Steve Jobs (2015)
Directed by Danny Boyle
Screenplay by Aaron Sorkin
Based on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson
Starring: Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen, Jeff Daniels
Plot Synopsis: (via IMDB)
Steve Jobs takes us behind the scenes of the digital revolution, to paint a portrait of the man at its epicenter. The story unfolds backstage at three iconic product launches, ending in 1998 with the unveiling of the iMac.
My Opinion:
My husband dragged me to this movie. Are any fun movies going to come out at any point? I hate this time of year! They always drag out all the “worthy” films at this sort of time. I need braindead veg-out movies for the crazy holiday season. Like… Road House! I wrapped some presents last night while watching Road House for the first time. Holy shit that movie is f*%king hilarious. Why did no one tell me how awesomely bad that movie was?! I think it may be my new yearly Christmas-present-wrapping movie. Anyway, Steve Jobs was better than I was expecting for a “biography” film about an unlikeable guy & technology gobbledygook.
This movie was a hard one to get into at first but, by the end, I really liked how they chose the run-up to three big product launches to tell his story. To my satisfaction, any gobbledygook technology talk was kept to a very bare minimum. The movie really doesn’t show you anything of the beginnings of his career, though (or the final years & his biggest products).
If you want a very detailed & in-depth look at the career of Steve Jobs, I wouldn’t say that this movie is the place to start as it only highlights part of his career. I have no problem with this, though – you can read books about all that. This movie focuses much more on his personal life and his behavior toward work colleagues and, especially, his relationship with his daughter. I find this sort of thing much more interesting and was happy that the movie chose this direction and that it had some great performances from everyone involved.
I’ll state the obvious & say that Michael Fassbender looks nothing whatsoever like Steve Jobs. Not that I’m going to complain about getting to look at hottie Fassbender but it was a little distracting & I can’t say that I at all felt like I was watching “Steve Jobs” up on that screen. Maybe it didn’t help that I knew nothing whatsoever about Steve Jobs (and still don’t, I suppose – but I can say that this movie definitely doesn’t try to make you like him). Fassbender did a very good job as always, though – I guess it’s not his fault that he’s just too hot.
The true highlights of this film were Kate Winslet and, surprisingly, Seth Rogen. Oh yeah – and Jeff Daniels was very good too! Nice seeing him again as I can’t think of the last thing I saw him in. Speed?? Which makes me think of Keanu Reeves. Which makes me think of Patrick Swayze in Point Break. Which makes me think of Road House again. Seriously – if any of you haven’t seen Road House, you NEED to. Sam Elliott is such a stud. Anyway, Winslet, Rogen & Daniels are all truly fantastic in Steve Jobs so I certainly can’t fault any of the performances. There’s some damn fine acting in this. Unlike in Road House…. Good lord!
Summary:
Steve Jobs is a very good film but it’s not for everyone. It’s one you should watch if you are a fan of any of the actors as they’re all at the top of their game here. Just be aware that it focuses only on the relationships that Jobs had with the most key people in his life and that you see only a pretty small portion of his years on this Earth.
The direction that the film chose, to have everything revolve around three product launches, may not work for everyone but I thought it was a simple yet very effective way of telling his story. His life DID revolve around his work (so far as I can tell from what very little I know of him) so I think it was a very fitting way to tell his story. The people in his life had to fit around his primary focus, which was his career and his products. I should also point out that this movie very much felt like a play, which some will love & some will hate. I have to say that I liked this film more than Sorkin’s The Social Network and it’s the best thing Danny Boyle has done in a while.
Steve Jobs admittedly deserves a slightly higher rating than I’m giving it but I have to admit that, while it’s good, it’s very unlikely that I’d ever watch it again. Unlike Road House! That’s a multiple-watcher!
My Rating: 7/10
Review written on my iPhone
Great review! Dang, getting dragged out by the hubby 🙂
Quentin Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight is out in a few weeks, that will be AWESOME and not some twee, worthy tripe ha ha 🙂 (not saying Steve Jobs is any of those things!)
I would like to see it definitely, I am generally a fan of Danny Boyle movies and Fassbender is always an impeccable actor. I heard Kate Winslet was brilliant and did a fantastic accent as well!
Ha ha ha, Road House!!!!!!! That movie is awesome 🙂 it was the ‘Road House’ episode of Family Guy that got me to watch it, funnily enough!
