What Films Have You Seen Recently?

[Stephen@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by Demdike@Cult Labs

Sounds like a moderator to avoid then.

Not at all. And as for The Car, yeah, the commentary wasn't the best, but if people actually listened to it (instead of blaming Calum), you'd see how the director was awkward, forgetful (although that's probably down to age), and seemed to have no clue what the point of a commentsary was. So to be fair, It's a wonder Calum managed to coax any info from him.

[R-T-C Tim]

Okay, a five part Alistair MacLean review series for the upcoming week. Starting with this forgotten 1965 film. Certainly one of MacLean's best books and very well adapted into a film, there are a few changes - the setting is moved to America for instance, but they are harmless, although the change to the ending is worse and makes it a little confusing.

Available as an MOD disc from MGM in the US, I reviewed the old Swedish disc which by all accounts is about the same quality-wise - an OAR, anamorphic transfer with minimal damage, but noticable interlacing on the transfer. Watchable but could be better.

Full review - The Satan Bug.

[Buboven]

Milk (2012)

9/10.

[Demdike@Cult Labs]

The Doll (1973)

One of the episodes of the Dario Argento produced Door into Darkness, about a patient who escapes from a psychiatric hospital whom the police are desperate to track down before they harm anyone in the outside world.

The Doll is an enjoyable episode starring Robert Hoffman. Although it's a fairly straightforward tale it is quite disjointed to the point of perhaps being a little unnerving. Not everything is as it seems and one death in a clothing factory although bloodless, is extremely effective thanks to director Mario Foglietti's decidedly strange camera techniques.

A thriller that really engages the brain matter. Recommended.

[sjconstable]

Originally Posted by Stephen@Cult Labs

Not at all. And as for The Car, yeah, the commentary wasn't the best, but if people actually listened to it (instead of blaming Calum), you'd see how the director was awkward, forgetful (although that's probably down to age), and seemed to have no clue what the point of a commentsary was. So to be fair, It's a wonder Calum managed to coax any info from him.

When I saw a Q&A feature hosted by him, he was just constantly itching to butt in and ask questions rather than letting the guests speak, and I found him really irritating, just saying!

[Buboven]

Adam Curtis's Bitter Lake (2015)

Absolutely ESSENTIAL viewing for anyone with even the slightest interest in politics and current affairs.

Catch it on IPlayer while you still can, The BBC is too chicken to put it on live TV.



10/10.

[SShaw]

Hopefully no North Korean sleepers frequent the labs because I spent yesterday afternoon at a secret cinema location in the centre of Bremen watching The Interview which was mildly entertaining but not really to the taste of my sense of humour.

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Ex Machina (2015)

Written and directed by Alex Garland, the man perhaps best known for writing the Danny Boyle films 28 Days Later and Sunshine, Ex Machina marks his directorial debut. After taking over editing responsibilities on Dredd (which he also scripted), it was only a matter of time before he sat in the director's chair and, with the aforementioned Sunshine and Dredd under his belt and currently writing the screenplay for the long-awaited (and long delayed) Halo film, it was probably the most logical step for his first film to be in the science-fiction genre. As he describes it, Ex Machina is set ten minutes in the future and begins in the headquarters of Bluebook, the world's biggest and most powerful search engine, where 24-year-old coder Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a competition to spend a week in the Alaskan press retreat belonging to Nathan (Oscar Isaac), the company's reclusive CEO and creator.

After a lengthy helicopter flight, Caleb is greeted at the front door by an automated system which photographs him and issues a key card, which allows him access to the property. Once inside, he walks around the huge property and eventually meets Nathan, who is busy working out due to being hungover from excess drinking the night before, who explains the key card is a way of avoiding confusion because Caleb will be allowed to go into any room it opens, but any room it doesn't is strictly off-limits. After signing the lengthy nondisclosure agreement presented to him by Nathan, Caleb is asked if he knows what the 'Turing test' is, and, when he Caleb correctly answers it is when a human communicates with a computer and doesn't know it is a computer, he realises Nathan has developed an artificial intelligence (AI) system and is there to be the 'human component' in the Turing test.

Nathan asks Caleb to treat him as a friend, occasionally talking about anything except work and just get drunk together, but the relationship is a bit strained, perhaps due to Nathan spending so much time alone in the massive house with only Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), a Japanese assistant who apparently does not speak any English, helping to maintain the exceptional level of secrecy, for company. The only other entity in the house is Ava (Alicia Vikander), the AI system. She – Nathan gave her a gender and sexuality – is mostly robotic in appearance, but her face seemingly has synthetic skin, lips and eyes, enabling Caleb to interact with her as he would with another human being, albeit one who is confined to one room in the house.

