iSteve
There is something unambitious about a movie that doesn’t describe itself as the best, but as “the first.” And iSteve is an actual movie that I didn’t make up (unless I’m REALLY insane). It stars Justin Long as Steve Jobs. Yes, you read that right.
Long made his name famous Apple commercials, as you may painfully remember. These ads were some of the most annoying ever, so of course, some hack in Hollywood started putting him in stoner movies, once appearing as the gay lover of Brandon Routh in Zack and Miri Make a Porno, only thing I recall Routh from besides Superman Returns.
The only way the Superman curse affected Routh was that his career died. Of course, before Superman Returns, it was never alive.
iSteve describes itself as a “hilarious comedy.” It actually pulls one over on me immediately by making me think my iPad is loading (not a far stretch of the imagination). But that was a trick! It’s the logo of whoever is responsible for this movie.
Ahh! Fooled me.
It begins with Jobs going to some Asian religious hut and getting a few magic futuristic paper stamps. Of course, to the untrained eye, it seems innocent enough. Jobs meets a weird fat ass named Steve Wozniak and decides to do a magic paper thing, which we quickly identify as LSD.
Acid trips looked a lot like early iPod commercials.
Doing drugs inspired Jobs to do all he did for success. Gee. I wonder what the target audience of this movie is?
Hint:
At a dork meet-up, Jobs and Wozniak (mainly Job, as the gag is Wozniak is a dumb idiot) meet Bill Gates. They nerdgasm and begin working on computers in “comedic” form.
This portrayed two programmers working on computers – a man slamming a hammer and other large tools together.
Bill goes on a date with Melinda, who showed up and invited any one guy present to go with her. Rather open lady. Then Apple goes through a time line of growth and wow, THIS IS BORING. Sadly, its not very funny either.
Commodore is apparently run by an evil executive, who wants to crush Apple. He is portrayed as egomaniacally evil, ruthless, plotting and uncaring in a very exaggerated way. He reminds me of someone.
“What the hell difference does it make?”
It’s Steve’s 30th birthday and he reveals the Mac. Then he gets a birthday cake with the candles in the shape of a pentagram because Apple is a satanic company (single bite out of an Apple as a logo. Can you say “forbidden fruit”?)
iSteve meets up with some guy in a bathroom and as they talk, the photography is so awful, they’re on opposite sides in each shot.
First shot…
then this…
…and this.
No one bothered getting even that right. Jobs loses Apple to the guy in the bathroom. He melts down and meets George Lucas. Steve Jobs learns about midichlorians before the rest of us unfortunately did.
Now, we know where Jobs learned the lesson on how to make something awesome and fuck it up completely.
Then Steve Jobs has virtual-reality sex with Melinda Gates.
Not very erotic, unless you’re the T-1000.
Steve then steals Billy Corgon’s ideas because he dropped acid again. In the only laugh yet I have uttered, iSteve orders a coffee, black…and a turtle neck…black. This could have been the line that got the whole movie funded.
Steve has been looking for an actor to portray Apple and the movie even shows him discovering Justin Long in Jeepers Creepers. Brother. Gates discovered that Melinda had virtual sex and punches him on the set of the Apple commercial Justin Long was in. Then a nerd fight commences and Gates wins.
It wouldn’t be a movie about Jobs if this commercial wasn’t parodied. Badly.
Jobs then meets Dell. It isn’t clear if its Michael Dell or the Dude You’re Getting A Dell actor, or just Dell as a company. It is clear that I don’t care. The discussion affects Steve who gives a commencement speech and zones out. He appears to take the acid and has another hallucination sequence…but we find out he didn’t really take it. Years of abuse had rendered his brain permanently dysfunctional to where he would randomly zone out into a “trip” apparently.
The janitor comes back in and talks about the Garden of Eden in his dream. Steve then says we’ve reached the end of the movie and that this is Heaven.
Well that’s a weird-ass movie. It was probably funny to stoned, stupid 18 year-olds but I can’t see a single intelligent person enjoying it.
The best thing is in the middle of it, iSteve breaks and a cigarette smoking Asian repair man has to fix him. It’s funny because for anyone who has ever owned an Apple product, you know it’s designed to slow down over time with new updates that are always heavier and never lighter on the system. Also, often times the hardware sucks ass too.
Don’t get me wrong – this movie sucked my iDick. But it slightly redeemed itself by mocking Apple for using crummy tactics.