The Chillingly Brilliant EX MACHINA Out This Week on Blu Ray/DVD

EX MACHINA

(Dir. Alex Garland, 2015)

It�s time to take a break from all the summer sequels and highly hyped blockbuster wannabes clogging up the multiplexes, and take note that one of the best films of the year, Alex Garland�s sleek, dark sci-fi thriller EX MACHINA drops this week on Blu ray and DVD. Despite critical acclaim, it quietly came and went in theaters early this year, but I bet it�ll build its deserved audience quickly on home video.

Domhnall Gleeson (HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS PARTS I & II, ABOUT TIME, FRANK) plays Caleb Smith, a programmer at the Google-esque internet search engine giant Bluebook, who wins first prize in a companywide lottery. This entitles Caleb to a week�s stay at the home of the company�s reclusive CEO, located on his vast mountain estate (location never specified, but filmed in Norway).

In another solidly intense performance, Oscar Isaac (head shaved, but sporting a bushy beard) portrays the CEO, Nathan Bateman, who tells Caleb in their first meeting that his impressive compound of glass, stone, and shiny surfaces isn�t a house, it�s a research facility. After he gets him to sign a non disclosure form, Nathan reveals to Caleb that he�s built an android with Artificial Intelligence and that he wants Caleb to be the human component in the Turing Test - �when a human interacts with a computer, and if the human doesn�t know they�re interacting with a computer � the test is passed.�

Caleb is introduced to the AI, Ava (Alicia Vikander), who via CGI has parts that are transparent, and their sessions begin. Caleb speaks to Ava through a glass wall of an observation room, and, of course, develops an attraction to her. Nathan monitors their conversations on surveillance cameras, but during a power outage (something that happens often, Nathan explains) Ava warns Caleb that �Nathan is not your friend.�

There are other red flags that Nathan, who�s constantly boozing it up, is a modernized version of the classic mad scientist character �he�s hacked into the cell phones of billions, the contest was a smokescreen for this experiment, there is footage of other AI models desperately (and destructively) trying to escape , and he may have programmed Ava to flirt with Caleb.

There is only one other cast member - Kyoko, a Japanese housemaid (Sonoya Mizuno) who speaks no English but definitely has some dance moves as we see when a yet again drunken Nathan tries to get a party going with she and Caleb.

The directorial debut of screenwriter Alex Garland (28 DAYS LATER, NEVER LET ME GO, and DREDD) EX MACHINA is sharply constructed � there�s not a misplaced line, shot, or story beat and Geoff Barrow and Glenn Salisbury�s eerie electronic score effectively connects it all together.

Gleeson�s role is similar to his part in FRANK � a smart ambitious guy who gets way in over his head trying to be a part of something grand � but his acting is more focused here. His nervous exchanges, playing off of Isaac�s rich genius cockiness, give the film its humanity. However it�s the kind of humanity that may seal our race�s doom. 

It's easy to see why Gleeson's Caleb would fall for Vikander's alluring Ava, even when he's trying to keep in mind that she's a machine, albeit sentient. Vikander tops off the trio of terrific performances, and makes the viewer go through their own personal take on the Turing Test as well.

It builds brilliantly from an intriguing think piece into a thriller, that�s both psychological and technological, with an ending that floored me then stuck around to haunt me for days. This is cerebral film making of the highest order � Stanley Kubrick, who Isaac says in one of the bonus features that he patterned his character after, would�ve loved it.



Special Features: The 5-Part Featurette �Through the Looking Glass: Creating EX MACHINA,� 8 Behind-the-Scenes vignettes, and SXSW Q & A with cast and crew that's intermittently interesting if you've got an hour to kill.



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A MOST VIOLENT YEAR: The Film Babble Blog Review

Now playing at an indie art house near me (and a few multiplexes):

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR

(Dir. J.C. Chandor, 2014)

The poster picture for this movie lists actors Oscar Isaac and Jessica Chastain in succession with the description �New York City, 1981.� That seems to suggest that New York City, circa �81 is as much a star of the movie of those two leads. But really it�s just the NYC skyline, with the World Trade Center�s twin towers present in many shots, that counts as a principle player here.

