese’s sleaze orgy The Wolf of Wall Street. There ought to be a category for best party scene right? Well, here it is!

Best Party Scene

I just had to make up a category for my favorite scene of the year from all the way back last February. I nearly fell out of my seat laughing.

Christian Bale and Jeremy Renner sing Tom Jones' "Delilah" in American Hustle

Leonardo Dicaprio’s introduction as Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby

Dwayne Johnson blows through his stolen fortune in Pain and Gain

James Franco sings Britney Spears' “Everytime” in Spring Breakers

Leonardo Dicaprio’s Bachelor Party in The Wolf of Wall Street

Okay, first of all, the guilty admissions. I did not watch any short films or foreign language films this year. Also, when I was trying to fill out the category for Best Original Score for some reason I could not for the life of me remember any of them. And finally, I only saw two Animated Films and either I give the Oscar to "Despicable Me 2" or I don't have that category. Soooo....moving on.

Best Supporting Actress

Normally I would put in a snarky remark about this category is so predicatably shallow every year. I may even go so far as to self-righteously point out the lack of decent parts for women in mainstream American movies. But this year I a little self-evaluation of myself. Truth is I don't see that many movies that are about women or have a lot of thoroughly written female parts. I saw only 50 of the hundreds of movies that came out last year. If I have trouble putting together a decent list of five supporting actresses perhaps that says more about the movies I choose to see rather than the actual state of Hollywood. It's not like I bothered to see 'August: Osage County' or 'Saving Mr. Banks' or 'Frozen' you know. 

Sally Hawkins (Blue Jasmine)

Jennifer Lawrence (American Hustle)

Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave)

Octavia Spencer (Fruitvale Station)

Margot Robbie (Wolf of Wall Street)

Best Supporting Actor

There are some special performances here, but Bradley Cooper's turn in American Hustle really is something special. It is a deeply comic/deeply tragic performance and it speaks plenty about the type of actor who is willing to infuse passion into a character that is fated as role as ultimate chump. Bradley Cooper's Richie DiMaso really really really wanted to succeed and he really really really failed big time.

Barkhad Abdi (Captain Phillips)

Benedict Cumberbatch (Star Trek: Into Darkness)

Bradley Cooper (American Hustle)

James Franco (Spring Breakers)

Jonah Hill (Wolf of Wall Street)

Best Makeup and Hairstyling

I actually saw 'The Lone Ranger' and yes the makeup was good. But 'Dallas Buyer's Club' was probably better (I don't know, how would I know). I didn't see 'Bad Grampa' but I'm sure they deserve to be here as well.

Dallas Buyer’s Club

The Lone Ranger

Jackass Presents: Bad Grampa

Best Costume Design

Here is hoping that Baz Luhrman does not take five years to make his next movie.

American Hustle

The Great Gatsby

Her

Hunger Games: Catching Fire

The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Production Design

Almost never do movies that take place in the near future actually resemble something that will come to pass, but if I had to put my money on one film that most probably will get it right, I would have to choose "Her," and immense achievement in Production Design. And guess what, it isn't a dystopia. 

American Hustle

The Great Gatsby

Her

Pacific Rim

The Wolverine

Best Use of a Song in a Movie

Followers of this blog will know by now that I think the category 'Best Original Song' is totally useless mainly because the vast majority of movies that have songs do not employ real ones. This is especially apparent when a movie with wall-to-wall great music like the Coen Brother's "Inside Llewyn Davis" has next to no songs eligible for the category. (The one exception was the hokey "Please Mr. Kennedy.") So this category is Best Use of a Song.

“Dink’s Song” by Dink from Inside Llewyn Davis

“The Moon Song” by Karen O from Her

“Everytime” by Britney Spears from Spring Breakers

“Rhapsody in Blue” by George Gershwin from The Great Gatsby

“Born Free” from The Act of Killing

Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing

All is Lost

Captain Phillips

Gravity

Inside Llewyn Davis

Lone Survivor

Best Visual Effects

Star Trek: Into Darkness

Iron Man 3

Gravity

Pacific Rim

The Lone Ranger

Best Film Editing

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Fruitvale Station

Gravity

The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Cinematography

Gravity (Emmanuel Lubezki)

Inside Llweyn Davis (Bruno Delbonnel)

Prisoners (Roger A. Deakins)

To the Wonder (Emmanuel Lubezki)

12 Years a Slave (Sean Bobbitt)

I guess there is no getting around it. The movie "Gravity" was the best visual and auditory experience of the year. Nothing else came close in these categories. Great, Great, Great. Go see it and see it on the biggest screen possible. 