From here, the film is interspersed with titles, beginning with 'Ava: Session 1', and continuing as the day's progress and Caleb meets and analyses 'her', determining her level of consciousness and to what extent she is fully sentient. After the first session, he is debriefed by Nathan, who wants to know how Caleb feels, rather than what he thinks, and their (occasionally strained) conversations involve Caleb's emotions and theoretical aspects of the programme, such as an analogy with a computer chess program and whether it knows it is playing chess and what chess is, rather than whether how good it is at playing the game.

As they spend more time together, Caleb begins to develop feelings for Ava, which appear to be reciprocated, and grows more distant from Nathan, whose drinking and short temper is very different to the fascinating and beautiful Ava, who even puts on some clothes to appear more human to her new companion. During one of the sessions, there is a power cut and the cameras go down and, knowing Nathan can't see or hear them, Ava tells Caleb he isn't his friend and can't be trusted. This completely changed the dynamics of the various relationships, causing Caleb to watch what he says around Nathan and spend more time watching Ava on the television in his bedroom. Due to the increasingly cryptic exchanges with Nathan and thinks he observes around the house, including Nathan berating Kyoko for spilling some wine, he becomes closer to Ava and even begins to question his own humanity.



The last year has been an extremely good for science-fiction, with Jonathan Glazer's brilliant and critically acclaimed Under the Skin, Wally Pfister's splendidly ambitious, but flawed, Transcendence and Christopher Nolan's extraordinary Interstellar. As a directorial debut, this is extremely impressive and shows Alex Garland's talent isn't just limited to screenwriting. He is helped by superb performances by the entire cast, with Domhnall Gleeson, Oscar Isaac and Alicia Vikander, all continuing in the fine vein of form they demonstrated in such films as Frank, The Two Faces of January and Testament of Youth, respectively, in 2014. Vikander, with perhaps the most challenging of the three roles, again shows why she is one of the best young actress is currently working. There aren't any accent problems here as there were in the Vera Brittain biopic, where her Swedish accent occasionally crept through, and her nine years of ballet training allows her to perfect the movement of Ava's android body. With his pitch perfect performance, Isaac shows why he is one to watch and is likely to be an actor who commands major roles from big-name directors in the next few years.

The film is beautifully photographed by Rob Hardy, whose use of colour gives both a contemporary and futuristic feel and gives the exterior and interior scenes the tension demanded by the screenplay and Mark Day's spot-on editing. My review would be remiss without mentioning incredible work done by Milk Visual Effects and Double Negative; the glimpses you see of Ava in the teaser trailer are even more stunning on the big screen and there are other, lengthy, sequences later in the film which I won't mention here. Furthermore, Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury's score (Salisbury of Portishead fame) perfectly complements the visuals and I'll look into buying it when the CD is released later this month.

Along with the aforementioned films, it is encouraging to see filmmakers take risks and make ambitious projects which treated the audience as intelligent adults who like to be challenged, watching something which introduces big concepts, philosophical debates and real-world issues. Alex Garland, as mentioned earlier, said this was set in the near future as people would be shocked, but not surprised, if Apple or Google announced they had created an AI system in the same way Nathan had by using Bluebook.

Ex Machina is a thought-provoking, stylish and gripping sci-fi film, easily the best debut in the genre since Duncan Jones made Moon, which should stand up to repeated viewings and which, along with Under the Skin, Transcendence and Interstellar, shows there is a market for cerebral science-fiction in multiplex cinemas.

[nosferatu42]

Great review mate, i really want to see this, looks good.
I know this was a mistake, but it made me laugh -

'Once inside, he walks around the huge property and eventually meets Nathan, who is busy working out due to being come over from excess drinking the night before, '

[Nosferatu@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by nosferatu42

Great review mate, i really want to see this, looks good.
I know this was a mistake, but it made me laugh -

'Once inside, he walks around the huge property and eventually meets Nathan, who is busy working out due to being come over from excess drinking the night before, '

Duly amended – thanks for the spot!

You should watch it at the cinema if you can – the visuals and sound, even for a fairly intimate film, are extremely impressive and will be so much better there than in your living room.