Oscar-winner Alicia Vikander (“The Danish Girl”) has a career that balances blockbusters like “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” and “Tomb Raider” with art films “The Green Knight” and “Ex Machina” and prestige TV with “Irma Vep.” However, in an interview with The Sunday Times, the actress opened up about the loneliness and isolation that work inspired.“When, […]
Continue readingAlex Garland’s latest film “Men” may be the most divisive of his directing career thus far. And that may explain why the movie fared so poorly at the box office, dropping out of the US top ten in only its third weekend. But that’s a poor way to judge a film by Garland. None of […]
Continue readingChris Hemsworth’s “Spiderhead” character, Steve Abnesti, is a distinctly modern antagonist. He’s a CEO who hides his sociopathic outlook behind a casual smile and dudebro attitude, assuring his employees he’s “just like them” while not-so-subtly lording his power over those around him. He recalls Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac) from “Ex Machina,” down to the pair’s […]
Continue readingOscar Isaac likes to quote Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard: “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” In the past two years, Isaac has learned this the hard way, pushing himself into ever riskier emotional terrain as an actor.Ever since he broke out in 2013 with his first lead role as a sensitive finger-picking folk singer in […]
Continue readingAlex Garland’s latest mind-spinner is a movie called “Men,” about a woman being terrorized by one man who appears to represent all men, and it’s, of course, written and directed by a man.Garland, ever the boldly-going screenwriter of films like “The Beach” and “28 Days Later” and director of decidedly uncommercial visions like “Annihilation” and […]
Continue readingThis article contains spoilers for a major plot point in “Devs.”As a filmmaker, Alex Garland has shown himself adept at tackling profound questions while maneuvering between science fiction and horror, sometimes within the same movie. You can see it carried forward from his early screenwriting projects like “28 Days Later” and “Sunshine,” to later directorial […]
Continue reading“Ex Machina” was lauded as an investigation into the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. But self-aware A.I. is still in nascent stages, and the dangers of digital technology are very real today. The increasingly prevalent role of the internet in our lives has created what filmmaker Alex Garland referred to as a “tech paranoia” in […]
Continue readingAlex Garland’s works are stunning, both visually and emotionally. If you’ve seen films like “Ex Machina” or “Annihilation,” or his series “Devs,” you know this. Or maybe you’ve watched “Never Let Me Go,” which he wrote, and broke down sobbing the way I did. He’s one of those filmmakers that gut punch you with stories […]
Continue readingWith a reputation for nuanced color tones and tweaks that may evoke a suffocating Buckingham Palace in “The Crown” or a ghostly time shift in “Last Night in Soho,” Asa Shoul, senior colorist at Warner Bros. De Lane Lea in London, is increasingly tough to book.A veteran of post production on some 50 feature films, […]
Continue readingThe way technology has affected relationships, dating, and sex in the modern world is fairly commonplace today. Sci-fi obviously has lots of dystopian ways of commenting on this too (see the psychological submissive girl robot fetishization archetype in “Ex Machina”). However, the way technology has affected the transactional nature of sex is still pretty limited […]
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