JOBS By Brenton Thom JOBS is a biopic about Apple Computers founder Steve Jobs, played by Ashton Kutcher. The film chronicles Jobs from his time spent at Reed College (from which he dropped out) to the invention of the iPod. After dropping out of college, unsure of what to do with his life and wanting his independence, he travels to India and experiments with LSD. This was the 70’s, mind you, so it must have been a common thing. Jobs eventually gets a job at Atari and works in developing games for home TV’s. Irritated by working with others (and with people not having higher expectations), he takes a new game design on by himself. Frustrated, he turns to his childhood friend Steve Wozniak (portrayed by Josh Gad). During their collaboration, Jobs discovers Wozniak’s pet project - the home computer. Still a prototype, Jobs persuades Wozniak to move forward with this project, and after many failed pitches and attempts, Jobs and Wozniak find someone interested in it. From there, they are off to the races. Over time, Jobs begins to alienate his friends and loved ones. He obsesses over his work. That’s the story in a nutshell, with character conflicts, corporate rivalry, and obsessions with work. I have to say the strongest thing in this flick is the performance by Josh Gad. Wozniak is by far the most interesting character in this film, and Gad’s performance is excellent. He brings emotion, and you connect and care for his character. Ashton Kutcher’s performance is another story. Although I don’t think Kutcher is a bad actor, I think he's only okay here. On the plus side, his imitation of Jobs is spot on. He has the mannerisms and even body language down, but my problem with that is it feels more like an impression or a copy effect. We don’t actually get to see Kutcher portraying or using his acting skills. It feels like he is just copying someone else – Steve Jobs. Again, I thought his “impression” was good, but that’s all it really was. Kutcher played a good young Steve Jobs, and even older Jobs when he introduces the iPod, but it’s the middle-aged Jobs where it gets a bit dicey. The stuff Jobs says and does at this point in the story just doesn’t feel right. Kutcher is just too young in his life to say some of the things that maturity/wisdom gives at that point in life. For example, Jobs pokes fun and says “How anyone could sleep that much,” referring to his daughter sleeping through breakfast, and yet in the beginning of the movie, we see Jobs sleeping all day. One of the cool touches was they showed the famous 1984 trailer for the Apple Macintosh in the movie. That very trailer was shot by director Ridley Scott. So this biopic had that going for it! Overall, the film was okay. If you are a die-hard Apple brand fan, I’d say check out the movie so you can see how much this product means to you. If you are the everyday person, kind of like me, I’d say wait until DVD. This movie isn’t anything fancy and nothing terribly ground breaking. You can get the complete bio story in a magazine biography or Wikipedia page. But it’s interesting to see it portrayed on the big screen. My only issue is if this guy was such a big deal, why did they only make a movie about Steve Jobs? There should be a counterpart movie (not sequel) that follows Bill Gates. Those two have been rivals since the beginning of home computers. But again, I think this is a movie that can wait until DVD. PLANES By Brenton Thom PLANES is a Disney film that takes place in the universe of Pixar's CARS series (though Pixar itself was not involved in the production of this film). The story follows Rusty, a countryside crop duster who dreams of racing the skies against the fast fighter jets. His dreams are shattered by the people around him who say he doesn’t have a chance to fly high and fast. He goes out and trains with a friend and enters in a preliminary for a race around the world with other prop planes from various parts of the world. He competes with determination, and after another competitor gets caught with fuel mixing use and is disqualified, Rusty gets to spread his wings. The only trouble is that Rusty's afraid of heights and prefers to fly low to the ground. Rusty trains with an old World War II fighter plane and uses his training to slowly crawl his way up the ranks. Rusty is voiced by comedian Dane Cook and various other seasoned actors take on the supporting roles. At first I was a bit reluctant to see this movie. I was never a fan of CARS, but in my opinion, PLANES is a better story and a step up from CARS. I have never seen the sequel, CARS 2, so I can’t say if that had a better story, but so far what these two movies have in common is the main character wants to race and voice actor John Cleese has a performance in there as a British car and plane (respectively). One of the things PLANES has going for it is that it’s an underdog story. Rusty - an unlikely flyer, being a slow crop duster – makes friends along the way and uses special flying techniques to inch his way forward to the finish line. We get to see a lot of cool visuals in this movie; flying to exaggerated foreign lands, we get to see a lot of interesting locales. We also meet some very colorful characters along the way. I can’t really get into much detail of the movie without spoiling it, but it’s a true underdog story. It gives the message that you can do more than what you were “meant or built to do.” It gives a sense of hope that we can all go out and make our lives great. It takes determination and a never-quit attitude to make it. One of the things that did disappoint me about this movie was the buildup of military history in the flick. We see fighter jets and some cool aviation stuff, but I thought we’d see more with fighter jets, or even maybe touch on WWII veterans, or something (though there is some of that with Rusty’s trainer being a prop fighter from WWII). I was hoping there were going to be old bombers in there, or old military planes that where phased out. But alas, with all the aviators in this movie, it’s hard to fit them all in. So I guess this movie is basically a big moral fable and motivational booster. Overall, I actually enjoyed the movie. For most movie fans, I'd recommend waiting until it’s on DVD, but for the family and kids, I’d say take ‘em to the cinema. It’s fun to see on the big screen. They do a good job balancing kid humor and adult humor in there (I did laugh at some moments the kids didn’t laugh at, for instance). All in all, I enjoyed it.
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