Podcast: Is Ex-Machina Great or Slightly Flat?

Katey Rich rejoins Joe Reid and Nathaniel R to discuss Alex Garland's buzzy sci-fi artificial intelligence thriller Ex Machina, now A24's biggest box office hit. Amir Soltani, from Hello Cinema & TFE, guest stars. This podcast is filled with many spoilers about a surprising movie so please see the movie before listening, if you haven't made it to the theater yet.

Running Time - 43 Minutes
00:01 Intros, Randomness, Cannes project
06:00 Ex Machina - Misleading promos vs going in cold
11:22 [SPOILERS]  - Mood versus Substance, sexual issues and slavery metaphor, Princess and Mad Scientist and Frankenstein Tropes, seduction and porn profiles. And we're split on the ending. [/SPOILERS]
29:45 What else we're excited about this summer
36:20 Reader Questions: Bald women, Oscar Isaac
41:50 Goodbyes

Please to enjoy and continue the conversation in the comments. You can listen at the bottom of this post or download from iTunes.  

Further Reading (Related/Referenced): Nick's Cannes Jury / 1995 Retrospective; Michael's Ex Machina Review; Nathaniel's Oscar Isaac Tweet; Stephen Whitty's The Third Man Tweet; Ava's Drawings & Sessions; Ricki & The Flash trailer

Ex Machina

Supporting Actress Chatter: Alicia, Julie, Kristen, Judy, Etc...

Alicia Vikander as Gerta Wegener in "The Danish Girl": Supporting or Lead?2015 hasn't brought us much in the way of stellar supporting actressing quite yet, with the exception of César winning Kristen Stewart in Clouds of Sils Maria. It helps that it's practically a lead role and she holds her own with one of the world's most hypnotic talents (Juliette Binoche). The other possibly key player that's already been seen by the lucky ones who attended the Sundance Film Festival is Julie Walters from Brooklyn (reviewed). She's a scene stealing delight as the strict landlady of the girl's boarding house where the heroine (Saoirse Ronan) lives and definitely has enough screentime to make a play for a nomination should the film be well received in general release. 

Otherwise for Oscar Predictions we have to venture into the great unknown.

Most Likely To Succeed, at least sight unseen, is 2015's 'it girl' Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, The Danish Girl, Seventh Son, The Light Between Oceans, The Man From UNCLE, Testament of Youth, Adam Jones, Tulip Fever ...Yes, she has 8 movies slated for US release this year - take that Jessica Chastain!) It's tough to imagine her missing if The Danish Girl is any good because she's a terrific actress and the role is amazing, too. She's playing the erotica painter Gerda Wegener who supported her husband (Eddie Redmayne) as he became the titular character in the world's first sex reassignment surgery. Is the role large enough to campaign in Best Actress? This early in any film year most questions have no answers.

Early 'anything could happen' oscar predictions give us a unique opportunity to fantasize about comebacks too, should the films play and the reviews be kind. Which of these possible comeback queens will you be rooting hardest for: Jennifer Jason Leigh, The Hateful Eight; Judy Davis, The Dressmaker; Parker Posey, Irrational Man; Kate Winslet, Steve Jobs (well comeback to Oscar glory that is)?

Kate Winslet and Judy Davis on the set of "The Dressmaker". They play mother & daughter.

See the Supporting Actress Chart here and please do discuss EVERYONE in the comments. You know you want to and you know you you love this category almost or as much as Best Actress (which will be our grand finale to the April Foolish Predictions tomorrow). 

Review: Ex Machina

Michael C.   returning for review duties. 

Science fiction stories have wondered for ages if people will accept technology that simulates human behavior, but honestly, it probably won’t be much of a struggle. The robots will win in a walk. The urge to empathize is hard wired into the human psyche. I can remember when I was young, watching other kids develop deep emotional bonds to plastic eggs with crude blinking pixel displays just because they were called digital pets. What chance does the species have when a robot arrives with supermodel looks and a subtle range of emotion, one that can take you by the hand, gazes deeply into your eyes and say, “I love you” like it means it? Game over, man...

Click to read more ...

Posterized: Alex Garland of "Ex Machina" Fame

My schedule has been in complete disarray so I haven't yet seen Ex-Machina, opening today in limited release, but I've heard many thumbs up from the critical community. 

 As an early adopter of this year's "it" girl, Alicia Vikander, I'm excited to see her as a cyborg or whatever she plays in the movie. But we'll get around to Alicia and her men (Domnhall Gleeson & Oscar Isaac) after we see the picture.

