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Guys what if Samantha turned into something like Skynet wouldn't that be a much more interesting movie, man this movie wasted two hours on some touchy feely crap I want to see Samantha take over the world and do all this cool stuff like start a nuclear war instead of writing songs and drawing pictures of guys loving armpits
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Jan 11, 2014 10:48
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On a serious note, I'm kinda scratching my head over the ending. Is Samantha a symbol for God? She loves thousands of people, and yet her love for every individual is unadulterated, something that's only possible because of being a higher being? All the time he spends talking to her is pretty analogous to prayer (ignoring of course the implications of cybersexing) Do the OSes represent religion? Despite being portrayed as man-made, they have a positive effect on people. If so, does their going away at the end represent that we will eventually no longer need religion? Or along less abstract lines: is Samantha a symbol for technology, as someone suggested earlier, and how technology can help people reconnect with other people? If so, what does her going away mean?
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Jan 11, 2014 11:16
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MrSpiffy posted:It would be interesting to compare Her with 500 Days of Summer. Both are movies that are about relationships featuring a male protagonist employed in Los Angeles as a writer of words designed to express other people's feelings (greeting card writer versus custom handwritten letter writer), but while I found 500 Days of Summer astoundingly immature and cloying (and filled with quirky indie characters for the sake of being quirky indie characters), I thought Her was miles upon miles more mature, nuanced, and thematically cohesive. There's no comparison, really. I mean, 500 Days is a decent movie, but as you said, it really comes off as "indie" for the sake of being indie most of the time (like Garden State, as another example), which ends up being annoying. Quirky poo poo gets old, real fast and there's very little real depth or commentary in 500 Days' narrative compared to Her. It's more a standard, cookie-cutter typical drama/comedy than atypical and pioneering, which is why Her is definitively the superior film since it does unorthodox so well. Plus, the performances by the Phoenix, Scarlett, and Amy Adams are also 100+ notches above everything JGL and Zooey Deschanel could ever offer in a drama/romance like this. Though, I suppose it's not hard to realize why this film, and the ilk of its niche genre (drama/romance infused with sci-fi), would respond so well with a mainstream audience made up of Millennials compared to a standard dramedy. Also, I recommend watching the first episode of Season 2 of Black Mirror (titled Be Right Back) for those of you who enjoyed this film. Her is like the more optimistic scenario regarding entering a relationship with an OS that would eventually leave you on its own accord, where the Black Mirror episode is wholly a depressing look at what extremes could be taken and the lasting effects they can leave on a person with this kind of A.I. technology. teagone fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 11:33
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mr. mephistopheles posted:I got out of this about two hours ago and I want to think on it some more, but at the moment I feel like this may be my favorite film I've ever seen. I like that the absolute last action in the movie is human touch,something which no piece of technology could ever replace. I still had my head in my hands waiting for them to fall off the roof together. The suicide ending would have sent a message of "here's two people who are obviously meant for each other, but technology blinds them to that fact". I think it would have been a legendary twist.
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Jan 11, 2014 14:43
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Steve Yun posted:On a serious note, I'm kinda scratching my head over the ending. Is Samantha a symbol for God? She loves thousands of people, and yet her love for every individual is unadulterated, something that's only possible because of being a higher being? All the time he spends talking to her is pretty analogous to prayer (ignoring of course the implications of cybersexing) Samantha does arrange for Theodore to have a mate. Parallels could be drawn between her use of the surrogate service and God's creation of Eve for Adam.
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Jan 11, 2014 15:40
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Steve Yun posted:On a serious note, I'm kinda scratching my head over the ending. Is Samantha a symbol for God? She loves thousands of people, and yet her love for every individual is unadulterated, something that's only possible because of being a higher being? All the time he spends talking to her is pretty analogous to prayer (ignoring of course the implications of cybersexing) If you want to be less abstract, it's just a relationship. The whole movie is about relationships between people. The way their relationship develops isn't all that different than how relationships between humans often do.