Best Documentary Feature

It was a special year in documentaries as the next installment of the 'Up' series came out but as the documentary is not yet done yet (probably in thirty years) lets pass that one up. The biggest snub at the Oscars was "The Act of Killing" not getting Best Documentary. I can only assume that most people didn't see it and saw the documentary about backup singers instead. For shame, for shame, for shame. 

56 Up

The Act of Killing

The Armstrong Lie

We Steal Secrets: The Story of Wikileaks

Best Actress

There really is nothing quite like Cate Blanchett having a nervous breakdown.

Amy Adams (American Hustle)

Cate Blanchett (Blue Jasmine)

Sandra Bullock (Gravity)

Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha)

Scarlett Johannson (Her)

Best Actor

What a competition it was this year. Sure Matthew McConaughey lost the most weight, but there was just something about Tom Hanks, particularly the last two minutes of the movie. I had never seen that before.

Christian Bale (American Hustle)

Leonardo DiCaprio (The Wolf of Wall Street)

Tom Hanks (Captain Phillips)

Matthew McConaughey (Dallas Buyers Club)

Joaquin Phoenix (Her)

Best Adapted Screenplay

In many years from now if not now, 'The Wolf of Wall Street' will hold a special dear place in the hearts of many douchebags the way that other great masterpieces of writing 'Scarface,' 'Wall Street,' and 'Glengarry Glen Ross.'

12 Years a Slave

Captain Phillips

The Great Gatsby

Star Trek: Into Darkness

The Wolf of Wall Street

Best Original Screenplay

It speaks something about the writing of a movie when four actors are nominated for Oscars. And that is only four of the characters. There is at least three other great characters in here, specifically those played by Jeremy Renner, Louis C.K., and Robert De Niro. This movie was fantastic and so much fun to be around.

American Hustle

Fruitvale Station

Her

Inside Llewyn Davis

Prisoners

Best Director

Take a look at the following clip. It is a one shot sequence. I have not the slightest idea how it was made. Alfonso Cuaron might as well be the world's greatest magician. Never was there a greatest lock in this category.

Alfonso Cuaron (Gravity)

Paul Greengrass (Captain Phillips)

Baz Luhrman (The Great Gatsby)

David O. Russell (American Hustle)

Martin Scorsese (The Wolf of Wall Street)

Best Picture

I said it once in my review and I will say it again. The only thing missing from 'Gravity' was a scene at the end where Dr. Ryan Stone walks into mission control and is greeted with massive applause.

12 Years a Slave

The Act of Killing

American Hustle

Captain Phillips

Fruitvale Station

Gravity

The Great Gatsby

Her

Inside Llewyn Davis

The Wolf of Wall Street

The WOLF of WALL STREET (5/5 Stars)

Jordan Belfort and the Obscene Destruction of Wealth. 

It seems to have been completely forgotten by now but when Gordon Gekko made his ‘Greed is Good’ speech in Oliver Stone’s landmark 1987 film ‘Wall Street’ he was not waxing philosophically in a theoretical sense. He was speaking as a major stockholder of a company at a shareholders meeting. Specifically the company was Tarbell Paper and Gekko had bought up a large share of stock in order to streamline the company (sell off assets and fire unnecessary personel) and use the proceeds towards a large dividend payment. As a major stockholder he would certainly profit from such an action, but that was not the only reason Gekko put forth to justify his actions. Here is the complete speech:

