No preface, just inspired by the 'I'm That Jew' slam poetry super cut. As OITNB's Cindy said 'It feels good to be chosen'. PS. I omitted iconic members of my tribe like Spielberg, Woody Allen, Billy Crystal, Jonah Hill, etc. I just don't have that much time. Pouring out a glass of Manischewitz for my homies...
That Tattoo'd and Can't Be Buried in a Jewish Cemetery Jew...
Adam Levine
The My Mother is Jewish Therefore I'm Jewish Jew...
James Franco
That Really Annoying Giggly Jew...
Natalie Portman
That Hotter Beyond All Reason Jew...
Mila Kunis
That Bad Boy Jew...
Sean Penn
That Original Bad Boy Jew...
Robert Downey Jr.
That Giggles and Ha-Ha's Jew...
Andy Samberg
That Still Funny After All This Time Jew...
David Schwimmer (Pivot!)
That Uber Nerd Jew...
Jesse Eisenberg
That Head of a Reality TV Empire Jew...
Andy Cohen
That All Too Jewish Looking Jew...
Adrien Brody
That Not Jewish Looking At All Jew...
Alicia Silverstone
That Still Hot For Nearly 50 Jew...
Sarah Silverman
That Still Hot and In His 60's Jew...
Jeff Goldblum (Life uh uh...finds a way. And, you're welcome)
That British Jew...
Daniel Radcliffe
That Other British Jew...
Andrew Garfield
That Voice of a Generation Jew...
Amy Schumer
That He Grew Up Nice Jew...
Joseph Gordon-Levitt
That Gone All Too Soon Jew...
Amy Winehouse
That Hot for Four Decades Jew...
Jennifer Connelly
That Soviet Defector Russian Jew...
Sergey Brin (Holla! ...or Challah!)
That OG Hot Jew...
Dustin Hoffman
That Get Your Hands Off Him That's My Husband Jew...
Joaquin Phoenix
That Get Your Hands Off Her That's My Wife Jew...
Rashida Jones
That I Did It All For America Jew...
Evan Lysacek
That No I Will Not Quaf My Jew-Fro Jew...
Slash
That Hug It Out Bitch Jew...
Jeremy Piven
That Somewhat Menacing Jew...
Jake Gylenhaal
That One Jew to Rule Them All Jew...
That Reason For Your Sexual Awakening Jew...
The My Mom Made Me Include Him On This List Jew...
Seth Rogen
That Seth Rogen's Best Friend and Perfect Jew Jew...
'Musicians play the instruments, I play the orchestra.'
I'm just as excited to see the Steve Jobs movie as you are. A couple of things are already raising flags. Let's go down the list shall we?
1. Marketing is smoking something. Every TV spot I see for Steve Jobs starts out great. It's the titular character (played by Michael Fassbender) narrating; 'The two most significant events of the 20th century; the allies win the war, and this...' exposing the first ever Apple Mac. Awesome. I'm in. In fact, the History Channel just put the smart phone (which doesn't have to be an iPhone but come on) as the #1 invention of all time. But then it's 25 more seconds about the fact that he won't acknowledge his illegitimate daughter like he's Henry VIII or something. Who cares? No one. Steve Jobs is not a figure about whom the personal life is important. Do we care about Thomas Edison's sex capades? Me thinks not. As literally the second greatest inventor since the aforementioned Edison, Steve Jobs interests most of us as a pioneer of technology and a pillar of innovation. Why even put that in the movie in the first place? But that's a different story. The trailer is great, especially when Wozniak (Seth Rogen) asks him; 'what do you do? You're not an engineer you don't write code, so WHAT DO YOU DO?' It is great for exposition, and pretty much right on target considering no one took Steve Jobs seriously initially because he didn't really DO anything, he was a designer as far as Silicon Valley was concerned. But to market the film as a lazy Lifetime movie is just stupid. It will appeal to women, Fassbender is in it, so you don't have to pander to that demographic.
Boyle (left) converses with Fassbender and Rogen in between takes.