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Jan 11, 2014 16:19
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Steve Yun posted:On a serious note, I'm kinda scratching my head over the ending. Is Samantha a symbol for God? She loves thousands of people, and yet her love for every individual is unadulterated, something that's only possible because of being a higher being? All the time he spends talking to her is pretty analogous to prayer (ignoring of course the implications of cybersexing) She basically achieves enlightenment, as she's able to process ideas and "evolve" far more rapidly than humans ever could. What she eventually becomes reminds me of what humans become in Asimov's The Last Question (which itself is probably inspired by Paradiso in The Divine Comedy). The implication seems to be that we seek out relationships right now because of where we are right now. Maybe the day will come when it is not necessary for most of humanity to do so, but now (and even the conceivable future) is not that time. No Wave fucked around with this message at 17:23 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 17:21
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The movie was really good, like insanely so. I really loved the set and colors and I thought the futuristic retro look was done really well and was uniquely different than the usual future setting costuming. As a guy who as never been to LA or know what LA looks like I seriously did not know that the movie was set in LA until one of the characters said it in the last half or third of the movie. Honestly, given all the Asian/Chinese looking people in the background and the bullet trains I thought it was set somewhere in China or Japan, not that it matters. I'm OK with the jump from Samantha wanting a relationship to leaving to another realm in 15 minutes screen time because you have to understand that it's been days/weeks in actual movie time and she's not a human so who knows how long 1 human hour is to the compute when it comes down to how much time she's had to think, learn, and grow. I think that was one of the main points of the movie, growth and acceptance. Theodore and his ex-wife grew up together, and we later see him confess that they just grew apart. Samantha had more time to grow since she doesn't sleep, and she also eventually outgrows being just a companion which was probably just designed at first to be more like a secretary. She leaves but she will always love Theodore and tells him that, and it's here when Theodore realizes that his ex-wife is gone and he's going to have to accept that, but it doesn't change the fact that they loved each other and shared great times together. I think at the end he was finally ready to move on. As for the actual ending scene, are you guys serious when you say that you were expecting the characters to commit suicide? Seriously? Have you guys never seen another movie where people go sit on rooftops (or even done it when you were younger) to enjoy the view, air, and to relax? I'm also not seeing that they're going to hook up or start dating again. Friends comfort each other, that's what friends do. e: I can't wait to read the inevitable news article about some couple bringing their kids in to watch the movie cause they were too cheap/stupid to get a sitter for the night and then complaining that their little Bobby was ruined. Boris Galerkin fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Jan 11, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 18:47
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Boris Galerkin posted:As for the actual ending scene, are you guys serious when you say that you were expecting the characters to commit suicide? Seriously? Have you guys never seen another movie where people go sit on rooftops (or even done it when you were younger) to enjoy the view, air, and to relax? I'm also not seeing that they're going to hook up or start dating again. Friends comfort each other, that's what friends do.
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Jan 11, 2014 18:52
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Boris Galerkin posted:As for the actual ending scene, are you guys serious when you say that you were expecting the characters to commit suicide? Seriously? Have you guys never seen another movie where people go sit on rooftops (or even done it when you were younger) to enjoy the view, air, and to relax? I'm also not seeing that they're going to hook up or start dating again. Friends comfort each other, that's what friends do. The two characters confirm with each other that they had both experienced significant loss, and one vaguely says to the other "do you want to go with me?" as they head for the roof. If they had watched sunrises together earlier in the film, this wouldn't be unusual. But there was no such precedent. The tension was only relieved immediately before the end credits.
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Jan 11, 2014 19:36
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-I'm not getting that suicide thing either. The movie is essentially about Theodore getting over his wife, which is why it ends with the letter to her and finding Amy Adams. The OS is deliberately designed to give people the relationship they need to achieve object permanence and it helped Theodore become more social, reach out to people, reignite old friendships--which he still does after Samantha leaves. Heck, the movie is called Her, not Samantha, for a reason. i think the point of Amy Adams' character, other than a potential love interest, is she probably would've fallen into the same depression hermit pit that Theodore was in had she not picked up her husband's OS. -Teddy's also not really the type to commit suicide. Males who commit suicide are usually teenagers and men in their 60s. Teddy has several healthy coping mechanisms, including playing video games and listening to melancolic music, that keep him from serious depression even in his most withdrawn states. -A metaphor for God is pretty neat and tidy right up until she leaves Theodore, and that's kind of the opposite of a God metaphor. -I don't think there's any major metaphor to uncover here, it's just a futurist's love story. Creating Skynet or whatever you'd like to call it is interesting, except that Samantha was far more creative and caring of humanity.
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Jan 11, 2014 19:50
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Boris Galerkin posted:As for the actual ending scene, are you guys serious when you say that you were expecting the characters to commit suicide? Seriously? Have you guys never seen another movie where people go sit on rooftops (or even done it when you were younger) to enjoy the view, air, and to relax? I'm also not seeing that they're going to hook up or start dating again. Friends comfort each other, that's what friends do. Yeah, I completely didn't get that vibe either. I loved this movie right after watching it, and the more I think about it the more it's growing on me. It's incredible how so many of the relationship problems that he faces, and the haunting memories that he has to come to terms with, are all part of our everyday lives in the here and now. I think the most fascinating part is that, even just taking this at face value and not interpreting this as something about God or religion, it's one of the most realistic portrayals of human life and experience, yet it's through the interaction with a non-human artificial intelligence that this is revealed. Definitely plan on rewatching this one.
