Hollywood Bowl: Ashton Kutcher is not Steve Jobs and Richard Curtis is back

After a two-week lull at the cinemas, Ashton Kutcher’s indie film, Jobs, released with much fanfare, but India’s surprising interest in Kutcher didn’t stop it from being the movie that Apple fanboys would be glad that Steve Jobs isn’t here to see. Because, let’s be honest, no sane man would’ve ever cast that dude from classics like Dude, Where’s My Car!, Guess Who, Valentine’s Day and New Year’s Eve, in a biopic of the world’s greatest tech idol.

Jobs fails at its most basic level because it is clearly just Kutcher trying to be Jobs. Kutcher tries his heartfelt best to rise to the occasion, but the script puts him in his place; just like Jobs did to everyone else, presumably because he was mean since that’s all the film tells us. Pirates of the Silicon Valley still remains the best Steve Jobs movie, but that may change when Aaron Sorkin finally finishes writing his version of Jobs’s life. (Please let them cast Noah Wyle for it!)

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Priyanka Chopra’s voice starred in the animation flick Planes but — and I’ve been waiting to use this pun ever since I saw it — the film doesn’t take off. The Hollywood film to watch this week is Kick-Ass 2 and you can read why in my review here.

DVD Roundup

I like Michael Bay. No, he is not Hollywood’s Sajid Khan, because Khan won’t be able to come up with an action comedy like Bad Boys, let alone a mega-budget film franchise like Transformers that is valued at the same amount of money as the continent of Africa. Bay makes the most popcorny of popcorn films and those films have Megan Fox or some sweet, sweet action, so I genuinely have no grudges against him. When once a while, he makes a film like Pain and Gain, I like him even more.

Pain and Gain is Bay’s first attempt at a black comedy and it’s good. Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson and Anthony Mackie took pay cuts along with Bay to make this low-budget crime-comedy about three bodybuilders who kidnap a rich businessman hoping for a ransom. Obviously, things go wrong. The film is based on a true story and it is well-acted, absurd, hilarious, dark –bordering on noir – and consistently interesting. Check it out and for once, you may not have to leave your brains behind.

A film where you’d definitely need your brains is Danny Boyle’s indie psychological thriller, Trance, starring the very-talented James McAvoy, the very-fetching Rosario Dawson and the very-married-to-Monica-Bellucci Vincent Cassel. A mind-bender on the lines of a trademark Christopher Nolan puzzle, Trance may not be the best in its genre but it is fascinating. Oh, and did I mention that Dawson reprises Alexander here? (Which, for those who haven’t watched Alexander, means she is naked. Again.)

I have plugged Liberal Arts before, but since the DVD released this year, I will plug it again: Josh Radnor is awesome. Mary Elizabeth Olsen is awesome. And Liberal Arts is awesome. If you thought that How I Met Your Mother’s Ted Mosby is Radnor’s swan song, you have not see his directorial debut, Happythankyoumoreplease. And you certainly have not seen the brilliant Liberal Arts, which is as good an indie rites-of-passage comedy drama, as any before. Watch it.

Trailer Roundup

Lots of interesting trailers this week, but the one I’m most excited about is About Time, Richard Curtis’s third film as a director after Pirate Radio and the best romantic comedy of all time, Love Actually. The writer behind Black Adder, Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral and basically, Hugh Grant’s entire career, is back with a rom-com about a time-travelling man in love. This movie is going to be fantastic (all the more so since Curtis claims this may be his last).

The Coen Brothers are not interested in slowing down as writer-directors, although the same cannot be said about their films, which consistently remain slower than ever. Inside Llewyn Davis also seems to be a slow film about a slow folk singer-songwriter (Drive’s Oscar Isaac) in the 1960s, the slowest decade in USA’s slow-moving academy of the time. So obviously, the film’s going to be great!

The best looking trailer of the week’s award goes to the PG trailer of James McAvoy’s next film, Filth, directed by Scottish director Jon S Baird (of little-known gem, Cass fame). The film could not be any more Scottish (read: awesome) with sex, drugs and a rock-n-roll, and they’ve managed all that in a PG trailer! Not that it helped as far as India was concerned. The film’s been given a big “NO!” from our censors just on the basis of the trailer. There’s also Paul W.S. Anderson’s Pompeii, a trailer that may best be described as Dante’s Peak-meets-Gladiator, or the trailer where we find out that Jon Snow (Game of Thrones actor Kit Harrington) has abs.

But the trailer I found most interesting this week is Mark ‘The Hulk’ Ruffalo’s Thanks for Sharing. A comedy drama about sex-addicts (see what I mean?) with a cast that includes Gwyneth Paltrow (STUNNING), Tim Robbins, Josh Gad and Joely Richardson, this one looks like an indie ‘smash’ hit (yes, that was an Avengers pun).

There’s also the teaser trailer of Stranger, JJ Abrams ‘Mystery’ Project, and since all we have to go on is a man with a sewed up mouth, it’s sufficiently mysterious.

In other trailers, there’s Divergent, which is basically The Hunger Games with Shailene Woodey (The Descendants) and which will probably make just as much money. Then there’s +1, a Groundhog Day gone wrong. It’s a thriller set in a college party (yes, I came up with that) and looks quite neat, as does The Grandmaster, which is presented by Martin Scorsese and about Bruce Lee’s teacher. Finally, there’s The Book Thief, starring Geoffrey Rush, and All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, a horror debut by my favourite indie director Jonathan Levine. Check ‘em out.

BATMAN

The Internet exploded when Ben Affleck was announced as Batman. According to news reports, Affleck may be signed on for as many as 13 movies. Personally, I think it’s a great idea. He’s the guy behind Argo, The Town and Gone Baby Gone, and I think he deserves a chance to wash away the sins of Daredevil. Also, what if Ashton Kutcher bought the Batman franchise and then played him himself? So yes, it could’ve been worse!

What do you think of Affleck as Batman? Who should’ve played him instead? (I still think Michael Fassbender was the best bet.)