Preface

• Now guys, I was very disappointed in this movie for one reason.
• I was the only one in the theater seeing it this morning, which is just illogical.
• Because this is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen in my life, and one of the most important movies of this century so far.

Cast and Characters

• This was honestly Michael Fassbender’s Mona Lisa.
• Fassbender plays Steve Jobs, it was originally supposed to be Christian Bale (with David Fincher directing) then DiCaprio was in talks for it, but now we got Fassbender and I’m glad we did.
• This movie is called “Steve Jobs” for a reason, and that’s because Steve Jobs, played by Fassbender, is the center of this movie.
  • The plot is extremely strong, and the two go together hand-in-hand beautifully. Usually it’s JUST a character study or JUST a plot driven movie. This was both. And it worked SO well.
• Fassbender is honestly the best performance I’ve seen this the year.
• Steve Jobs the character (or real life person, or I guess both in this case) was a jerk, but he was only a jerk because he wanted everything done perfectly and efficiently.
• And you see his character grow over the course of the movie, both in large and small ways. You also get a little bit more insight into how he became the way he was.
• I’ve used the phrase “powerhouse” a lot in the past couple months, but Fassbender honestly is a powerhouse in this movie.
• I didn’t see Magneto, or the slave owner from 12 Years a Slave, or Michael Fassbender. I saw Steve Jobs, the man.
• His performance was so compelling, so moving, and you just couldn’t take your eyes off of him.
• Fassbender wasn’t the only great one though.
• Kate Winslet was in the movie as the head marketer for Jobs, and she has to put up with all of his crap and perfectionist-ness.
• She feels very sincere, but also has a “c’mon, be realistic” attitude to her.
• The single flaw I had with this movie was regarding her character though, and it’s that her character is from Poland, yet for the first third of the movie she didn’t have a Polish accent.
• She did for the other 2/3 though… Her Polish accent was fine, it just seemingly came from nowhere…
• Jeff Daniels and Katherine Waterston were the other two standouts.
• Jeff Daniels was the original CEO of Apple who was kinda like a father figure to Jobs (but not so much later on…) He appeared for very little time in the film, but still found a way to take his dialogue and make it the most, emotional, impactful back-and-forth possible with Fassbender.
• Same to Katherine Waterston who played the mother of Jobs’ daughter. I feel like she’s probably gonna be the most underrated performance coming out of this, but she was honestly fantastic also.
• Seth Rogen was in the movie too as Steve Wozniak, and he was very good as Woz. He didn’t have as much to do as the other actors, but Seth Rogen was the most dramatic and serious he’s been in any movie I’ve seen…
• I’ll compare the actors in this movie to Black Mass, a movie that also had a pretty legit cast.
• Black Mass had a lot of small character actors, each of whom played their character roles well.
• Steve Jobs had a lot of big real-life roles that were played by competent actors who gave it their all, and made the ensemble work so effectively under the engine that was Fassbender.

Writing/Directing

• Steve Jobs was written by Aaron Sorkin, one of my favorite screenwriters (and the writer of The Social Network, my favorite screenplay).
• I won’t compare this to The Social Network too much, in fact this movie wasn’t written like The Social Network. They were almost completely different.
• In terms of dialogue, yes everything was rapid fast, and both do take place inside the brains of geniuses, but structurally?
• Completely different movies.
• And that’s where the directing comes in too.
• See, as opposed to “Jobs”, “Steve Jobs” focuses on just three points of the title character’s life.
• One in 1984 before the launch of the Macintosh, one in 1988 before the launch of Next and the Black Cube, and one in 1998 before the launch of the iMac.
• And the writing/directing combo worked so well.
• The transitions between those time periods were seamless.
• They gave you the cliffnotes about what happened to Jobs in between the points in time, and you felt caught up to the next presentation.
• And the whole movie was just the 40 minutes before each of those announcements.
• Which was mind-blowingly original!
• This movie honestly felt a lot like Birdman, because it was so self-contained and it used a lot of tracking shots.
• I loved that you could see Steve Jobs getting stressed out even though you know the result. The result is (real life spoiler alert!) he invents the future.
• Yet you still get tense seeing things go wrong before these announcements. It’s almost like if one thing is off, the technological advances that we have today are just gone.
• Danny Boyle (director) really captured that tension, but he still made you feel like you were along for the ride.
• And I’ll be honest: I got shivers ever time the applause came up at one of those announcements, just realizing the culmination of these characters strong efforts to get there and recognizing that the world was about to change.
• It’s so hard for Boyle to get you intrigued about Jobs’ next product since you already know what it is, but he does it. I couldn’t wait to hear about all the details of the first iMac, I was fascinated!
• This film was so fascinating overall. I was so captivated in it, and I never wanted it to end.
• I love the way that the dialogue between Jobs and Scully, Jobs and Hoffman, Jobs and Chrisann, and literally every other character was written.
• Danny Boyle used a lot of really unique directing techniques too.
• I LOVE David Fincher, but there were some things Boyle did with this movie (a lot of the tracking shots as I mentioned, and some brighter color techniques with blending) that I couldn’t picture Fincher doing.

Themes

• The movie has a lot of great themes too!
• Other than the importance of family, it shows that hard work DOES pay off.
• But more importantly than that, it shows to “think different.”
  • There’s this whole bit in the movie about that line that I won’t spoil for you guys…
• This movie’s main theme is that: was Steve Jobs a jerk? Yes. But was he an artist? Yes.
• And artists are the ones who paint the future. Jobs was one of those artists, and this movie showed that there were a lot of road bumps, a lot of arguments, and a lot of conversations to get there. But we’re here.
• It painted this very realistic and very important goal, almost like that of Inside Out: sometimes realism is the way to go.
• I’m not saying that this movie is encouraging you to be a jerk, but it’s definitely showing that you should be realistic at work, as well as in your personal life.
• And that was an awesome theme!

In Conclusion

• Guys, In Conclusion, Steve Jobs is one of the most remarkable films I’ve seen in a long time.
• It was kind of like Birdman with its self-contained and stressful feel.
• But it also had elements of The Social Network through Sorkin’s effective dialogue.
• Danny Boyle kept me continually fascinated, intrigued, and on the edge of my seat to see the next part of these characters’ lives and how they would resolve their conflicts, and what devices would be introduced or though up next.
• Michael Fassbender was an absolute revelation and he’s a lock for Best Lead Actor nomination at the Oscars this year. (If not a lock to win…)
• Kate Winslet, Katherine Waterston, Jeff Daniels, and Seth Rogen all came to play and knocked it out of the park too. These are all some of the most capable actors in the business, and they showed it. At least two of them will get nominations, I promise it.
• And I bet the movie gets nominated for Best Picture.
  • This, Sicario, and Inside Out are the three locks in my book so far.
• Wrapping it up, guys this movie just got better and better. And better. And BETTER.
• And it started great!
• It’s simply one of the best movies you’ll see this year, and it’s one of my favorites of the year.
• And Steve Jobs is… A 5/5

***

So guys, those are my thoughts on Steve Jobs! What are your thoughts on this movie if you’ve checked it out yet? Let me know in the comments down below, and as always, thanks for reading guys.