Viral video factory Funny or Die threw its hat into the Steve Jobs biopic ring just about a month ago, and today it beats the Ashton Kutcher–starring jOBS and Untitled Aaron Sorkin–penned Steve Jobs Biographical Motion Picture Classic to the punch with iSteve, a 78-minute parody biopic (yes, the parody now precedes the parodied) starring Justin Long and written and shot by FOD staffer Ryan Perez in 10 days. It features a supporting cast including Jorge Garcia and James Urbaniak, and a fourth wall–removing narration device deeply indebted to the 2012 Lifetime movie Liz & Dick. If you haven't got 78 minutes to spare in this fast-paced digital world of ours, at least skip to the part where Jobs drops acid with Billy Corgan (Paul Rust) at Woodstock '94.
Too many Apples a day: After adopting Steve Jobs’s fruitarian diet for his role in the biopic jOBS, Ashton Kutcher wound up in the hospital with pancreatic problems. Jobs reportedly experimented with a number of oddball diets: He turned orange from too much carrot juice, lived off of Roman Meal cereal, and attempted to combat body odor with his fruit intake (this last one "was a flawed theory").
The last time we saw Ashton Kutcher as Steve Jobs — from the upcoming cinematic event jOBS (jOBS? jOBS?!) it was only in still-image form. Well, prepare yourself, mentally and emotionally: We've got footage now.
Look, we admit it: When Ashton Kutcher was first cast as Steve Jobs in the indie upstart to Aaron Sorkin's big-ticket biopic, we balked. Jobs, that great titan of American industry — that brazen symbol of individuality and resilience and courage! — would be portrayed by a guy who, at least at one point in his life, spent a lot of time with Wilmer Valderrama? But all those doubts are in the past now. And that's because Kutcher's indie movie jOBS — yes, jOBS — has just commemorated its inclusion in this year's Sundance Film Festival by releasing the first official photo of Kutcher in character. And goddamn if it isn't something else! As Vanity Fair points out, Kutcher's whole thing here — the pose, the tuck, the cubicle, the smoldering stare — is in fact an homage to a vintage photo of Jobs himself.
I hope I don't get killed by the studio for giving too much away, but this entire movie is going to be three scenes, and three scenes only, that all take place in real time … There will be no time cuts. And these three scenes are going to take place backstage before a product launch. The first one being the Mac, and the second one being NeXT, after he had left Apple, and the third one being the iPod. Basically my goal is, I don't know if you remember the ad campaign he did, it was the Think Differently campaign … "Here's to the crazy ones," that's how it began? If I can end the movie with that text, with that voice-over, if I can earn that ending, then I'll have written the movie that I want to write.
After winning an Oscar for his screenplay for The Social Network, Aaron Sorkin became a very safe choice to adapt Walter Isaacson's biography, Steve Jobs, for a feature film; it was in this capacity that Sorkin sat for a session with journalist Walter Mossberg yesterday at the AllThingsD D10 conference. And like his characters, Sorkin eloquently described his work as though it should be treated as one of the most important enterprises the world has ever known. Thanks to a live blog of the session, I've collected Sorkin's five most obnoxious remarks.
It may be hard to remember now, but there was a time when The Social Network — at one point, more commonly known as "The Facebook Movie" — seemed like a really bad idea. What could they possibly make a movie about here?, we asked one other while chuckling and detagging drunk photos of ourselves. Aaron Sorkin, of course, ended up twisting the whole thing into an epic story of betrayal and greed and fast-talking, and copped a rightly deserved Oscar for his efforts. Later, he'd famously say that “fundamentally, you could tell the same story about the invention of a really good toaster.” Well, Aaron's back in the tech-genius movie game, with a more famous toaster-invention story on his hands: Sony has hired Sorkin to adapt Walter Isaacson's biography, Steve Jobs.
Variety is reporting that Ashton Kutcher will spend an upcoming hiatus from Two and a Half Men shooting a most unlikely project: a biopic of Steve Jobs. In which he’ll star. As Steve Jobs. Yes, Ashton Kutcher is playing Steve Jobs.
In 1997, Steve Jobs fired shots at Bill Gates: "I just think he and Microsoft are a bit narrow. He'd be a broader guy if he had dropped acid once or gone off to an ashram when he was younger.'' Get it? I’m a Mac, and you need some LSD.
A few year later in John Markoff’s book on how the hippies and Vietnam War shaped the world of personal computing, Jobs famously cited acid-taking as "one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life." Don’t you see? Drugs help you Think Different, dude.
The book isn’t out and the man is still being mourned, but nothing can stop Hollywood from its business of moviemaking. Over the weekend, news leaked that Sony Pictures was nearing a seven figure deal to option Walter Isaacson’s upcoming biography, Steve Jobs, with the goal of bringing the Mac messiah’s life to the screen as soon as possible. On its own merits, a film about Jobs is a no-brainer — and hell, Noah Wyle has a ton of free time these days. Besides, both The Social Network and Moneyball proved that compelling films can come from narrative-challenged business stories. No, what’s curious isn’t the subject, it’s the studio: Sony.
NBC has picked up Downwardly Mobile, Roseanne’s comeback sitcom. Not only will the show return to the Roseanne territory – it’s a multi-camera ensemble set in a mobile home – it’s also brought on board Roseanne writer/executive producer Eric Gilliland as a showrunner. John Goodman! What does your upcoming schedule look like?! Grade: C+ [HR]
1. Narcissism: inserting themselves into commentary on news/current events (bloggers as rappers)
2. Indulging in an impenetrable stream-of-consciousness style (Portrait of the Artist as a Young Rapper)
3. Substituting visceral, intuitive feeling for intellectual rigor (singer-songwriters as rappers)
4. Being politically or socially conscious in a preachy way (liberal do-gooders, Keith Olbermann as a rapper)
5. Being hung up on material goods (all Americans as rappers)
With those characteristics in mind, here are some writers who predated the hip-hop generation but might have found themselves comfortable in that culture:
Bill Simmons: I'm ashamed to admit that I watched some of VH1 Classic's 30th anniversary celebration of MTV two weekends ago. OK, I watched most of it. Fine, fine, I DVR'ed all 12 hours and ripped through those 12 shows like a fat kid plowing through Halloween candy. MTV Classic not existing might be our single biggest television failure — you can't even believe how many iconic musical and pop culture moments that channel produced until they're randomly flying at you in a totally haphazard manner.
Jay Caspian Kang: Agreed. There needs to be a station where I can watch Soul Asylum's "Runaway Train,"GNR's "Patience," the "Ladies Night" collaboration between Missy, Li'l Kim, Da Brat, Left Eye and Angie Martinez, and "Mr. Wendal" all in a row. Also, I need to be able to judge my adolescent crush on Kennedy in hindsight.
