Jeff Daniels

Sidestepping arguments about accuracy, writer Aaron Sorkin and director Danny Boyle take an artistic, impressionistic approach to this biopic about the iconic Apple founder. Using a structure that would work perfectly on stage, the film tells his story through just three extended scenes. In the process, it reveals even more about human nature than it does about Steve Jobs or the tech business.

The first segment is set in 1984, as Steve (Michael Fassbender) is about to launch the game-changing Macintosh computer with cofounder Steve Wozniak (Seth Rogen), marketing expert Joanna Hoffman (Kate Winslet) and developer Andy Hertsfeld (Michael Stuhlbarg). As he organises the launch event to within an inch of its life, he's interrupted by his ex-girlfriend Chrisann (Katherine Waterston), but Steve still refuses to accept that her 5-year-old daughter is his. He also has an important conversation with the Apple chairman John Sculley (Jeff Daniels) just before going on-stage. This same scenario is repeated two more times, at the 1988 launch of NeXT and at the 1998 launch of the iMac, tracing Steve's fierce business acumen, complex interaction with his colleagues, and his evolving connection with his daughter.

Fassbender bravely never hedges his bets as Jobs, finding a tricky balance in an innovator who changed the world but never quite made sense of his personal or professional relationships. This is a man who is likeable and cruel at the same time, eliciting both laughter and gasps of horror from the audience. Fassbender's kinetic energy is hugely engaging, matched cleverly by Winslet's Hoffman, the only person with whom Jobs speaks about his own flaws. With both Rogen's generous Wozniak and Stuhlbarg's determined Hertzfeld, Jobs is much more dismissive, although there's respect under the surface. And its the literate banter with Daniels' thoughtful Sculley that gives the film its brainy kick, especially as it's so inventively written and directed to weave conversations right into flashbacks.

Continue reading: Steve Jobs Review

Just as people began to write off veteran director Ridley Scott after a series of merely OK movies, the 77-year-old casually releases his most entertaining film in years. This sci-fi adventure is lithe, humorous, thrilling and genuinely moving. In other words, it's one of Scott's best films, mixing eye-catching visuals with a story that resonates with both emotion and deeper meaning. And it's also a lot of fun.

In the very near future, the first manned mission to Mars is caught off guard by a sudden storm. With their ship in danger, Commander Lewis (Jessica Chastain) orders the crew to evacuate, but in the chaos botanist Watney (Matt Damon) is knocked away and presumed dead. As Lewis and her team (Michael Pena, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan and Aksel Hennie) begin the long trek back to Earth, Watney wakes up alone on Mars and understands that he will need to survive until the next mission arrives in four years' time. But his habitat is only designed to last for 30 days, so he has a lot of work to do. Eventually, he thinks of a way to get a message back home to Nasa, letting them know he's alive. Now the experts (including Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sean Bean and Kristen Wiig) must figure out a way to rescue him before he runs out of food and water.

The story plays out on three fronts: with Watney using his expertise to survive, Lewis and her crew on their long journey back home, and the Nasa officials mounting a rescue mission. All three plot-strands are riveting, using convincing science to explore the conundrum while cranking up the emotional urgency of the situation. Intriguingly, the script never gives Watney a family back on Earth to sentimentalise things; the film simply doesn't need that. And Damon more than holds the audience's sympathy. He's funny, smart, tenacious and thoroughly identifiable, the kind of person we wish we would be in the same situation.

Continue reading: The Martian Review

Be warned: this is a movie meant only for hardcore fans of the 1994 original, and other moronic comedies in which plot, character and filmmaking coherence aren't important. If any fart joke makes you laugh, don't miss it. Everyone else probably already knows that they should avoid this movie, which is even more idiotic than it looks. Although for those forced to suffer through it, there's at least a strand of witty, absurd comedy faintly running through each scene.

After an utterly pointless 20-year practical joke, old buddies Harry and Lloyd (Jeff Daniels and Jim Carrey) are once again a team, causing chaos everywhere they go due to their inability to understand pretty much anything that's happening around them. Now Harry needs a kidney transplant, just as he discovers that he fathered a child with Fraida (Kathleen Turner) nearly 23 years ago. So he and Lloyd head off to find his daughter Fanny (Rachel Melvin). She has been raised by a Nobel-winning scientist (Steve Tom) and his money-grabbing wife (Laurie Holden), who's plotting with the handyman (Rob Riggle) to steal his millions. All of them converge on an inventors' convention in El Paso, where Harry is mistaken as a genius, Lloyd falls in love with the wrong woman and everything climaxes in a vortex of mistaken identity and wacky slapstick.

While absolutely everything about this film is painfully stupid, filmmakers Peter and Bobby Farrelly have learned from making solid comedies (like There's Something About Mary and Stuck on You), and the script has an underlying wit to it that hints at a much better movie screaming to get out. But the Farrellys simply leave everything as mindless as possible, using a strangely clunky directing style that feels cheap and underplanned. While there's a steady stream of amusing throwaway gags, the plot and characters never develop into anything engaging, mainly because both Carrey and Daniels are encouraged to overplay every moment so badly that we begin to wonder how anyone could think this was even vaguely funny.

Continue reading: Dumb And Dumber To Review