Skimming through Steve Jobs's life

Ashton Kutcher isn't bad, but this bio-pic doesn't dig deep.

Put expectation aside, Ashton Kutcher's not bad as Steve Jobs. But Jobs -- the movie about the late icon's rise in the world of business -- is to biography what skimming is to reading, a gloss rather than a deeply revealing look.

What's missing from this uptempo view of Jobs's life has less to do with a refusal to portray Jobs's darker side than with a deficiency of interpretive thrust, the kind of spin that could have lifted the movie out of a familiar, bio-pic groove.

Director Joshua Michael Stern sticks pretty close to the surface, tracing events in Jobs's life and charting the sometimes precarious rise of Apple, the company that's credited with changing the way we compute, make phone calls, listen to music, take photos and use apps for purposes that range from ridiculous to sublime.

In truth, Jobs is less a bio-pic than half of one.

The movie charts Jobs's life from his college days to the time when the ousted genius returned to Apple to guide the company to astonishing levels of success in the world of iPhones, iPods, iPads, as well as personal computers. It's arguable, that Jobs ends just when the best part of the story is starting.p>
To its credit, the movie doesn't attempt to white-wash Jobs: It offers abundant examples of Jobs's arrogance, his cruelty to subordinates, his refusal to acknowledge a daughter, his willingness to shortchange those who supported him early on, and his sense -- as one of the characters puts it -- that the world began and ended with him.

But rather than make a Citizen Jobs-like cautionary tale, Stern balances negatives with an equal number of positives: Jobs's unwillingness to settle for second best, his insistence on accomplishing what others deemed impossible and his commitment to changing lives with technology.

Early on, Stern employs a sketchy montage to show how Jobs toyed with an education at Reed College, dropped out of school, took acid trips, traveled to India and eventually landed a job with Atari, where he quickly established himself as iconoclastic but unpleasant personality. While at Atari, Jobs relied on hardware whiz and pal Steve Wozniak (Josh Gad) to help build his reputation as a tech genius.

Jobs and Woznaik started Apple in Jobs's parents garage, and -- as the saying goes -- the rest is history.

Much of the movie is devoted to corporate intrigue within Apple, which outgrew its humble origins once it expanded into its Cupertino, Calif., headquarters. The company went public, acquired stockholders, a board of directors and eventually hired CEO John Sculley (Matthew Modine), a skilled marketer who found himself at odds with Jobs's idiosyncratic approach.

Jobs evidently behaved like a movie director who wasn't about to let a little thing like budget stand in the way of his vision.

Kutcher looks a lot like the young Jobs, and the supporting cast does reasonably good work with Dermot Mulroney portraying Mike Markkula, the first outsider to sink major money into Apple.

Though briskly paced, Jobs offers little or nothing by way of breakthrough filmmaking, and it can play like a compilation of greatest hits from Jobs's already well-chronicled career: How he named the company, how he developed the Macintosh computer line and how he made the transition from a young man with counter-cultural interests to a Silicon Valley titan.

If Jobs hadn't made his mark with computers, the movie could have been a show-biz bio-pic about a temperamental star who annoyed lots of people and made oodles of money, but actually did what many other arrogant people couldn't: He delivered.

Listen, I'm an Apple guy. I'm writing this on an Apple computer, and I use other Apple products. I'm susceptible to the Apple glow. Apple makes it, and, yes, I tend to want it.

But Jobs could have been a far more insightful drama. The movie shows us a character who does plenty of acting out, but it does far too little digging in.

Finally, a worthy teen movie

Before The Spectacular Now, I wondered whether I'd ever want to see another film about adolescence, but director James Ponsoldt's addition to the genre qualifies as a remarkable achievement, a movie full of real feelings and real problems -- in short, a film about young people that refuses to pander.

Adapted from a novel by Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now reflects Ponsoldt's desire to find a bit of truth in a genre that doesn't always value honesty.

Ponsoldt’s cast earns some of the credit. Miles Teller) plays Sutter, an underachieving kid who's flirting with alcoholism. Sutter lives with his mom (Jennifer Jason Leigh), works part-time at a men's clothing store, parties hard and seems committed to a philosophy he calls "living in the moment."