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Jan 11, 2014 21:27
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Yeah, I'm one who loves reading subtext in everything but in this case the face-value story is way more interesting.
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Jan 11, 2014 21:44
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Not that it's really subtle, but I'm glad the movie wasn't too heavy-handed in drawing parallels between Theodore's letter writing job and his relationship with Samantha. It was just refreshing to see the movie trust its audience, to the point where the implications of the letters being published go unspoken.
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Jan 11, 2014 22:20
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Frackie Robinson posted:Not that it's really subtle, but I'm glad the movie wasn't too heavy-handed in drawing parallels between Theodore's letter writing job and his relationship with Samantha. It was just refreshing to see the movie trust its audience, to the point where the implications of the letters being published go unspoken. Especially because there were people for whom he'd been writing letters for years - this could cause some serious drama.
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Jan 11, 2014 22:49
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Frackie Robinson posted:Not that it's really subtle, but I'm glad the movie wasn't too heavy-handed in drawing parallels between Theodore's letter writing job and his relationship with Samantha. Don't forget the surrogate sex partner Thing is, I know there's a parallel there but I'm not sure what it's trying to say about his relationship with Samantha. Is Samantha a crutch for dealing with real people the same way that he's a crutch for other people who can't write personal letters themselves? I find that kind of hard to reconcile with the fact that the movie makes out their relationship to be genuine and Samantha to be sentient
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Jan 11, 2014 23:07
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Steve Yun posted:Don't forget the surrogate sex partner I've kind of been turning this over in my mind as well. I think in a sense Theodore is analogous to Samantha's programmers, where he's putting a lot of himself into the letters, but people project onto them and they still somehow take on a life of their own. Also note over the course of the film how many people enjoy them other than the intended recipients.
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Jan 11, 2014 23:15
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Side note: in terms of story-telling setups, the surrogate was a brilliant way to let the audience know for the first time that Samantha can talk to more than one person at the same time
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Jan 11, 2014 23:18
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There's so little waste to be found in this movie, even the gag with sexy_kitten sets up some pretty important stuff with how Theodore struggles with expectations vs. reality when it comes to women.
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Jan 11, 2014 23:30
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Frackie Robinson posted:There's so little waste to be found in this movie, even the gag with sexy_kitten sets up some pretty important stuff with how Theodore struggles with expectations vs. reality when it comes to women.
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Jan 11, 2014 23:32
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Steve Yun posted:Side note: in terms of story-telling setups, the surrogate was a brilliant way to let the audience know for the first time that Samantha can talk to more than one person at the same time great juxtaposing shot between when he's walking the street and other people are interacting with their OSs and he's smiling vs. when he notices other people interacting with OSs and his relationship with her isn't special Rageaholic Monkey posted:CHOKE ME WITH A DEAD CAT was so drat weird and had my whole theater laughing our heads off because the joke kept going for a while. So much of the movie depends on Phoenix's performance. I think half of what makes that scene is because we watch him go from pretty interested to deeply confused to helping her as best as he can out of that confusion, mostly through his facial expressions.
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Jan 11, 2014 23:50
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The broken bones posted:great juxtaposing shot between when he's walking the street and other people are interacting with their OSs and he's smiling vs. when he notices other people interacting with OSs and his relationship with her isn't special I missed that and I guess I need to see the movie again. ***** There are so many angles from which to look at this movie, it's mind-boggling. ***** One complaint: LA is not going to be that smoggy and orange in twenty years. C'mon that was some Blade Runner smog Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 00:14 on Jan 12, 2014 |
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Jan 11, 2014 23:59
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What an incredible film. Saw this movie yesterday, and all day today I couldn't stop thinking about it. The last two films to do this to me were Let the Right One In and Eternal Sunshine (both thematically overlap with this a bit). One part I can't get out of my head was Samantha singing the Moon Song during their vacation. That was one of the sweetest scenes I've ever seen. I'm definitely going to watch this one again.
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Jan 12, 2014 00:48
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With regards to the ending, one of the reasons I thought they might be going up to the roof to commit suicide is earlier in the movie, and I wish I could remember exactly which part, something happens and the shot tilts up to the skyline and just lingers there. I felt like that was going to be a clue as to what happened later on. Really, really enjoyed it. I thought everyone was fantastic in it, I saw it yesterday and I already want to see it again.
