Paranoia (2013)

By the time most tech jumps from lab to retail, it’s old. All eyes are on the new shiny toy we don’t know we need. Woe the Hollywood thriller that wants to be techno hip, and takes a year to gestate before jumping into a theatrical pool already looking at NetFlix. “Paranoia” never stood a chance. We are tasked to root for a Brooklyn hotshot engineer (Liam Hemsworth, vibing like he’s never seen New York) who crosses the bridge to work for one CEO shark (Gary Oldman) and after a grievous faux pas is strong-armed into working for another Fortune 500 dick (Harrison Ford), with orders to steal wares both soft and hard. The drama tries to spook us with the notion that Big Business will always lurk … in a reality where we now the NSA is monitoring this review as it’s posted. Oldman and Ford square off grand, though no one is thrown off a plane. Damn it. Not even those guys can get past creaky dialogue and scenes where the duped-but-loyal girlfriend (Amber Heard) realizes her iPhone is missing and runs to dial her landline. Expiration date: Ancient. C-

Her (2013)

“Her” is the perfect Spike Jonze film. It smashes story-telling ground with a keen eye on a misfit that takes an outlandish idea -– think mind travel in “Being John Malkovich” –- and makes it instantly accessible. Now. Beautiful. Dark. The story: Theodore (Joaquin Phoenix) is a writer for a website that provides “real” hand written letters for other couples, but he knows little about love himself. His marriage crashed, and when a date suggests a relationship, Theo bolts. Prone to online porn and games, Theo to his mild dismay falls in love with his newest gadget, an OS that’s therapist, camera, encyclopedia, and lover all in one. She names herself Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson) and is everything Theo ever wanted in a woman: On when he needs her, off when he does not. The idea is ridiculous. Jonze lets us know that as Theo hides his burgeoning love until he succumbs truly, deeply to Sam’s charms. We fall and hurt with him. Yes, “Her” is about our IM/texting-mad world and the disappearing art of and yet longing for human touch, but it also is flat-out perfection for anyone ever in or out of love, and future curious. A