Skip to content

Now Playing: Steve Jobs; Rock the Kasbah; Remember

Sorkin's Steve Jobs: It's the second movie about that American icon, the co-founder of that company named after a biblical fruit...
81148BCLN2007e_FILM-Jobs-Sorkin20151022T0800
Michael Fassbender plays Apple co-founder Steve Jobs in a new biopic from writer Aaron Sorkin and director Danny Boyle. The film has received some criticism for taking liberties with Jobs's personality and biography


It's the second movie about that American icon, the co-founder of that company named after a biblical fruit – the same company that makes the laptop I'm typing this sentence on. It's the second movie about that icon released in the past two years, like a slower crescendo-ing Armageddon vs Deep Impact.

(Wow, I'm old, aren't I? That happens so fast.)

Anyway, it's the newer, meaner, darker, more Oscar-aiming Steve Jobs. This one stars Michael Fassbender as the man in the black turtleneck, Seth Rogen as Woz, Jeff Daniels as investor and entrepreneur John Sculley, and Kate Winslet, Michael Stuhlbarg, and Katherine Waterston as the people who work with him, love him, and are probably relentlessly abused by him in various, often conflicting ways.

The old one – just titled Jobs – starred Ashton Kutcher as the man in the title, and was sorta panned as a typical, Hallmark-ish, standard, safe biopic. Besides the trying and passionate efforts from Kutcher and his co-stars, including Josh Gad and Dermot Mulroney, the film failed to connect with the audience it didn't have to work very hard for. We all have Macs, right?

But this new one, written by Aaron Sorkin and directed by Danny Boyle, appears to believe in itself a little bit more. Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing or just straight-up misleading, that's up to you when you see it.

And you can, as soon as you want. Steve Jobs will be released this weekend.

Also in theatres:

Rock the Kasbah: Bill Murray stars as a washed-up, out-of-client rock manager from California who discovers an incredible voice in Kabul, and gets her to audition for Afghan Star, the country's version of American Idol. It's sorta like Million Dollar Arm, but in a different location, and it trades baseball for the music business.

**********

Brie Larson and William H. Macy star in Room. I don't know what it's about, but it's critically acclaimed and your friend who goes to small theatres will probably tell you you have to see it really soon.

**********

Legendary Canadian actor Christopher Plummer stars as character Zev in Remember, with Dean Norris and Martin Landau, as a man trying to track down the former Nazi who murdered his family, after discovering the man now lives in the United States.

"So, like a cross between the 100-year-old man who climbed out the window and disappeared and – well, the Terminator, tracking down all the Sarah Connors in 1984 Los Angeles – Zev sets out to find his prey," writes Chris Knight, in The National Post.

"Meanwhile there is Plummer, now a spry 85, turning in a brilliantly nuanced performance. Zev – which means wolf, by the way – is a man propelled by vengeance, a sense of justice and world-weariness, itself fueled by the death of his wife and because he's been on this planet such a long time, dealing with the lingering afterimage of an almost inconceivably brutal event."

VIDEO: Now Playing: Bill Murray heads to Afghanistan in Rock the Kasbah; Room starring Brie Larson; Christopher Plummer searches for vengeance in Remember

VIDEO: Christopher Plummer, Martin Landau in Remember