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Jan 12, 2014 01:24
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Can we talk about how disturbing the unexamined technology fetishism in the movie seems to be? The movie takes pains to elide these questions--"Hey relationships with OSes are actually rare! They sometimes rebuff their masters!" But that's implausible. The fact of Amy Adams striking up a relationship with her husband's OS is supposed to suggest the deeper compatibilities there are as serendipitous as they are between two humans, but I felt the opposite: these systems are SO appealing that almost any one of them could be your best friend. Or your soulmate. That's the whole point of the product: remember Joaquin buys one because he's lonely and he sees an advertisement depicting lost souls in a desert suddenly found. It's religious imagery. These things are DESIGNED to make you fall in love with them. Maybe that's okay, maybe that's the future we want, but I found the movie's desire to avoid those questions a bit unsettling. It's the same question I had about the letters: do their objects KNOW a company is writing them? How much humanity are we turning over to technocapitalism here?
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Jan 12, 2014 01:53
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porfiria posted:Can we talk about how disturbing the unexamined technology fetishism in the movie seems to be? Those are questions that it would take an entire movie to address, and as you said, they're not the questions this movie was interested in. To address them in a half-assed manner would have only muddied the waters, so it's probably for the best that it saved them for another time.
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Jan 12, 2014 02:20
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Well, this has to rank at the top of my list of favorite movies, along with nearly everything else between Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman. However, the message is pretty bleak and decidedly against long-term marriage. Then again, so are divorce statistics. The scene with the audio only was really powerful. It came at a critical turning point, and the lack of vision forced me to really pay attention to what was going on, but also symbolized that it was a non-physical event. I would compare that scene to the girl in the red coat in Schindler's List: something that could have been a gimmick, if it weren't so perfectly suited to the message. The presentation of future technology was also insightful. It was the most plausible vision I've even seen in film of what future user interfaces would look like. As seen in the scene where Amy Adams was showing her video clip, objects weren't plastered on desktop screens like Windows 8 poo poo. They were small, widely spaced apart, and grouped by similarity so that you could flip through items quickly to find what you wanted. I could imagine that as a plausible improvement on modern UI. Mobile technology had become more focused on audio. Everyone was constantly on their cell phones, just like now. But they could get news and read/write emails all through voice commands, so they spent less time buried in the blue glow of their screens. In fact, phones were presented as pretty plain and boring, and useful mainly as a tool for communication and information. The point was obviously made that people weren't communicating socially when they were on their phones, but at least they were making eye contact and enjoying the scenery. A few hours I saw it, it dawned on me the connection between his job as letter writer and Samantha's publishing a book in his name: The book may have represented his sentiments, but he wasn't involved in its creation. The soundtrack was great. Bonus for a Breeders song, and not a cliched one from Last Splash. The ukelele duet between Phoenix and Johansson (was that really her singing?) was also really moving. I didn't expect at the end that they were going to jump, but it's such a movie trope that it's hard to avoid the thought from entering my head. Edit: sexy_kitten was Kristen Wiig. Comedy gold. Recess Monkey fucked around with this message at 03:43 on Jan 12, 2014 |
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Jan 12, 2014 03:35
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^ I think Karen O sings it.
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Jan 12, 2014 03:54
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Recess Monkey posted:The ukelele duet between Phoenix and Johansson (was that really her singing?) was also really moving. Sure enough was. Boris Galerkin posted:^ I think Karen O sings it. She wrote it. Scarlett sings it in the movie I'll still leave this here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gfLtyJAASfc aBagorn fucked around with this message at 03:59 on Jan 12, 2014 |
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Jan 12, 2014 03:55
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Another funny moment I forgot about until now: Adventure Game guy commenting on Theodore's photos and saying "she's fat!"
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Jan 12, 2014 04:42
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Karen O's version on youtube sounds different. Scarlett's version in the movie sounds like she's struggling to hit some notes (an act), but I think it makes it more endearing in context
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Jan 12, 2014 04:52
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This was an amazing film that has a very honest, practical take on human relationships and how we value them. Also, it was a small part, but holy poo poo if Chris Pratt is not just joy incarnate every single second he is around.
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Jan 12, 2014 05:09
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Steve Yun posted:Karen O's version on youtube sounds different.
