The Shortest Day of the Year in the Far North

by JCP Skottowe 

December 22, 1935

[MoMA]

Her
OS Oh Yes! 
Official Website | Trailers & Mo
R | 119 min

Spike Jonze is so fcuking creative.  Maybe he needs lotsa time to be so fcuking creative.  And if so, is that why he’s only made four movies since 1999?  And if that so is so, so what?  If he’s gonna keep delivering mind-bending/blowing cinema, then please, take yer jolly a$$ time Spike!  His latest Her is just another grand notch on his ultra-cool, ultra-crazy filmmaking belt.  The difference with this flick vs his other works is that this one’s 111% the vision of Jonze, as he wrote the script from scratch himself

I for one am obsessed with technology.  I can’t keep my fingers off my phone (and my fiancee, but she doesn’t always do what I tell her to do :).  Jonze knows this (not about me, but about all of us), and he sees our relationships with our computers (in the near future) growing even closer, for worse AND for better.  His Her is a new computer operating system unlike anything that came before it, in our reality, and even in cinema’s fantasies.  Before Her, there was the artificial intelligence that was Metropolis‘ Maschinenmensch, 2001‘s HAL-9000, Tron‘s Master Control Program, WarGames‘ WOPR, and in body form, A.I.‘s David.  You can see what direction these movie AIs have been going – less evil, more human-like, more helpful, and more lovable (yet always creepy!!).  Woah, Spike, you just unknowingly made a sci-fi epic, without being at all sci-fi-y!

Joaquin Phoenix is our end user Theodore Twombly, a lonely, thoughtful and misunderstood soul looking for someone to talk to, and to fill the void of his recently lost love life.  When he purchased his new operating system, simply named OS1, little did he know that he was about to embark on another rollercoaster of love and all that comes with it.  OS1, with the voice of Scarlett Johansson, gives herself the name Samantha, and Theodore a new lease on life.  She grows as a learning computer, and he grows closer to ‘her’ with every byte, and they ultimately and completely fall in love with one another.  But can a man fall in love with his computer?  Well, in 2009, a man married a video game character, so why couldn’t this happen?  The love in Her feels true, but remains so unnervingly creepy to us (there’s a scene that cuts to moments of black, which will make you feel beyond awkward), but in this near future landscape, it’s more acceptable than it is frowned upon

Do we want this bad good bad future to happen?  To be honest, I don’t want anything in Spike Jonze’ head to become real, but I want to keep on seeing what he sees, cause only he could make a make-up-less Amy Adams seem sexier than she did being half-naked in American Hustle

Verdictgo: Breast In Show

Clothing Jonzeing: now you can dress like it’s the near future too, with Opening Ceremony’s Her inspired line!

Her boots up currently at a theater near jews

(this was the last movie we needed to see before coming up with our best of ’13 list. sorry Phil O Meana & Nebraska, there juss aint time to see you)

and until next thyme the balcony is clothed…

Then & Now, Vancouver style

Then & Now, Vancouver style

dude, you all know that Saul Bass was the fcuking man, herspecially when it came to movie posters, title sequences, and logo design, but did you know that he also dabbled in filmmaking???  he released one full length feature that bombed, and 5 shorts, one an Oscar winner – Why Man Creates [WATCH!], and two others that were nominated by the Academy as well!

I was lucky enuff to catch a rare screening of 4 of them shorts, thanks to Lincoln Center, and in particular his little seen/known short from 1984 - Quest (it doesn’t even have a wiki page!).  Shiz was based off of a Ray Bradbury short story, and was about a society of people stuck on some planet where they live their entire life over a span of 8 days, but are trying to live longer than that(!!!).  Shiz was truly incredible, both visually and emotionally!  It was like watching The Neverending Story meets Tron meeting Return of The Jedi meets that 1984 Apple commercial meets like a zillion of those creepy cool 70s/80s sci-fi book covers!!

SAUL FCUKING BASS + BAD FUTURE = MY TOTAL JAMMY JAM, YO!!!

HOW DO I GO TO THERE???

Swedish toy catalog goes gender-neutral!!!!!!