Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Steve Jobs

On Saturday night, February 6, Sharon and I watched Steve Jobs on the AppleTv. This is part of our effort to watch all of the Oscar nominated films.

The film was directed by Danny Boyle and written by Aaron Sorkin. It is based on the biography of the same name by Walter Isaacson, was well as interviews conducted by Sorkin. Jobs is portrayed by Michael Fassbender, with Kate Winslet, Seth Rogen (as Steve Wozniak) and Jeff Daniels (as John Sculley) in supporting roles.

The film is structured into three acts covering fourteen years (1984–1998) in the life of personal computing innovator and Apple Inc. co-founder Steve Jobs. Each act takes place immediately prior to the launch of a key product: the Apple Macintosh; the NeXT Computer; and, the iMac G3.

The film is nominated for two academy awards. Fassbender and Winslet are up for Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress.

Sharon read the Walter Isaacson book about Steve Jobs. About halfway through the movie, she started saying "this is horrible" over and over again. In the following weeks, when we were talking about the Oscars, Sharon would say "the Steve Jobs film was horrible."

Like Mark Rylance's supporting actor nomination for his performance in Bridge of Spies, I am perplexed by Kate Winslet's nomination for best supporting actress. I can't see either Fassbender or Winslet winning an Oscar for their performances. Although I may have Sharon's voice in my head, I don't recommend the film...

One footnote. As portrayed in the film, the Mac was introduced in a Super Bowl ad in January of 1984. Apple started selling Macs to Stanford students at a heavily discounted price in fall of 1984. My ex-brother-in-law who was a student at Stanford bought one for me. I remember driving down to Stanford to pick it up with my ex-wife who was heavily pregnant with Drew...

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