OMG. There’s a Road House episode of Family Guy??? I must see this! NOW! 🙂 Ah, true – I am looking forward to The Hateful Eight. And The Force Awakens. And Peanuts! I watched a YouTube video with the woman Winslet played & she did a BRILLIANT job playing her! The accent was perfect. You should check this movie out as a fan of Boyle but I suppose it’s quite different from his other films. They really did take an odd approach to this one. But I ended up liking it. 🙂
THERE IS!!!!! Peter gets the DVD and starts going around town kicking everyone and everything and when he kicks them he says….”road house” it all ends in disaster of course 🙂 and they shows funny clips from the ‘film’ (Family Guy style!!) are you fan then Miss Mutant? 🙂
Danny Boyle’s films are often quite different anyway, he jumps from one genre to the next! Though often they have a similar vibe to them in the way they’re filmed, does that make sense? I don’t like all of his films but the ones I do like, I really like 🙂
Peanuts?!!! Like…….Charlie Brown Peanuts?!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I’ve never watched Family Guy regularly but have enjoyed a few episodes. I do like the sound of that one! I’m gonna track it down. Then watch Road House again. 😉 Umm… Yes! Charlie Brown Peanuts! Is that a good or a bad AHHHHHHH??? Lol!
I love Charlie Brown and Peanuts, definitely a good thing if they do it justice!!! 🙂
‘Road House’
Lol!!!! 😀 😀 😀
They did! I went to it yesterday!!!! 🙂 🙂 🙂 Now I want to see the Peanuts version of Road House. Lol!
Cant wait to see this one Mutant!
Hope you like it! It was an odd approach but I enjoyed it. Don’t think everyone will. 🙂
I love awards season… always so many great movies to check out! 😉
I don’t. Even though I love the Oscars, some of the “worthy” films bore me. 😉 I just wish they were spaced out more throughout the year instead of all released in December (meaning January is always a boring month for movies in the UK when pretty much all the US Oscar contenders get released here).
Completely agree! I also hate how they do that, but it is what it is 😉
I love your reviews. Proper gonzo reviewing 🙂
Lol! I’ll take that as a compliment. 😉 I suppose no one will be expecting a review of Road House within a review of Steve Jobs…
I just love the way you show your thought process in connecting them.
My thought process is totally gonzo. It’s crazy up in my head! 😉
LOL. Loved your review. Or mentions of Road House. I’m never gonna watch it.
It’s funny that you need to be “dragged” to Steve Jobs when I can’t wait to see it! (Out here this weekend, thankfully!). I love, love, love Michael Fassbender, and just once love Winslet and admire Sorkin and Boyle, so there’s everything to me. Plus Jobs is one of my heroes. It’s sad that this one flopped. I hope awards season will change it.
Btw, are you gonna watch remake of Point Break? I’ve never seen the original and now I’m wondering if I should watch it first or dive into remake?
Road House is so good/bad. 😉 I think you’ll be a fan of Steve Jobs, then, as you’re a fan of all involved. It IS good. And the performances are fantastic. 🙂 Ohhh – I saw the trailer for the Point Break remake & it looks dreadful. I’m a fan of the original so I’d of course say to watch that first (or, ONLY watch the original). 😉 It’s very much a “guy” movie, though, and I’m more of a fan of those than most girls are. It’s not “good” but I love it. But it’s also not “bad”, like Road House is.
I’ve only heard good things about the original. And I’m all for extreme sports, so it looks promising. I think I’ll check out the original.
Yay! I hope you enjoy it. It’s a fun action flick. 🙂
Sounds shit.
: )
Whaaaat?! I was going to recommend it to you!!! 😉 Road House rules, though. Seriously. #SamElliottIsAStud
I want you to be nice until it’s time to not be nice.
I’ll reply with the appropriate Road House quotes once I’ve watched it enough to know them all. Because I’m totally watching it again! Do you & Brad watch Road House together while doing Tai chi fist fighting? And running over cars in your monster truck? And blowing shit up!
It’s actually not cheesy enough for us.
Oh yeah. This is true….! Too current as well.
Hahaha funny review. Now I really want to see Road H– I mean Steve Jobs 😉 Seriously though, I’m a big Sorkin fan, looking forward to the rapid firecracker dialogue
Road House rules. 😉 I’m so watching that again. Would like to know your thoughts on Steve Jobs. My hubby & I disagreed on it somewhat. He far preferred The Social Network but I preferred this.
I haven’t seen Jobs, but I’m big time looking forward to Fassbender and Sorkin’s writing! Will deffo post a review once I’ve seen it. And it will be hard to beat Social Network.
Let me know when you review it so I don’t miss it! December is so hectic I’ve had to skip reading blogs. 😦 Have to avoid going into the Reader until after Christmas because if I do I end up spending way too much time here. Can’t wait for this month to be over – I’ll get back to reading blogs more regularly again. 🙂
No worries. I hear you. December can be crazy. And only go near the Reader when you have time to kill 😉
And in January I’m going to read blogs like crazy! But not today – I have to prepare to go to a little movie called… The Force Awakens? 😉
Hahaha… well put… I have my tickets ready… the hours are counting down, like 15 hours to go until opens here
Woohoo! Have you reviewed it yet? I’ll have to go searching for Force Awakens reviews now that I’ve seen it. Still not read any!