2. After The Social Network (2010), we all expected that the creative union of Aaron Sorkin and David Fincher would continue. Unfortunately they divorced, and out of all directors who are great at this kind of no-holds-barred bio-pic, and can handle the biting writing of Aaron Sorkin, it's definitely not Danny Boyle. I know he's made some great films; well one or two. Personally I think the man's only good ones are Trainspotting (1996) and 28 Days Later (2002). This is far too big a mountain for him to climb. Also, the film is about technological innovation as I said. Who handles that awesomely? Fincher. Which movie was so perfect it's almost subliminal? The Social Network. I'm sure we'll all be sitting there thinking; 'I wish Fincher had directed this'. This is a pretty heavy assumption, but that's what I'll be thinking.
'I can't wait for you to think of a proper metaphor' the words of Sorkin are music to my ears.
3. In terms of award season fodder, I'm skeptical. As much as I love Fassbender, and how method he is, and basically flawless as an actor, he doesn't seem like he's the strongest performer in the movie. I really hope that this doesn't turn into a film where the main character doesn't even carry his own story. The supporting roles already seem to be played with more gusto and bravado. But all that the trailer shows me is that Fassbender has a great wardrobe department (that's a given considering Jobs famously only wore black turtlenecks and dad jeans) and has the voice down. Ergo, when it comes to the Oscars, we might see the exact kind of backlash we saw with overhyped films like The Social Network. I know all of the principals are going to be nominated, but honestly, I don't see a win in any of their futures (perhaps because I'm rooting for Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl and can't possibly conceive of saying 'Oscar winner Seth Rogen', but only time will tell.
4. Just to sing Fincher's praises a bit more, I don't think anyone understands that dark side of humanity in all of us better than him. He's proved it again and again with Se7en,Gone Girl, and AGAIN The Social Network. Danny Boyle is a few clicks away from being Baz Luhrmann; as in style without substance. Fincher tells the story of a person that is unbelievably flawed but is somehow, through Fincher magic, is endearing. Boyle, not so much. Steve Jobs is in essence a character study. It's the Citizen Kane of the technological revolution; the story of a man who gains the world and loses his soul. Boyle loves spectacle, whereas Fincher loves deep and complex personal stories no matter what the setting is. He looks at the characters before he looks to the aesthetic. Boyle, in my opinion, does the exact opposite.
Sorkin's don't-fuck-with-me face.
5. Maybe I'm just being a nit picky bitch here, but I get frustrated when a story that is inherently American, not in a flimsy patriotic way, but where being American is so important to the story is directed by a British guy. It's like when people were outraged that Milos Forman (a Soviet defector) made One Flew Over a Cuckoo's Nest (1975), which was very clearly an indictment of American culture. The only thing is, Forman is an infallible director and he pulled it off and no one gave an argument when he, his film, and his actors, all won Academy Awards. Steve Jobs, like Marilyn Monroe and Superman, is an American icon. And the setting of his losses and triumphs highly effects his destiny. I'm not saying that Jim Sheridan, Neil Jordan, or Ken Loach can't make American movies, but have you ever seen one? I know Neil Jordan directed Interview with the Vampire (1994) but that's basically a fairy tale that's set in New Orleans. Also Neil Jordan is awesome. Boyle has proved his versatility in working outside of his cultural comfort zone with Slumdog Millionaire (2008), but I don't think that makes him an ideal candidate. Just off the top of my head, I'm thinking Gus Van Sant, Robert Zemeckis, The Coen Brothers, or probably Paul Thomas Anderson should have been in line to direct this before Boyle. But maybe it will be one of those accidental miracles like when Spielberg decided to direct Schindler's List (1994) after Martin Scorsese turned it down. Handing Sorkin's material is no easy feat ok children? It's like trying to adapt a dense but fascinating text book. Every single word, punctuation, and inflection is important. And it goes damn fast. Only time will tell is Boyle was up to the task.
Jobs is a very 'recent' person for a bio-pic as in he didn't die 100 years ago. When he unveiled the iPhone it was a historic moment. Aside from the OJ Bronco chase, it was perhaps the most memorable moment that we all collectively watched on TV and lived through. Ergo, material is still fresh, ergo it's easier to screw up.