Immersion in the present is well and good, but it's pretty clear that Sutter might be on the verge of throwing his life away. College? No. A future? Why bother? We know that Sutter’s spectacular present eventually will give way to the mediocrity that often results from squandered potential. How long will it take before the flask Sutter carries ceases to be a sign of rebellion and becomes a badge of dishonor?

Sutter is smart, amusing and glib in ways that can seem off-putting at first, as if Teller has been instructed to do a Vince Vaughn imitation. Don't give up on the kid, though; as the story progresses, he reveals depths that go beyond the surface of his clever retorts. He begins to question his views, in part because he forms relationship with Aimee (Shailene Woodley), a classmate who's not at the center of high-school party life and who’s a bit more substantial than the girl (Brie Larson) who dumps Sutter in the movie's early going, although she's no ditz, either.

Aimee and Sutter meet in an early morning scene in which Sutter awakens on Aimee's lawn. Drunk as usual, he forgot where he left his car. An exchange develops: Sutter asks Aimee to help him learn geometry; he basically schools her in how to have a better time in high school.

Lurking in the background is Sutter's father (Kyle Chandler), a heavy drinker who Sutter hasn't seen in years. His mother won't even tell Sutter where his dad lives. When he learns his father's whereabouts from his sister (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Sutter decides to visit. Dad, we soon learn, is a preview of coming attractions for what Sutter easily could become, an irresponsible jerk.

Spectacular Now provides Teller with a breakthrough role. Woodley -- familiar as George Clooney's teen-age daughter in The Descendants -- continues to impress.

Shot in Athens, Georgia -- where Ponsoldt grew up, The Spectacular Now is more than a good teen movie; it's a good movie, a look at characters we come to care about right up until the film's mildly ambiguous conclusion.

Mass murderers with few regrets

A powerful look at an atrocity in Indonesia.

Is it possible that some people have the ability to rationalize anything? You may find yourself wondering about that as you watch The Act of Killing, an extraordinary and deeply disturbing documentary about men who committed mass murder.

Director Joshua Oppenheimer focuses on Indonesian massacres that took place in 1965 and 1966. Under the guise of providing a service to the state, street thugs slaughtered anyone they decided belonged to the Communist Party. Precise numbers are difficult to come by, but at least 500,000 people were murdered, and some have set the total as high as three million.

Whether the victims of these killings actually were Communists seemed to matter little to those who brutally slaughtered them, not that membership in the Communist Party should have been sufficient reason to be killed.

Oppenheimer’s film, which includes reenactments of the killings by some of the men who did the dirty work, has an eerie and unsettling quality, in part because of the extent of the violence and in part because of the attitude of those who did the killing.

The killers reunite with a sense of bonhomie that puts you in mind of college alumni recalling past pranks. That’s one hell of an attitude for men who made murder commonplace.

To make matters even stranger, these men are forthcoming about what they did. Some participate in the Pancasila Youth, a staunch group of paramilitary zealots who gather for self-congratulatory rallies and what appear to be alarming expressions of chauvinism.

Oppenheimer hasn't made what you'd call a "traditional" documentary. The centerpiece of his movie involves staged re-enactments of murders by those who committed them. You’ll see no archival footage from the ‘60s; instead, you’ll meet Anwar, a gangster who brutalized ethnic Chinese, as well as purported Communists.

Like others in the film, Anwar willingly discusses past deeds. He also approaches moviemaking with enthusiasm, as well as with a sense that the film should be entertaining. At one point, the men even come up with the idea of a musical number staged in front of a waterfall. They sometimes wear make-up to simulate the effect of beatings? (See photo above.)

Yes, everything in the film feels bizarre. But how else should a film such as this feel?

At one point, Anwar -- a grandfather with a taste for sharp gangster dress -- talks about how he learned to kill effectively, opting for strangulation with a wire rather than beatings. He's happy to demonstrate (in simulation, of course) what he seems to regard as an innovative discovery.

The re-enactments are convincing and horrifying, small spectacles of unspeakable cruelty.

Perhaps because of cultural peculiarities, not everything in The Act of Killing is easily understood -- why one of the men frequently dresses in drag, for example.

Several of the men tell us that the word “gangster” means “free man.” I don’t know how any of them arrived at such a meaning, but for these men, freedom seems to involve taking life and experiencing no consequences.

