Part of our CINEMA IN THE TIME OF CORONAVIRUS series. Friday, June 26, 2020 @ 7p, Netflix Streaming Service: EX MACHINA (2014 , A24, dir by Alex Garland, streaming, 108 mns)
HOW TO: While we all work to be socially responsible during the age of coronavirus, Secret Movie Club is experimenting with news ways we can all come together as a community and watch great movies.
We want to keep this very reasonable since folks have to have Netflix to start with. So donate whatever works for you. $1 is fine with us.
Just make sure you download NETFLIX PARTY on a Chrome Browser. You'll see the initials NP in the upper right hand corner of browser after a succesful download.
Secret Movie Club will email the link for the Netflix Party at 30 minutes before showtime using the email you provide here. Click that link then click the NP in upper right hand corner. This will synch you to our screening. We will start the movie at exactly 5 minutes after the hour.
There will be a chat function that allows everyone to comment as we go.
The Secret Movie Club team will be offering trivia, history, insights, articles, deep dives throughout the movie(s). We're going to work to make this as rich a feast as possible utilizing the technology at hand.
Then we'll want your feedback immediately on how we can improve/make it better! This also will allow Secret Movie Clubbers from all over the world to join in on a virtual screening!
This final week of June 2020 we’re screening a mini fest of great recent speculative sci-fi movies. One of the most striking of the past decade is Alex Garland’s 2014 Ex Machina. Caleb, a programmer for the biggest tech company in the world, wins an in-company contest, to spend the week with the company’s genius founder Nathan, at his remote private residence.
When Caleb arrives, Nathan reveals he wants Caleb to interact with the company’s most recent tech, Ava, an AI robot, whose body appears robotic but whose face is completely human appearing. If Ava passes the “Turing test” (fooling a human into thinking she’s human) even with the obvious impediment of her robot appearance, Nathan will judge the week a success.
But almost immediately the week becomes a dangerous triangular game of wits. Nathan appears more alcoholic, unstable, and sociopathic than is comfortable for Caleb. Caleb also begins to fall for Ava even though he knows she’s a robot. And Ava is able to momentarily distract Nathan so she can plead with Caleb to help free her.
One of the biggest successes of the movie is how it will keep you guessing until the climax. Who is playing who? What exactly is going on? Also Garland uses the set-up to explore fascinating themes of toxic masculinity and human nature. The movie is a triumph also because it’s able to tell such a riveting story with just four characters and one location. But you never consider that. You’re on the edge of your seat from the first ten minutes trying to figure out and wrestle with the near future implications of emoting, feeling, sentient AI.
Garland returns sci-fi to the realm of the idea. Yet he still keeps everything pulpy and suspenseful. This is how you do it.