Anyway, we're all excited so I don't want to piss on that. Fassbender can play anything, I'll acknowledge that. And hey it's not like distinctively American films didn't have foreigners in it; look at L.A. Confidential (1997), where 75% percent of the cast that were playing LAPD officers were Australian. It's a risky film, and I just would have liked a little bit more of a safety net. I'm going to go in watching it with the onset of a panic attack. It aesthetically looks great. This is a pejorative ya'll. When something aesthetically looks great, it usually doesn't have much else. It's the director's way of saying; I know I fucked up on the story, but look how pretty! Based on the pre-release hype, it looks like a film that grazes the surface, but underneath it all, doesn't have much soul. My shining beackon of hope is Sorkin, as he's more stubborn with his scripts than Billy Wilder. Want to change something because it doesn't 'feel' right? Fuck you, say what's written on the page. He's one of the few writers who can actually do that. So let's hope he stuck to his stubborn guns and people listened to him first, and Boyle second, if at all.
Below, the trailer:
Below, the actual unveiling of the iPhone at Apple headquarters in Cupertino, CA in 2007. You don't have to watch the whole thing it's long, but it is a piece of history. When we're all wearing silver jumpsuits and riding around in our hovercrafts, I'm sure we'll still be using an iPhone of some kind...model 16 that, like Google Glass, we can wear on our heads, or we'll be microchipped with. I can't wait for the future.
A quick lesson about filmmaking brought to you by the films, style, and aesthetic of David Fincher. Seriously, in my subjective (and well informed) opinion, he's the best director working right now.
(L to R) Scoot McNairy, Mackenzie Davis and Lee Pace look out of their clandestine offices at IBM representatives who invade their territory with a mixture of defiance and intimidation.
So the highly anticipated series on AMC that's not Mad Men or Breaking Bad premiered this past Sunday. Halt and Catch Fire tells the almost unknown technology story of tenacious and rebellious renegades in the 'Silicon Prairie' a decade before Silicon Valley ever crystallized as the center of the technology revolution, that stole IBM's flagship product; the PC, to basically create some of the most important innovations in the field birthing the Dell computer, and without whom we'd all be staring at a black IBM screen typing in green face letters. I exaggerate, but we'd definitely not be as technologically evolved.
Speaking for myself I was so relieved to watch the premiere of a new AMC show without immediately thinking; 'well this is pretentious'. Let's face it people, AMC has a weird streak of broadcasting good material on its viewers and then letting it fall into bleakness, pretentiousness, and mediocrity...am I right Breaking Bad? But this series, promises to be new and different, exciting and incendiary, sexually charged and spy-thrillery, throughout, and yes all of that came through just in the pilot. Not to mention how refreshing it is to wax nostalgic about the 80's rather than the 60's.
I wish I could tell you there was a love story between these two characters; Joe and Cameron, but it's more of a hate-sex thing. It's much better!
Faux-rebellious protagonists who turn anti-heroes because of blind ambition like Don Draper and Walter White are out. This show focuses on desperate people with nothing to lose and an enormous thirst for power, legacy, and entitlement. The three protagonists could not be more different from one another nor from any protagonists in scripted television right now. Though they may have certain familiar quirks and characteristics, they are fundamentally unique, and we have the writers and actors playing them to thank for this.
Lee Pace as Joe MacMillan; the ring leader.
Joe MacMillan (played by Lee Pace) seems like your typical 80's yuppie. He drives a cool car, wears a sharp suit, blow dries is hair, and always has something elitist to say to his 'lessers'. But he's not everything he appears to be. Even though he's what's commonly known as a 'closer', he can't seem to catch a break. Sure his job pays well but no one really takes him seriously when his ambition gets the better of him. He might have the appearance of a staunch business man, but he wants more. And the way to get it is to do it his own way and circumvent those standing between him and ultimate power.
Scoot McNairy as Gordon Clark; the 'brain' and most of the time, the voice of reason.
Gordon Clark (played by Scoot McNairy) is basically his polar opposite. Thin and physically inferior with huge glasses and a face-masking beard, he's the 'misunderstood genius'. There was a time when he had brilliant ideas, but his dreams were crushed, along with his self-confidence when he tried to build his own computer with his wife which turned out to be a pyrotechnic disaster. No one ever took him seriously again until Joe offers him a new means of recognition; not to build a computer from the ground up but to reverse-engineer the IBM computer and make it their own. It's hilghly illegal, and yet extremely titillating. Where would we be today if innovation ideas weren't pirated and nuanced to make that particular product better?