I agree. Very good movie. One of my favorites in fact. Though I can only say something like that in certain company. A lot of people hate him with a passion (even though he’s dead now). But who knew he could do all that martial arts stuff. Oh did you think I was talking about Steve Jobs? I have no interest in seeing Steve Jobs. (though I probably will at Oscar time so I can pretend to be an informed voter) No. I’m talking about Road House. Road House is one of my favorite fucking films of all time. My favorite is when Jeff Healey is playing and Swayze is kicking ass and then after the song and the fight is over and Jeff doesn’t know what happened because he’s a blind guitarist and shit and he finds out and so he introduces him like he was part of the act. I love that movie. And I know it’s bad but it so much fun. I own that movie.
Steve Jobs and Patrick Swayze are hanging in heaven. Patrick says, “Apple huh?” and Steve answers, “Road House.” with a huge smile on his face.
Lol! I love this comment. I’m not gonna pretend that I liked Steve Jobs more than Road House. I’ll do a little Road House review at some point but I can already tell you that I’ll be giving it a higher rating than I did for Steve Jobs. 😉 I agree that it’s so bad but so FUN. Sometimes you need a movie like that. What I hate is that there are so few films like that nowadays. Now they’re just “bad” bad. And no fun.
More good words about this flick, I haven’t read anything bad about it. Great review Mutant! 🙂
Thank you! It’s a good film and the performances are fantastic. It’s a shame it has bombed… It’s definitely worth a watch. 🙂
So what was your Christmas-present-wrapping movie pre-Road House? 😛
Written on your iPhone, eh? xD
Will definitely check this out when it comes. Great work lady!
Hehe. I’ve mostly wrapped presents to Scrooged in the past. But it’s honestly gonna be Road House from now on. 😉 I think you’ll like this one for the performances. Everyone is good but, holy cow, I watched a YouTube video of the woman Winslet plays and she does her PERFECTLY. Accent & all. 🙂
This is going to sound like an inappropriate comparison, but this is no Citizen Kane. Har har … what I mean is Citizen Kane could very well have been called “William Randolph Hearst” and it wouldn’t have been as good a movie.
I agree that the movie is capably constructed, and all the actors did a fine job (I do nitpick that I don’t think Rogen captured Woz, and I don’t think his performance was any more than good.) But the film is worse than it could have been because it pretends to be about the real Steve Jobs.
I felt that it leaned too heavily on reminiscing about days of technology past—but judging by other reviews, that’s more to do with me being a bit of a computer nerd than the film itself. And I think Fassbinder didn’t “get” Jobs: he plays him more like a domineering jerk than a deeply thoughtful, conscientious sociopath which is what I think Jobs was more like … of course I’m no expert … but I definitely think Jobs was more than your typical Alpha-male. Having seen the “Lost Interview” in 2012, I felt he would listen to questions asked of him and pause to assess his answer like a chess master assesses all the possible outcomes. He didn’t merely belittle people to make them do what he wanted, he carefully tailored his reactions to ensure maximum productivity—sociopathically, at the expense of all else. And I think Fassbinder missed that nuance.
But back to Citizen Kane: it was better for not mentioning Hearst, but Steve Jobs would be worse if it weren’t for the real-life person and events we can insert into the subtext. In other words, if it weren’t for the fact we all know the basic history of Apple, the story would be about a belligerent jerk who runs a tech company, and I think people would puzzle, “why should I care about this guy?”
You can read my capsule review of Steve Jobs in the list, currently the most-recent blog post in the Steve Jobs tag ( http://jayceland.com/blog/archive/tag/steve-jobs/ ) which includes the review of Steve Jobs: The Lost Interview, and a monologue reading about Apple …
Oh my god – I’m sorry but I totally missed this comment in my notifications! I was just looking at this post again as I’m about to write about Road House. Lol. 🙂 Hmm… I have to admit that I know nothing about Citizen Kane! Terrible, I know. I keep meaning to watch it! I have to sometime for my IMDB Top 250 project. Yeah, I admit to knowing nothing whatsoever about Steve Jobs either plus I’m not interested in technology and all that, really, so I’ve explored nothing about him. I liked Rogen but, indeed, I had nothing to compare his performance to since I don’t know the real person at ALL. So I suppose I liked this movie more than you as I went in completely blind. 😉 To bad it doesn’t really capture the real guy, who sounds like he was complicated as hell. Thanks for the comment! I’ll go check your stuff out a little later today. 🙂
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Reblogged this on Cinema Parrot Disco and commented:
As the super sexy Michael Fassbender is up for an Oscar this next weekend, I’m reblogging this review I did of Steve Jobs. I mainly talk about the slightly less Oscar-worthy Road House instead but I promise that I do discuss the Steve Jobs film as well. 😉
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