Duke of Burgundy - This is the most heartfelt, beautiful movie that involves a scene with one woman peeing in another woman's mouth.
Ex Machina - I did not love this. In a lot of ways it seems daring but it is really conventional at the end of the day. It's about a bro programmer (Nathan/Oscar Isaac) who owns what is the equivalent of future google who makes a fully functional artificial intelligence that he puts in a female shell. One of his employees (Caleb/Domhnall Gleeson) wins a contest, and he is enlisted to essentially run a Turing test on the AI (Ava) to determine whether she can pass as human. It brings up a lot of philosophical questions about consciousness (including thought experiments straight out of textbooks), although it doesn't go particularly deep into these questions. That's what I thought it would be about and I would really appreciate a movie that was solely dedicated to examining this (it's becoming more of a thing nowadays with this, Her and Chappie within the past year). Instead it plays more like a thriller or even a horror movie. You're questioning the motive of each character and it really sets up for some twists and turns, and the movie is really good at making things tense. Still, I think the best parts of the movie involve Caleb just talking with Ava, with both of them developing a rapport and probing each other with questions, leaving you wondering about what Ava is capable of. There is a really nice moment when Ava, who is a shell, asks Caleb to close his eyes, and she moves to her room and picks out some clothes, and she is really deliberative with how she wants to present herself to him. It's strangely touching, although a part of that is propelled by the score.
I'm a bit mixed on the ending, but I found out that this was the same guy who wrote Sunshine, so I should have expected third act problems.
So the character dynamics here really seem like they will turn into something really interesting. Ava can shut down the power of the facility at will, and she uses those opportunities to tell Caleb that Nathan is not to be trusted. It is stated very clearly from the beginning that essentially what Nathan is doing is playing at God, and as such, there is something unsettling about him (a feminist reading of the film could have a field day with what's going on here). You also don't really know much about Ava and her motives and capabilities but that is the main mystery of the story. Still, the major problem I had is that while the movie seems like it will be labyrinthine and full of twists, it really isn't. Caleb and Nathan's motivations and plans are what they say they are and nothing more (they each even take turns at explaining what their plans are). In some ways, it's like a weird noir film with no twists. Ava is a femme fatale who gets a patsy (Caleb) to free herself from an abusive monster (Nathan). The patsy and the monster are really transparent and do everything you expect them to do, and that is a very disappointing part of the film. Caleb is manipulable but he is chosen to be based on his search history, but there really isn't anything more to him. There is a subplot where he thinks he may also be an AI but that would have made for an even more terribly generic plotline. Nathan's a bro and a weirdly creepy monster. That's all.
The ending also becomes really dumb. Nathan is supposed to be very intelligent but has a completely moronic security system, which is compounded by his penchant of getting blind drunk and he keeps his keycard (the only way you can get around) in his sweats. Then Caleb and Ava launch their plans and another lady AI (a Japanese serving girl who is also clearly an AI from the start) goes stabbin' Nathan with her stabbin' knife and the whole problem with it devolving into a corny slasher movie is echoed here was it is in Sunshine. By the end I didn't really care anymore, but the movie does do something a little ballsy/cruel by having Ava leave Caleb trapped forever in the compound. It's kind of senseless but perhaps she is just incredibly utilitarian and had no further use for him. A helicopter comes and she convinces the pilot to take her back (I guess that's her passing the Turing test), and she goes to a crowded intersection, which was her dream. It doesn't end with the implication of omg skynet. She does seem genuinely curious rather than malicious since she's experiencing the world for the first time.
So not the movie I wanted it to be. Not a disaster and probably worth watching but still problematic.
Clouds of Sils Maria - I felt really detached to this. It touches on a lot of things about performance and the culture of acting that Birdman does, but with more talking and less screaming. Like Birdman, the actors are part of this play where you're told but not shown of its quality, but this does a point of dealing with aging and personal evolution. The relationships in the play mirror the relationship between Juliette Binoche (who is fantastic as usual) and her personal assistant (Kristen Stewart). People are heaping a lot of praise on Stewart's performance, and she does feel a little more natural than her other movies, but I still think she has a weird problem with properly displaying affect sometimes, which is problematic. There are some good moments of camaraderie with Binoche that are noteworthy, so there is some talent there.
Something big happens about a half hour before the movie ends (Kristen Stewart disappears that really makes the movie feel empty afterwards, and I guess that was the point. There are good performances and there is a lot of obvious parallel structure going on but I'm not sure to what end. I don't know if I 100% got this one.
As an aside, Chloe Grace Moretz gets to play an actress in this movie who is the worst which is appropriate because Chloe Grace Moretz is the worst. There are some actors who I really have this visceral dislike for and she is one of them, and I think it's particularly from Kick Ass, where I find her endlessly irritating. Everything else she is in is pretty terrible and she's not so great in them. One exception is Hugo but she barely has a role in it.
It's not a generalized dislike of young actresses since I do quite like Hailee Steinfeld (although I think she will be wasted in bratty teenage roles until she grows older), Mia Wasikowska, and Saoirse Ronan. Then again, I have the same dislike for Shailene Woodley (although that is mostly due to her idiotic views on feminism) and Jennifer Lawrence (who I just find really overrated). I dunno. What I do know is Chloe Moretz is terrible.