Anwar becomes a bit reflective at the end of the film, but, for the most part, Oppenheimer’s approach allows these men to emerge in full and frightening detail. Movie reviews don't usually require psychic weather reports, but in this case one may be necessary: Expect to be haunted by bad dreams.

Blanchett brilliant in 'Blue Jasmine'

First the simple good news: Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine finds the director in fine form.

Now, a work inspired by figures as disparate as Tennessee Williams and Bernie Madoff seems like an impossible, perhaps even ludicrous, concoction. But in borrowing elements from both reality and drama, Allen has given Blue Jasmine a voice all its own.

The movie also serves as a dazzling showcase for an actress who hardly needs one. Cate Blanchett is brilliant, funny and fiercely scattered as the wife of a fallen Wall Street wheeler-dealer named Hal (Alec Baldwin). Jasmine has hit bottom since her philandering husband was jailed for a massive fraud that prompted the government to seize everything the couple owned.

Mercurial, rueful and sophisticated -- at least when it comes to matters of style -- Blanchett's Jasmine draws on Blanche DuBois from Williams's famed A Streetcar Named Desire, a role she played in New York in 2009 to much acclaim.

Bereft of resources, Jasmine arrives in San Francisco to live with her sister (Sally Hawkins), a divorced woman whose former husband (Andrew Dice Clay) was one of Hal's victims. And, yes, Clay -- someone I had no desire ever to see again -- acquits himself well here. It's an interesting bit of casting.

Like Stella in Williams's play, Hawkins's Ginger is involved with a boisterous and sometimes crude mechanic (a fiery Bobby Cannavale). I'm not entirely sure Cannavale's Chili makes a great deal of sense, but the character doesn't detract, either. The same can be said for Michael Stuhlbarg who shows up as a dentist who hires Jasmine as a receptionist, and then tries to force her into a sexual relationship.

Happily, Allen hasn't attempted an updated replication of Williams's play; he uses Streetcar as a launching pad from which he can examine what happens when the nouveau riche suddenly become the nouveau poor.

Those who prefer Allen with laughs should know that he hasn't stripped the proceedings of humor, but -- at least for me -- there was considerably more pain than hilarity in Jasmine's precipitous decline.

In some ways, Blanchett is the movie. She fills Jasmine with a mixture of disdain and anxiety: This -- Allen seems to be saying -- is how we arrive at Blanche DuBois in 2013. Tossed off the Wall Street planation, Jasmine has been left for near-dead.

We see glimpses of the person Jasmine once was when she meets Dwight (Peter Sarsgaard), a San Francisco businessman with political ambitions. Dwight understands that Jasmine is the kind of woman he proudly can drape over his arm. She knows how to behave herself around money, an asset for any politician's spouse. And, when she's on her game, she looks great.

Of course, Dwight eventually must discover how wrong he is about Jasmine. It's a bit of a stretch to think that the wife of a notorious Wall Street criminal wouldn't instantly be recognizable to someone like Dwight, but this lapse of plausibility also proves forgivable in light of Blanchett's bravura turn.

Baldwin's Hal, whose criminality fuels the story, is seen in flashbacks that put both his arrogance and indifference to conventional morality finds on display.

In what seems a digression as much as an enrichment, Louis C.K. shows up as an alternative suitor for Ginger, someone who gives the so-called "lesser" sister a chance to attain a new, more confident sense of her self. Don't expect a happily-ever-after.

By the time, Blue Jasmine concludes, Jasmine's personality has shattered. She's left talking to herself, one of those sad, anonymous people you see wandering the streets of some cities. It's a sobering moment, and it makes you wonder: Has Jasmine been talking to herself for her entire life? Has she ever been able to step outside the kind of delusions that make her so appalling, so human and so deeply tragic?

Strong start, then collapse for 'Elysium'

Elysium could have been so much more than it is.

Recently, I was riding my bicycle through one of the Denver area's more expensive neighborhoods, the kind in which once modest homes have been conquered by mini-mansions that probably are priced in multiples of millions. Who, I wondered, can afford to live in such places? What do the residents of these palaces do that enables them to take literally the old axiom that a man's home is his castle?