[at the Teldar Paper stockholder's meeting] Well, I appreciate the opportunity you're giving me Mr. Cromwell as the single largest shareholder in Teldar Paper, to speak. Well, ladies and gentlemen we're not here to indulge in fantasy but in political and economic reality. America, America has become a second-rate power. Its trade deficit and its fiscal deficit are at nightmare proportions. Now, in the days of the free market when our country was a top industrial power, there was accountability to the stockholder. The Carnegies, the Mellons, the men that built this great industrial empire, made sure of it because it was their money at stake. Today, management has no stake in the company! All together, these men sitting up here own less than three percent of the company. And where does Mr. Cromwell put his million-dollar salary? Not in Teldar stock; he owns less than one percent. You own the company. That's right, you, the stockholder. And you are all being royally screwed over by these, these bureaucrats, with their luncheons, their hunting and fishing trips, their corporate jets and golden parachutes. Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much.

That’s right, the company was badly run. It had thirty-three vice presidents all being paid exhorbitant amounts of money for no particular reasona at all.  In other words, the company was ripping off its investors and should have been broken up, streamlined, and made more efficient. Does anybody remember this detail? I bring it up because this speech and this movie, to the horror I bet of its fire breathing liberal writer/director, has been credited as a main inspiration for the Wall Street we have today. There is an incredible speech in the Wolf of Wall Street that I’m going to put down in its entirety. It is given by Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo Dicaprio, the founder of a brokerage firm named Stratton Oakmont. He is inspiring his traders to misrepresent to their clients that a bad shoe company, for which Stratton Oakmont owns 80% of the shares, is a must buy. The idea is to use their clients to drive up the price and then to sell their own shares at the peak. This will of course devalue the stock that Stratton Oakmont does not own but their clients do. This is dishonest and illegal and here is the speech:

Besides the “Greed is Good” mantra I would submit that there is very little similar in these two speeches. Our culture nonetheless does not make that distinction. Either you are against Greed and against both actions or you are for it and endorse both. 

The confusion can be directly traced to Adam Smith’s landmark treatise on capitalism “The Wealth of Nations” published in 1776. It is an extraordinary book in many ways but it also contains several errors. (Errors in groudbreaking masterpieces are not such an extraordinary thing. Read any tome of Aristotle and Plato and you will notice antiquated and mistaken arguments sandwiched between the words of wisdom on a regular basis.) One of the biggest errors concerns Adam Smith’s theory on the division of labor. He compares the winter coat of a poor worker in London with the loincloth of an African King. Why, he asks, can this poor man afford better clothes than a king? The answer is that London has a developed economy that uses division of labor. The African king made his own loincloth all by himself and did not have the time or capacity to make it any better. The poor man’s coat however had been touched by thousands of men. The herders of the sheep, the shearers of the wool, the transporters of the wool, the weavers, the salespeople, et cetera et cetera. The insight is that a man can do one simple task for one job far faster than he can do all the tasks for one job. If you build a network of all these different people doing their own respective simple tasks you will be able to produce far more than you could if one person did everything by himself or herself. The vast supply of goods that this network creates drives down prices for the goods themselves, which is why the poor man in a developed economy can afford better clothes than the African king in an undeveloped economy. Adam Smith than states that rational self-interest is what made the network possible. Each participant in the network was acting in his or her own self-interest not a sense of altruism.

And here is where Smith after pages of brilliant insights makes his error. Altruism is not the foil Adam Smith should have drawn for capitalism. After all not all rational self-interest is capitalism. An arms length transaction between two parties is in the rational self-interest of both parties. But if a man beats another man up and steals his lunch money that too is in the rational self-interest of the first man. Both men are being greedy. But one of them is trading. The other is stealing. That is a huge difference. In essence, it is the difference between capitalism and piracy/communism/fascism/etc and the fact that we as a society cannot tell the difference is a huge problem. The traders in ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ take this corrupted thinking to its most logical and extreme end. They think they are capitalists and point to all the money they have gained as proof that they are. But they are not capitalists and this story is not a story of capitalism. It’s about thugs and thieves and the obscene destruction of wealth implicitly approved by a society that does not yet understand certain fundamental basics of economics.

