As if I haven’t already caused the credit card to hide whimpering
in the corner, L asks ‘please please please can we have a new cooker?’. It was officially condemned a while a go.
She says that if the current one explodes it will damage all the new insulation as
well as harm the dogs. She says she had to fetch one of the control knobs out
of Doggo's jaws this morning when it fell off the cooker and he thought it was
a bonio.
Did I mention we may be having new insulation? Although that
will be very safe, inside the wall.
I order a new cooker, new curtains, a curtain pole and
hoover bags. I just need to nip to B&Q for the rope and the duct tape now.
Sorry, just having a 50 Shades moment.
Talking of films, we head to Broadway. Although not to see 50 Shades. On the way we pop in for a gym session. I do 10k on the bike, mainly
standing up, and a one mile treadmill run. My calves seem ok, so plaudits to evil
Mr Physio.
Tonight, Ex Machina. Nathan Bates (Oscar Isaac again, this time hiding behind a bushy
beard), the wealthy CEO of the world's leading search engine BlueBook (aka Google),
is a recluse living out in the wilderness (aka Norway).
Caleb (Domhnall Gleeson) is a young whiz kid who works for
BlueBook and wins the company lottery with the prize being to spend a week with
Nathan at his luxury home aka research facility. A place that can only be
reached by travelling for many hours by helicopter.
Nathan is a one man research project into the development of
Artificial Intelligence. That’s robots to you and me. Caleb has been summoned
(or more correctly selected) to perform the 'The Turing Test' on his creation, to
see if it can genuinely pass itself off as human to another human.
Nathan introduces Caleb to the beautifully assembled Ava (Alicia
Vikander again, this time hiding behind a lot of wires and cables) because, of
course, Nathan only makes female robots.
The only other person in the house is
Nathan's maid Kyoko (Sonoya Mizuno), who speaks no English but seems a dab hand
with a duster, a frying pan and at providing other essential ‘services’.
Through a series of meetings Caleb interrogates and tests Ava,
whilst Nathan watches on CCTV and get drunk. However it is soon Ava who ends up
being the one doing the interrogating and testing.
Caleb finds himself constantly manipulated by both the
increasingly eccentric Nathan and his pretty machine, and ends up underestimating
both of them. He begins to lose his mind as he finds out more about Nathan’s
research and as Ava starts to flirt with him.
The film as the combination of a robot with amazing self-awareness
that is determined not to have its plug pulled, your archetypal mad professor type
and the classic confined/remote location scenario. This was never going to end
well.
Oh and there’s a lot of full frontal nudity which could be shocking
to some if these were actual real women and not robots of course. Although Ava
does seem to have a bit of a problem with her own shrinking assets as the film
goes on.
It’s another excellent film, we seem to be on a roll at the
moment. Lots of philosophical plotting, very thought provoking and tense in
places. Quite similar in many ways to last year’s ‘Under the Skin’ but miles
better.
Both Isaac and Gleeson are good but its Alicia Vikander, seemingly
a bit wooden in ‘Testament of Youth’, who steals the film. Unlike the script for
‘Testament’ she has much more to work with here and is infinitely better.
Ultimately the film shows that you just can’t trust women
even when they’re robots and perhaps that men can be persuaded by anything, if
it’s attractive enough.
(Sunday 8th February)
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