The growing divide between the rich and the rest of us is the basis for Elysium, a sci-fi spectacle from director Neill Blomkamp, who made waves with his gritty first feature, 2009's District 9.

Set in the late 21st century, Elysium imagines a time when the rude and scoffing multitudes live on devastated planet Earth. Those with major money have moved to Elysium, a giant, circular space station that orbits the Earth. Think of Elysium as the ultimate gated community, a refuge from hardship.

Elysium's residents live well, and have access to medical technology that can cure just about anything.

Of course, someone eventually was bound to crash the high-end party. Enter Matt Damon as Max, an Earth-bound factory drone who receives a massive dose of radiation at work. Max is given five days to live. The only way he can save himself is to sneak into Elysium, and avail himself of its life-saving technology, machines that look like CAT scans, but can diagnose and cure a person in one go-round.

Max's predicament brings him into contact with Spider (Wagner Moura), a criminal who knows how to smuggle folks into Elysium. Of course, there's a condition: Max can go to Elysium only if he agrees to a scheme in which he'll download data from the brain of a wealthy businessman (William Fichtner).

This requires Max to have a coding device of some sort implanted directly into his skull. Spider wants to use the data Max obtains to undermine the two-tier system that has separated humanity into two major groups -- the super-rich and everyone else.

On his initial visit to the hospital after he's radiated, Max reunites with Frey (Alice Braga)) a doctor who had been a childhood pal. As it turns out, the doctor has a terminally ill daughter (Emma Tremblay). Frey hopes that Max will take her child to Elysium, where she can be saved.

Blomkamp does a better job depicting an earthly dystopia than in showing Elysium's abundance, but he does outline the political structure of Elysium. The place has a president, but the real power lies with a ruthless security official (Jodie Foster).
I didn't keep precise track, but I'm guessing that for about an hour Elysium really clicks. At its best, the movie qualifies as an unusually smart helping of sci-fi, a convincing picture of an economically fractured future.

The visual environment (Max lives in a ravaged Los Angeles) is vividly imagined, and, in general, the special effects have top-of-the-line appeal.

Once the movie reaches Elysium, though, it starts to fall apart, sacrificing its intelligence for a more typical payload of futuristic gunplay and violent mayhem.

The performances are uniformly good, although Foster's character is so one-dimensional that she tends to come off as brittle, a woman with a close-cropped haircut and a disapproving look, as if an impudent journalist has dared to ask Foster about something she'd rather not discuss.

Damon does a good job as the sort of everyman who has special qualities of character and a bit of soul.

By its conclusion, Elysium leaves you disappointed and bemused; there's plenty of talent on display and enough obvious intelligence to have elevated the film had the obviously gifted Blomkamp -- who also wrote the screenplay -- been able to follow his best instincts to the finish line.

'Europa Report' puts premium on credibility

Ever since 2001: A Space Odyssey wowed audiences in 1968, moviegoers have been wondering what it might be like to make a long-distance journey into the deepest recesses of space. We're not talking about Star Wars, Star Trek or any other of the popular sci-fi franchises that zip around space as if it were an extension of some earthbound freeway. We're talking about movies give audiences a feel for the rigors, loneliness and dangers of space travel.

The latest -- and one of the best of these -- is Europa Report, a carefully designed movie about a manned mission to Europa, the moon of Jupiter where scientists (real ones) recently discovered water under an icy surface. Ecuadorian director Sebastian Cordero has made a movie in which a committed crew sets out to learn whether the presence of water also means the presence of life.

If Europa Report had been a typical helping of sci-fi, hideous aliens would await the movie's crew. But Cordero, his actors and production team are more interested in creating a sense of authenticity than in providing cheap thrills -- or even expensive thrills. Europa Report is not a no-budget movie, but it's not a lavish out-pouring of special effects, either. Cordero builds his movie around the realistically designed and very cramped quarters of a spacecraft that's on a long journey away from Earth, the farthest any humans have ever traveled from their home planet.

None of this is to say that Europa Report is uneventful. Nine months into the mission, the crew loses its ability to contact Earth, and we brace for the worst.

When I read that Europa Report was going to try to convince us that we're watching a story assembled from footage recovered from the voyage, I shuddered. I'm sick of the kind of found-footage conceits that have pushed too many horror movies toward woozy incoherence. Europa Report feels different, probably because it tempers deep-space adventure with intelligence and because the actors aren't forced into cliched bickering and faux displays of bravado.