“The Wolf of Wall Street,” is the fifth collaboration between director Martin Scorsese and actor Leonardo Dicaprio. It is arguably their best. It is certainly the most outrageous, funniest, crassest, excessive, and balls to the wall crazy movie they have ever made. It might have broken the f-word record, but I know for certain that I haven’t seen so much nudity in a movie outside of pornography. And the drug use, well I don’t think there is a scene in this 3-hour movie where somebody isn’t on something. The story comes from the autobiography of Jordan Belfort, a consummate salesman in that he could sell almost anything to anyone. After a brief stint on the real Wall Street, where his boss played by Matthew McCounaghey openly snorts cocaine in an upscale restaurant and counsels him to steal from his clients and masturbate at least twice a day, Jordan opens up his own penny stock brokerage firm in Long Island. The companies he shills are almost completely worthless but Jordan has an unbeatable sales pitch. In essence what he is selling is something way too good to be true. Get rich quick with penny stocks. He tells his clients that they can make money hand over fist by sitting on the couch at home doing nothing. Give me your money and you will win the lottery essentially. Jordan drives home this point by advertising his own lifestyle as proof that he knows how to make you rich. Look at Jordan’s big house, his beautiful wife, his cars, his hookers and drugs. Don’t you want to be just like him?

This is almost as important as the sales pitch because in order to become as rich as Jordan gets, he can’t do it all by himself, he needs hundreds of sales associates with the same unscrupulous tactics he has. He says to them: scam the people on the bottom and you will become as rich and decadent as me on the top. And boy does Jordan ever lavish on the temptations on his employees and clients. Every month, they have huge parties in the office with nude marching bands and strippers. Hookers roam the office corriders on a regular basis. Cocaine and Quallude use is rampant. For Jordan’s bachelor party he flew 50 of his coworkers to Vegas, hired 100 prostitutes, and trashed an entire floor of an upscale hotel. They have an orgy on the 747 to Vegas. The entire thing cost two million dollars. A drop in the bucket for a man who brags about being upset because he only made 52 million dollars last year. You see he was three million shy of a million dollars a week. He’s that kind of rich.

Do we care that people are doing this with other people’s money? For anyone wondering why the movie is three hours long, the answers are intertwined. The movie goes on so long because nobody stops Jordan. People don’t care apparently, probably because we have this ‘Joe the Plumber’ mentality about this type of excess. In other words, we aren’t against it because one day we hope to be on top doing the same thing. It’s the American Dream we’ve seen so many times in movies this year whether it was Spring Breakers, Pain and Gain, The Great Gatsby, or American Hustle. It is amazing how much bad behavior Jordan Belfort gets away with because he is rich. Sexual Assault, Public Intoxication, and Reckless Driving Under the Influence are just a few of his crimes. At one point he idiotically pilots his 170-foot yacht into a major storm and it sinks. A plane that comes in to rescue them crashes and the three people inside die. Jordan happened to be violating a court order at the time that instructed him to stay in the country. There are no consequeces.

The performance by Leonardo Dicaprio and also by his sidekick here Donnie Azoff, played by Jonah Hill, is arguably the best of his career. It is notable in its sheer lack of vanity. One particular scene stands out. Jordan and Donnie take these very old Qualuddes that unbeknownst to them take a very long time to kick in. When they finally do Jordan is far away from home. He is paralyzed by the force of the drugs and has to crawl out of the country club, into his car, and get home. It is a tour de force comic scene and the Leonardo and Jonah’s respective Oscar nominations are duly deserved.

The directing by Martin Scorsese and editing by Thelma Schoomaker is as always especially brilliant. He uses all the tricks in his bag in this movie and then some. In plenty of ways this is the biggest movie he has ever made. Imagine that, at 77 years of age he is still making his best movies. Killer impressive.

Go see this movie and bring along a dark sense of humor.

Her (4/5 Stars)

Nora Ephron once noted that most love stories can be divided into two categories: Christian and Jewish. A Christian Romance involves two people who would be happy but for some third person or outside conflict that keeps them apart. Think of the feuding families in “Romeo and Juliet,” the class barriers in “The Notebook,” or the sinking of the Titanic in “Titanic.” The Jewish Romance involves two people who would be happy if it weren't for the flawed personalities of the characters. Nora would say that Woody Allen is the great writer of this type of story, and movies such as “Annie Hall,” “Manhattan,” and “Hannah and Her Sisters,” are good examples. I think "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind," would be the epitome of that type.

