Ex Machina

     I was told to watch Ex Machina with the person I'd seen Her with. The movies are similar, both feature AI women portrayed beautifully. However tonally the movies could not be farther apart.  Ex Machina is a powerful film that plays with audience expectation and creates a setting that is striking and unique. 

     Alex Garland, of 28 Days Later and Dredd, wrote and directed the psychological sci-fi thriller. The film is a blend of thought provoking cultural importance and visual storytelling. The main characters are Caleb, a sympathetic hard worker, who has won the lottery to meet his boss Nathan, who Caleb describes as a Mozart of programming. The last of the major players is Ava, an AI created by Nathan that Caleb is to give a Turing test. A test to see if Ava truly has consciousness. 

     The cast does a phenomenal job. Domnhall Gleeson, who actually played an AI himself in Black Mirror, is believably tepid and Oscar Isaac is brutally intimidating, both physically and mentally, as Nathan. This is the first major role for Alicia Vikander, who plays Ava, who creates a strong dissonance between the humans. 

     The film is heady. All the major players are hyperintelligent. In a moment in the film Nathan and Caleb are sitting under a hut on Nathan's beautiful estate. The colors are constantly blue and green outside and inside, when the power cuts out especially, the walls are red. This is an ode to RGB color. Nathan and Caleb are sitting under the awning and Caleb says "I am become death, the destroyer of worlds." Nathan says Caleb is quotable. Caleb responds that it's a quote by Oppenheimer the inventor of the atomic bomb. Nathan says he nows.

     Ex Machina is masterfully rendered futuristic space with a plot that is created by characters working off each other in unfamiliar spaces. The film is powerful and wants it starts moving it can't be stopped.

Frank

I had meant to see Frank in theaters. I settled for watching it the day it came out on Netflix. Frank is a film about an odd underground rocker, Frank, who constantly wears a large head shaped mask.

The movie is directed by Lenny Abrahamson and stars Domnhall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Michael Fassbender in the titular role.  While Frank is the masked face of the band, the story follows that of Gleeson's character Jon Burroughs. Jon is a young artist, working a full time job at an office and struggling creatively. The plot gets under way when Jon goes to a beach and sees a man trying to drown himself. He learns that this was the keyboardist of a band called The Soronprfbs. Jon offers himself up and plays a strange, talented, but ultimately short-lived set with the band.

Frank, who is undoubtedly the band's leader, decides he likes Jon and brings him to Ireland to record their next album. The movie meanders in plot for a bit but sets up large scale themes that continue to pay off throughout the film. Frank is obviously eccentric and a bit insane, but where does this insanity end and the genius begin? Can creating art be fundamentally new and still aesthetically pleasing? The viewer, who sees Frank and the Soronprfbs through Jon's outsider eyes, wonders who Frank is under that mask and why is he always wearing it.

The plot picks up again about halfway through the film as the band gets offered a gig at SXSW due to Jon's guerilla social media campaign. A break down is imminent as Frank tries to get more and more "likeable" and Jon starts alienating band members. 

The movie reflects its titular character; it's strange, it's loosely structured, but all together likable and fun. The character is a pseudo homage to Frank Sidebottom, who has a mighty similar head but more of a popular tv look instead of alternative music sound.

Frank is a fun movie with a mysterious center much like the Michael Fassbender's character. The movie denies to be defined. It is complicated and simple. Fun, yet strikingly serious and sad. We end up routing against Jon who was the one who introduced us to this world. As an artist Frank is important movie showing how difficult it is for creative minds to balance themselves, their friends, and the work they so love. I loved this movie.