Brilliant Canadian actress Mackenzie Davis as Cameron Howe; the rebel.
And then there's Cameron Howe (played by Mackenzie Davis). Is she ever a loose cannon, and she perfectly rounds out this trifecta of brilliant thieves. She's her own kind of rebel, outwardly and aesthetically punk, extroverted, and defiant, inwardly an enormous genius for someone her age (I'm guessing she's about 21-22 considering she admits she's a college dropout). She's beautiful and spunky and doesn't take shit from anybody. She doesn't belong within a 5 mile radius of an office building, but when called upon by Joe to work on the reverse-engineering plan, she jumps to the opportunity considering all that's on the horizon is 'repairing VCR's for 3.25 an hour'.
Two enormous egos battle for their time in the harsh glare of the tech spotlight.
The three formulate a plan to take down the biggest and only computer company in existence, but are soon met with opposition not to mention their mutual hate and resentment of each other. There's sexual tension basically everywhere, and if this show teaches us anything it's this: 1) Don't live in Dallas. 2) Be bold and do whatever the fuck you want even when everyone tells you not to, because that's how great people become great. I'm on board AMC, thank you for redeeming yourself with really enthralling material for a change. I have high hopes for this show, I can't wait for the next episode, and it's been a while since I cancelled plans for TV. This is the story never told, and the story we've suddenly become fascinated with thanks to The Social Network (2010). It has a unique point of view, and shed new light on a quiet revolution that happened behind locked doors and curtained windows. It takes a million artistic liberties but who cares? It's not on The History Channel.
The principal cast of Silicon Valley (2014- present) all doing their best Steve Jobs pose.
This show is like a warm hug from an old friend. Since I moved to LA I've pined for a little piece of home and would use any excuse to get behind the wheel of whatever shitty car I was driving at the time that allowed me to still pay student loans on time and drive up north 5 hours just so I can bask in the glory that is Palo Alto, a place popularized by The Social Network (2010), it's embarrassingly most famous film star alum; James Franco (who actually made a film called Palo Alto (2010) which blew hard), but also recently is stealing the big glaring spotlight from the botoxed stars of Hollywood to the real magic workers that wear Ivy League hoodies and 'fuck-you flip-flops' and write code all day...for about just as much money as movie stars make.
Big Head (Josh Brener) and Richard (Thomas Middleditch) discuss coding technique
Culture in Silicon Valley could not be more different than culture in SoCal. There's no such thing as bro-code, wearing sports jerseys, or cheering for ANY sports teams. No one goes to Coachella, no one drives a car that's over 60K unless it's a Tesla (seriously a Mercedes is a mythical creature up here), sweater vests run rampant and the drug of choice isn't sizzurp, it's adderall. It's heaven. Remember all those kids who we thought of as 'geeky' in middle/high school? That's right they run the fucking world. They work for Zuckerberg, Bryn, and Wozniak who combined make more than every film that has ever been produced ever. One line of code could bring in more money than all the returns on Avatar (2009)...easily. They ride bikes, drink tons of Peet's coffee, and don't know what to do with a stripper if she was grinding buck naked on their junk (which actually happens in one of the episodes).
Palo Alto isn't exactly cheap in fact it ranks as one of the 3 most expensive places to live in the US, so all these 20-something geniuses decided to sublet million dollar Palo Alto homes to friends at their company and split the rent costs. Don't worry none of them ever use the pool.
From the brilliant mind of director Mike Judge, this show has a fantastic cast, who actually look like every guy I ever met in Silicon Valley ever. Every time I'm up north visiting mommers I run into one of these guys at University Cafe (if you're a local you know exactly where that is and why it's popular). I know they only shoot the exteriors in Palo Alto, because I actually recognize the streets without seeing the street names but the rest is shot in sunny yet shitty LA, but you know, it IS television. On top of everything else, I'll give a shout out right now to an old friend of mine with whom I did drama club every year at I. Weiner Jewish Secondary School (funniest name ever I know) when we both lived in Houston TX; Josh Brener. He plays 'Big Head' a coder on the show who get usurped for a salary of 600K (not shitting you) to write code for a competing company. This show is basically geek heaven, but without all the D&D nonsense. It's written brilliantly, and has the same tenacity, wit, and snark that Mike Judge brought to Office Space (1999)...It's white collar torture but ya love it.