Some of the story is told by a representative (Embeth Davidtz) of the company that sponsored the mission. The movie's crew -- which dominates the proceedings -- may not played by marquee names, but a diverse cast convinces us of its devotion to science and to its responsibilities. Crew members don't have amped-up battles with one another over trivial matters. The men don't flirt with the women. And the women don't try to convince us that they're more macho than the men. Everyone focuses on the mission, and, as the story develops, the crew deals with a variety of tense situations, some of them reaching crisis proportions.

Cordero had the good sense to employ Enrique Chediak (127 Hours) as his cinematographer and Eugenio Caballero as his production designer. This duo deserves as much credit as the actors for creating a bit of science fiction that encourages us to feel the enthusiasm of a crew on a historic mission, the awe of traveling the vast distances of empty space and the loneliness that derives from moving farther and farther from the planet we all call home.

'2 Guns:' watchable but empty

Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg have violent fun as reluctant allies.

Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are the headliners in 2 Guns, a thriller about two reluctant allies who find themselves at odds with Mexican drug lords, the CIA, the DEA and just about any other individual or agency the screenplay decides to throw at them.

Warming to their buddy movie chores, Washington and Wahlberg more than hold their own, but the overly convoluted 2 Guns wallows in the dirt of governmental and criminal corruption without having much to say about either.

For all its attempts at winning the summer movie grit-stakes, 2 Guns stands as a lightweight drama punctuated by heavy gunfire, bursts of sadistic violence and familiar action elements such as car-crushing collisions and fiery explosions. The movie might have been better had it paid more attention to its title: Two guns would have been plenty.

As is often the case with this kind of thriller, we have to look to the supporting cast for additional color. Although he's playing a character who defies plausibility, Bill Paxton registers as a brutal CIA agent with a sadistic streak, a southern accent and a cowboy look. Edward James Olmos plays a drug kingpin who greets almost any situation with a world-weary attitude. He's like a drug-dealing grandpa who occasionally orders up a few murders.

Paula Patton is mostly wasted as a DEA agent who provides an opportunity for a sex scene.

Although, 2 Guns seldom proves boring, it's ultimately an inconsequential helping of action that comes equipped with car chases and gun battles that seem to function as safety devices, elements that feel as if they've been included to make the story palatable for summer audiences for whom seriousness is about as welcome as a case of West Nile Virus.

Director Baltasar Kormákur, who directed Wahlberg in 2012's Contraband, has has made a pseudo-adult movie in which scenes of considerable brutality have momentary shock value, but don't really add up to much of anything.

Watching Washington work is never difficult and Wahlberg certainly keeps pace, but 2 Guns feels awfully scattered. The movie tries to touch so many bases, it almost forgets what game it's trying to play.

A Danish town without pity

A teacher is falsely accused of molesting a child.

Big-screen horror usually involves stomach-turning amounts of blood and gore, much of it resulting from paranormal invasions into ordinary life. Even when applied with skill, the chills of contemporary horror tend to cast other-worldly shadows.

A different and far more unsettling form of horror derives from events that unfold without the presence of demonic forces. We're talking about the kind of nightmares that result from recognizable behavior.

The Hunt -- a Danish movie from director Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration) -- is one such movie, a serious and powerful demonstration of what can happen when a man is falsely accused of child molestation.

Focusing on a kindergarten teacher (Mads Mikkelsen) in a small Danish town, Vinterberg tells a story in which a lie told by a child threatens to ruin the lives of the teacher and his teen-age son.

The Hunt can't be classified as a thriller because there's never any question about the teacher's innocence. Rather, The Hunt shows how the town's residents -- fueled by righteous indignation -- quickly turn against a friend and neighbor.

Mikkelsen has appeared in mainstream cinematic efforts such as Quantum of Solace and in last year's A Royal Affair. Here, he plays a bespectacled teacher who looks more like Clark Kent than Henry Cavill, the actor who portrayed Superman in the recently released Man of Steel.