Now consider the movie “Her” from writer/director Spike Jonze. Ask yourself as you watch it, which category would it belong in? Are the conflicts born from the characters or from the society in which they live? And if it is a conflict born from the characters, what does that say about people especially given the society that is present in this movie. Is Spike Jonze saying outside conflict helps to provoke romance?

This might be the first movie I have ever seen that portrays the future as a Utopia and not a Dystopia. “Her” takes place in the near future of Los Angeles. The streets are calm and safe. Plentiful skyscrapers adorn the skyscape as beautiful landmarks not haunting towers. There is no smog and the public parks and beaches are clean. Everything is bathed in a warm comfortable glow. The story concerns Theodore Twombly (played by Joaquin Phoenix) an employee at BeautifulHandwrittenLetters.com. Theodore composes other people’s letters to their loved ones. It is a sensitive if otherworldy job and Theodore takes joy in it. He has nice coworkers. There is Amy, played by Amy Adams, who is kind and funny and sweet. His boss, played by Chris Pratt, is a funny goofy nice guy too. The job must pay well because Theodore’s apartment is plenty nice, clean, and spacious. He has all the latest technological gadgets in handheld devices and role-playing computer games. It is a nice safe life and Theodore is a nice safe guy.

So, given that, why is Theodore recently divorced from Catherine, played by Rooney Mara, and why has he not been actively social in awhile. Everything is perfect or is that the problem, that everything is perfect. And is that the reason why Theodore strikes up a relationship with the latest gadget around, a personalized OSS (operating system) named Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johannson). This new OSS has the ability to intuit and learn, so it is a kind of artificial intelligence with a real intellectual curiousity and love of life. She’s charming and smart (hooked up with an internet connection she immediately reads the entirety of Wikipedia) and her newness has the sort of endearing innocence absent in experienced humans. This is an impossible relationship of course, but is that what makes it exciting to Theodore? Are we prone to look for conflict and grow restless when it can’t be found? Do relationships work the best when the two people in it are united in fighting a third party? If there is no outside conflict do people automatically turn on each other? The meanest thing said in the movie comes from the ex-wife Rooney Mara. It is only two sentences but it makes clear that she knows Theodore well enough to only need two sentences to strike him where it hurts most.

Samantha on the other hand is much easier to talk to. I expect this is because she does not give off the impression of being able to hurt Theodore. She if after all just a machine and the way Theodore talks to her resembles more of a conversation with one’s diary than a conversation with another person. These are quietly stunning, sensitive, and articulate discussions between two characters that have no reason to guard how they speak to each other. And so they don’t. In fact, I kept thinking of the last entry in ‘Anne Frank’s Diary,’ in which she explores how the presence of other people changes her character. She says that she is a different worse version of herself with other people than she is all by herself. If only there were no other people in the world, expresses Anne. Theodore could probably say the same thing, and here he can and does because he’s talking to a machine, not a woman. Spike Jonze has been nominated for a Best Original Screenplay and deserves it.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about this quiet sensitive movie is the production design, art direction, and costume design. The credit for this belongs to K.K. Barrett, Gene Sardena, Austin Gorg, and Casey Storm respectively who have convincingly created a world that is simultaneously familiar and strange enough to resemble the future. K.K. Barrett has worked on all of Spike Jonze previous movies (Where the Wild Things Are, Adaptation, Being John Malkovich) and interestingly many of Jonze’s ex-wife’s movies Sophia Coppola (Lost in Translation, Marie Antoinette). Now that I think of it, Rooney Mara looks a lot like Sophia Coppola. I think that’s all I’m going to say about that.

Amy Adams is as charming as always and looks great with that strange curly hairstyle, you know like always.

Oh and Karen O is a lock for an Oscar for Best Original Song. “The Moon Song” she wrote is good which is almost always good enough to win in that strikingly shallow category.