I remember watching a documentary about years in the style of Behind the Music which started with a music journalist saying that '1994 was the beginning of some seriously shallow times', and has it yet ended. Have we gone back to that golden age which we briefly grasped on to in the early 90's? Probably not. It's a question of artifice vs. the genuine. And it seems like artifice is winning and not in the good way where rebellion against the 'truth' of the late 60's which was chalk full of hypocrisy was replaced by glitter, glam, and unapologetic facade culture of the 70's, where disco ruled, men wore fingernail polish, and cocaine was all the rage.
Perhaps one of the most disgusting manifestations of the new millenium is the rise of the hipster.
But let's go back to 1994. It was the pinnacle year that defined that decade really. I remember one of the more recent episodes of Parks and Recreation where Leslie Knope in her 'over the top' fashion decides to throw her husband the best themed birthday party ever, and considering his favorite time period was the EARLY 90's which is always emphasized. Therefore, there's R.E.M. playing everywhere, Ann dresses as Blossom and Ben is seen sporting his favorite Letters to Cleo t-shirt. Why is the 'early' part of that decade emphasized? Because I don't think Ben or any of us were fans of the 'late' 90's. With Aqua, Chumbawamba, and the Spice Girls topping the charts, heroin chic being the standard of thinness that women had to aspire to, and Titanic (1997) about to break every box office record ever set, it was not a time to look forward to or to remember fondly.
Perhaps one of the worst moments of the 90's.
I suppose that when Kurt Cobain died in April of 1994, he took the idealism, merit, and spirit (no pun intended) of the early part of that decade with him. Just like when the free concert featuring The Rolling Stones in Altamont in 1969 was the death nail of 60's. It's like he knew he had his brief moment in the sun and the rest of time he just wouldn't fit into nor wanted to be a part of.
Now almost exactly 20 years after his death, we have not taken any lessons of those magical few years with us. We are now the technological revolution, where 22 year olds become billionaires in a matter of months by inventing Facebook, everyone in the world stares at their smartphones while walking into oncoming traffic not giving a shit, and every single person spends their days, even if unemployed , hunched over a computer screen.
If we really examine it, what's missing the most is original content of popular culture. Everything is as Edward Norton eloquently put it in a film I love to hate (Fight Club (1999)); a copy of a copy of a copy. Every song is a remix or a sample of something that came before it, every film is either a remake or a reboot or a running franchise of a book that probably was published only a year prior. It's very basic. We've run out of ideas. Cobain's perhaps most poignant lesson was that of celebrity. The word 'celebrity comes from the idea of celebrating someone obviously. And now that we have things like 'celebutantes' 'internet celebrities' and 'reality celebrities' it's really quite depressing if we truly examine in. Why is it that we celebrate these people? Because they have a litter of children? Because they have an insane amount of plastic surgery? Because they are able to be famous without actually doing anything? The latter rhetorical question perhaps being the most important. Cobain came from an age where not only did you have to be able to do something well, you had to have something new to say, and have to be able to reach everyone on a gut level rather than a 'oh, that's fun' level.
A picture worth a thousand words
And perhaps our gut level doesn't even exist anymore. We've packed it so tightly with fluff like Bravo, designer handbags, and Seth Rogen movies that we can't tell nor do we care if we even like it or not. We eat it up. It's the fast food of the soul. And the soul devours it with pleasure because the soul has lost all sense of self. A person isn't a person anymore, he/she is a franchise, a commodity. We have transitioned from being human to being in a state of the 'post-human'. We live our lives out on the internet and tell our inner most thoughts to our blogs and twitter feeds. And the saddest end to all of this is that there is no end in sight. The problem doesn't seem like there will be a rebellion of 'the genuine' any time soon because we are all basically hypnotized by the 'hyper-real' or 'the meta', that we don't care if we die tomorrow, because we know that our death wouldn't have an impact on culture like Cobain's did. Because let's face it, people are so ADD that they'll hear it, and just go on with their day, but not before posting some pseudo-profound 140 character poem about it on Twitter.
Below is the documentary I was telling you about it's only 20 minutes long, I highly recommend watching it.