Isaac commands the screen with cool, cunning confidence as Abel Morales, a Columbian immigrant who�s looking to close a major waterfront land deal (that happens to have an amazing view of Manhattan) so he can expand his heating oil company. 



With his delicately coiffed hair, Armani suits, cashmere camel coat, and cultivated demeanor, Isaac channels GODFATHER PART II-era Al Pacino. Close-ups of Isaac even brought to my mind Mort Drucker�s caricatures of Pacino in old �70s issues of Mad Magazine.

But Isaac�s Abel is like if Pacino�s Michael Corleone actually meant it when he told his wife he wanted the family business to be completely legitimate. �I've spent my whole life trying not to become a gangster,� Abel tells his wife Anna, sharply played by Jessica Chastain, dressed in chic �80s fashions.

Abel believes in the American dream, but Anna, the daughter of a local mob boss, has a more lived-in cynical perspective, especially since recent events involving their trucks getting hijacked by unknown rivals, and a smooth district attorney (David Oyelowo, in quite a distinctly different persona than MLK Jr. in SELMA) building a case to charge them for white-collar tax fraud, have placed their deal in jeopardy.

Because of the violent hijackings, one of which put a young driver (Elyes Gabel) in the hospital, a Teamster rep (Peter Gerety) tells Abel to arm his employees but he refuses, saying that it �would be the end of everything we worked for. If one of these guys shoots someone, they will bring me down for it.�

Abel also refuses to live in a fortress with guards, even after he chases off a man with a gun lurking outside his new palatial mansion in the suburbs of Westchester.

Albert Brooks, who, like in his Oscar-nominated part in DRIVE (which also featured Isaac), is again playing against type, this time with a wig of thin blonde hair as Abel�s wise lawyer and confidant. Except for a couple of well-worded scenes, notably one in which he asks Isaac: �Why do you want this so badly?�, Brooks isn�t given a lot to do, but his presence is still seriously appreciated.

The pressure is on as time is running out for Abel to raise the needed cash, and find out who�s behind the hijackings, but Abel keeps his cool. That is until he personally involves himself, chasing down one of the hijacking thugs and trying to beat out of them who they work for.

A MOST VIOLENT YEAR, which is only intermittently violent, doesn�t much resemble writer/director J.C. Chandor�s previous films - the financial cliffhanger MARGIN CALL, and the Robert Redford lost at sea drama ALL IS LOST - except in being about practical-minded people trying to survive. Just three films in, Chandor is already building an impressive filmography, one that�s steeped in styles learned from the masters, yet tempered by his own edgy vision.

While Chandor layers his film with echoes of Francis Ford Coppola, Brian De Palma, Sidney Lumet, and Martin Scorsese, the cinematography of Bradford Young, who also shot SELMA, brings to mind the darkness of the late, great Gordon Willis� camerawork. The spare lighting adds shadowy nuance to the proceedings, particularly in a scene involving the meeting of the oil company heads around a table in the back of an Italian restaurant (yes, another GODFATHER-ish bit).

Sadly this excellent, moody, impeccably acted film was overlooked Oscar nomination-wise. For her tough, take-no-shit, New Jersey-accented performance, I thought Chastain would get one for sure. When she takes charge, like when she shoots a deer that they hit with their car because Isaac was hesitating to kill it with a crowbar or when she calls her husband a �pussy,� she�s completely convincing as a woman who�s been around and knows the real stakes.

But Isaac is the true owner of the film. A simple closing of his eyes in disappointment conveys volumes, and his determination to gain more power and control (witness the aforementioned war council scene) without losing his dignity provides the foundation for Isaac�s finest acting yet. Despite his headlining the Coen brothers� INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS and a bunch of other choice roles, Isaac isn�t a household name yet, but while roles in STAR WARS and X-MEN sequels may change that in the next year, this film is the one that really deserves to be his breakthrough.

The film strains to emphasize that this guy is a better, more moral minded man than Michael Corleone, but as much as he feels that he�s immune from corruption, it�s a necessary evil with which he must compromise.

So many New York movies set in the same period shy away from showing the WTC towers in the skyline, but here they are always present � often out of focus, way off in the background, but always present. Chandor�s film doesn�t have to spell out what they represent in Abel�s quest for success in a harsh, dangerous economy; one can feel it every time they are glimpsed.

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