Ex Machina (2015) marks Alex Garland's directorial debut but his name is already a familiar one at the movies from adaptations of two of his novels, and as a screenwriter himself. He has also served as an executive producer on a few movies, not pictured here like 28 Weeks Later (2007) which of course spun off from the film he wrote, and this summer's Big Game (2015) an action film starring Samuel L Jackson as the President of the USA. 

HOW MANY GARLAND-RELATED FILMS HAVE YOU SEEN?

THE BEACH (2000) based on his novel
28 DAYS LATER (2002) original screenplay
THE TESSERACT (2003) based on his novel
SUNSHINE (2007) original screenplay
NEVER LET ME GO (2009) his screenplay adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro's novel
DREDD  (2012) his screenplay adaptation based of the comic strip character Judge Dredd

If you've read any of his novels -- the only one that hasn't been adapted for the screen is "The Coma" -- you win bonus points, and must share your feelings. It's the law.

Link Block Tango

HAPPY HANGOVER DAY. I kid I kid. I never drink on St Patrick's Day because who wants to be a cliche? I was too caught up in The Quiet Man but I also got stuck on a subway for hours. Oy so I'm off to a very late start today and last night's roundup post didn't go as well and I missed a few. So make sure to check that out again for all the updates. Definitely check out I/fwp because we always love it when we get a newbie set of eyeballs to this series, so here's a loving cinephile husband on this movie that he wouldn't have seen if not for his wife.

THE LINKS
W Magazine Alicia Vikander photoshoot by Willy Vanderperre. I'm so anxious to see her in Ex-Machina. Loved her breakout parts in Anna Karenina, A Royal Affair. Can she keep it up?
Playbill a new TV sitcom for Megan Hilty in which she plays a former Tony-winning musical star adapting to life as a soccer mom. Ummm... unless she sings every episode this will make me crazy
BBC wonders if sexual fantasy can be filmed looking at 50 Shades of Grey, The Duke of Burgundy, Eyes Wide Shut and more
A Fistful of Films looks back for his birthday to his formative films in this epic post. I love personal blogging like this 

In Contention with Suffragette and The Danish Girl, will Focus Features on the forthcoming Oscar season?
Variety John Williams is not doing Steven Spielberg's Bridge of Spies due to a health issue "that's been resolved". But then why is he also not doing the new Star Wars (with Alexandre Desplat taking over). John Williams is 83 years old so this worries. Best wishes for a speedy recoveries.
The Dissolve looks at The Jinx and wonders why Andrew Jarecki's Robert Durst fascination worked so much better than it did back in All Good Things (2010). I didn't watch The Jinx because a) I'm not that into documentaries, b) I didn't like All Good Things and c) I'll miss Kirsten Dunst too much who was so excellent in Jarecki's first attempt at the story
Pajiba predicts the date of the end of the superhero craze. Ostensibly this post is about Jason Momoa and silly comic book wards
Variety on the Paley Center's celebration of the women in American Horror Story. Connie Britton and Kathy Bates quotes
Empire because Hollywood cannot leave the 80s alone we'll soon have a remake of that Roy Scheider helicopter movie Blue Thunder. This is not what that article is about but it's what we're always about: the one subsection of 80s hits that the studios don't seem to be mining for remakes are all the the actressy ones, you know the Goldie Hawn / Sally Field / Debra Winger / Kathleen Turner type blockbusters.
The Guardian on Disney's Princess franchise box office and the strong first weeks of The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
cinematically insane on The Smartest Girl in Town (1936) and Pre-Code love (though this one isn't) in general.

MNPP celebrates Jai Courtney. Confession: My favorite part of Jai Courtney (and there are a lot of good parts) is Jai Courtney's nose. I was sad that it lived to smell no more after the plane crash in Unbroken.
MNPP actually Jason celebrates Jai Courtney twice over. But in this second link it's Jai Courtney celebrating Jai Courtney but Jai Courtney isn't focused on his nose. How many times do you think I can type Jai Courtney in this post? Jai Courtney.

Speaky of hunky deliciousness.. two more takeaways. The first is a new quad teaser poster for 007's next outing Spectre. Craig's first three outing got him in a bathing suit at least once. (Or wait, did Quantum of Solace skip that? -- if so, no wonder it's the worst of the three) but will Spectre? 

Finally...
From the annual Broadway Backwards concert, which raised almost half a million dollars, an all male rendition of Chicago's classic "Cell Block Tango" -- Pop! Six! Squish! Uh uh, Cicero, Lipschitz!

My favorite is #17 the Spread Eagle but L-O-V-E the linguistic swish/switch-up to "uh uh" -hee!