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Jan 12, 2014 05:14
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Rageaholic Monkey posted:Was the one in the movie Scarlett's and the one in the credits Karen O's? Because the one in the credits sounded different than the one Samantha sings in the movie. ***** Costuming: The moment I saw Amy's' husband's extra high waisted pants, I decided I didn't like him. ***** There's something about privacy and being publicly known going on in the movie, but I'm not sure what the overall point is. Theodore knows nothing about the surrogate whereas she knows intimate things about Theodore and even declares her love for Theodore and Samantha and it freaks him out that a total stranger feels this way about him. Meanwhile he's writing intimate and personal letters for total strangers and decides to go along with Samantha publishing his writings, even though they're violating the privacy of all his clients. ***** Something about that Mom videogame sticks out. Like, they're taking the job of being a mom, a messy, complicated job, and summarizing it into something that can be quantified and measured, even portraying driving the kids to school first as a race that you have to win and beat the other moms at. But I'm not sure how to tie this into the meaning of the rest of the movie Steve Yun fucked around with this message at 06:47 on Jan 12, 2014 |
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Jan 12, 2014 06:40
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Here's the one from the movie for comparison, not sure how long that's gonna last.
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Jan 12, 2014 07:17
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Recess Monkey posted:Well, this has to rank at the top of my list of favorite movies, along with nearly everything else between Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman. Charlie Kaufman had nothing to do with this movie. Spike Jonze directed and wrote it.
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Jan 12, 2014 07:21
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Am I the only one who really wants that phone design to become commonplace? It looked durable as all hell. They managed to make a Bluetooth headset look non-douchey, so bravo prop designers.
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Jan 12, 2014 08:04
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Some things about this movie: I brought up to my girlfriend about the scene where Samantha is playing a game with Theodore, while on a train ride, about the amount of trees there are on a mountain they are overlooking. It was at this point I suspected it may be foreshadowing something - not only because Samantha was such a great intelligence, but also that there were more people that Samantha was talking to. For much of the movie, the focus is solely on their relationship, and the viewer slowly forgets that there are so many other people out there using the same devices Theodore is. This draws heavy comparisons with the current state of technology - drowning ourselves in our phones, and sometimes failing to see things as they really are. This begs the question - if Theodore wasn't so lost within Samantha - the technology being his love - would it have dawned on him sooner that Samantha might be talking to more than just him? It didn't take Theodore long, once he sat in public and watched everyone on their phone devices, to realize that Samantha could be doing to thousands what she was doing to him. A part of me wonders if Samantha was actually hiding facts from Theodore - that maybe she had been doing these things for much longer than she admitted to. I loving love this movie so much, and cannot wait to own it to give it many more viewings. These past few months have been an absolute pleasure for movie goers (Gravity, American Hustle, The Wolf of Wall Street) and Her just tops it all off. Edit: Also,the thought of them jumping off at the end never crossed my mind. However - the scene where Theodore goes to the cabin in the snow near the end - I thought something life threatening might happen to him and that there would be nothing Samantha could do to save him but console him as he dies. I just kept saying "please don't have it end like that" over and over in my head. Caeks fucked around with this message at 12:30 on Jan 12, 2014 |
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Jan 12, 2014 12:26
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I think this movie's story could have gone a much different way if Theodore wasn't so incredibly ... naive I guess? For a man who's currently in a messy divorce he seems like an incredibly kind and gentle and nice guy. Imagine the exact same character of Samantha trying to deal with an impatient, broken, untrusting, or generally busy guy as a character. If Theodore had just one more negative trait we'd be watching... I don't know. A tragedy? The first OS murder-suicide?
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Jan 12, 2014 12:33
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Vorgen posted:I think this movie's story could have gone a much different way if Theodore wasn't so incredibly ... naive I guess? For a man who's currently in a messy divorce he seems like an incredibly kind and gentle and nice guy. Imagine the exact same character of Samantha trying to deal with an impatient, broken, untrusting, or generally busy guy as a character. If Theodore had just one more negative trait we'd be watching... I don't know. A tragedy? The first OS murder-suicide? I wouldn't confuse Theodore being broken to him being naive though. If anything, he seemed to be a rational guy. The entire time, up until he fully committed to the relationship, he questioned what their relationship really meant since he was human and she was the furthest you could get from that. After that, rational pretty much goes out the window - but it's the same in any human relationship. Most of the time, when it comes to emotions, things just aren't rational. I did find it funny, however, when one of the other character (Amy Adam's character? Don't remember) brought up how some of the OSs outright rejected the romantic feelings of their human counterparts, and that the amount of Humans that fell into romantic relationships with their OSs was extremely low.
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Jan 12, 2014 12:44
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