Mikkelsen's Lucas has been teaching in a kindergarten because the high school where he taught closed. Before he becomes the object of the town's scorn, he enjoys hearty friendships with the men of the town, who like to hunt and drink. They're a beefy crowd, guys who revel in a the kind of camaraderie that involves taking verbal jabs at one another.

Lucas also is fighting with his ex-wife about the amount of time he's allowed to spend with Marcus (Lasse Fogelstrom), his teen-age son. He'd like the boy to live with him, something Marcus also wants.

What's frightening about Lucas's story is the way in which he becomes isolated. Even a new girlfriend (Alexandra Rapaport) expresses a bit of doubt about him.

In the absence of proof that Lucas molested anyone, the case comes down to Lucas's word against the word of an angelic looking schoolgirl (Annika Wedderkopp). Wedderkopp's Klara acts out a childish and vengeful game, prompted by a pornographic image her older brother briefly (and thoughtlessly) showed her.

I don't know whether Vinterberg was inspired by the current tendency to put children on a pedestal, but the town's people and, more importantly Lucas's boss at the school, tend to believe the girl's story. Children don't lie, the principal insists.

The head of the school doesn't simply investigate, which she's obligated to do. She and others connect the dots in a story that Klara not only invents but later recants.

To add to the complexity of the situation, Klara is the daughter of Lucas's best friend (Thomas Bo Larsen).

The Hunt takes a harrowing look at small town dynamics that threaten to turn a good man into a pariah. To me, that's far more terrifying than most of the demons that haunt today's multiplex screens. What's frightening about Lucas's plight is that it's an all-too-possible ordeal.

A marraige in its twilight years

Still together -- and still in love.

At least two unforgivable sins can be committed by movies that have been made with an eye on the box-office. One involves telling a story about older people. In a youth-oriented culture, that's a definite "no-no." The second: making a movie about aging without resorting to artery-clogging expressions of sentiment.

To its credit, Still Mine avoids the traps that snare too many movies about aging. A straight-forward and modest piece of work, Still Mine offers a clear-eyed but tender view of a marriage that has lasted more than 60 years.

Director Michael McGowan tells the story of a Canadian husband and wife who have reached their late 80s, and are dealing with the inevitable ravishments of advanced age, most notably the wife's increasingly severe loss of short-term memory.

James Cromwell gives a fine and steady performance as 87-year-old Craig Morrison, a farmer whose wife (Genevieve Bujold) is slipping mentally.

To add to the couple's problems, the farmhouse in which the they raised their seven children is becoming too much for either of them to handle. Aware of their decreasing ability to cope, Craig decides to build a smaller, one-story house on his property, a task that becomes more urgent when Bujold's Irene falls and breaks a hip.

Enter a low-key plot: Morrison's construction efforts put him at odds with a persistent building inspector (Jonathan Potts), a bureaucrat who insists on enforcing code regulations that mean little to Morrison. He knows how to build a house, and can't understand why he can't do whatever the hell he wants on his property, a spacious 2,000-acre piece of land in New Brunswick.

To Cromwell's credit, Morrison doesn't come across as one more grumpy old man, a cantankerous standard bearer for outmoded values. Just when you think that Morrison might fly off the handle, Cromwell reigns in his emotions. Morrison does on occasion become angry, but Cromwell refuses to deprive him of intelligence, balance and wit.

Neither Cromwell nor Bujold looks old enough to be in deep into their 80s, but it doesn't much matter because the two actors create a touching portrait of people who've spent nearly their entire lives together. Craig and Irene know each other's moves, moods, shortcomings and strengths.

As the movie progresses, Morrison must watch as his wife endures further mental deterioration: He reaches a point at which he no longer can cover for her. One of the couple's sons (Rick Roberts) does his best to convince his father that his mother needs help, but McGowan doesn't push the family dynamics to aggrieved extremes.

The story of a determined man facing an inflexible bureaucracy is serviceable enough to move the movie along, but Cromwell and Bujold are responsible for putting the noodles into what otherwise could have been a very thin broth.

Filmed with clarity and precision that respects the Canadian landscape without romanticizing it, Still Mine -- which is based on a true story, stands as a portrait of a marriage that has sustained two people. This husband and wife may not be at their peak, but their feelings for each other still run deep.

That's good news here for those of us who, by the minute, are getting longer in the tooth. Age can't be avoided, but it needn't rob one of love.