Valentine's Day Piece: Director's Cut: additional scenes

Her (2013) Amazon Rent/Buy

Soon-to-be-divorced sad sack Theodore Twombly (Joaquin Phoenix) falls in love with his new Siri-style virtual assistant Samantha (voiced by Scarlett Johansson).

Samantha learns from human interaction and eventually proposes a physical encounter using sex surrogate Isabella (Portia Doubleday), an experience which doesn’t go according to plan.

Spike Jonze’s downbeat picture ends on a relatively positive note, but again, this isn’t the kind of movie to snuggle up to.

Johansson has plenty of form playing these kinds of ethereal beings, with additional other-worldly turns in Ghost in the Shell (2017), Lucy (2014) and Under the Skin (2013).

Check out Life Like (2019) and S1m0ne (2002) for other motion pictures in similar territory to Her.

Fabulous Baker Boys (1989 – free to watch on YouTube) and Starman (1984 – Amazon Rent/Buy)

Aside his from his regrettable late career lapse into unintelligible cornpone drawl (True Grit, Seventh Son, R.I.P.D), Jeff Bridges remains one of the best and consistently undervalued actors on the planet.

Case in point his superb performance in writer/director Steve Kloves’ marvellous The Fabulous Baker Boys, where his self-loathing jazz pianist Jack Baker meets his match in Triple A escort turned lounge singer Susie Diamond, played to perfection by Michelle Pfeiffer.

And kudos to Beau Bridges in the unshowy role of Jack’s brother, straight arrow Frank.

An all-time favourite of mine, Kloves knows in the movie exactly when to draw back from overtly manipulative schmaltz – and it is in consequence a whole lot better than it could have been with another director of less sensitivity.

A shame, then, that he took the path of churning out lucrative Harry Potter scripts, rather than following his muse.

More inter-species hanky-panky in John Carpenter’s Starman, where Bridges plays an alien who comes peacefully to Earth after hearing the Voyager 2’s recorded welcome to extra-terrestrials, only to find his space craft shot down by the US military.

Quel surprise.

The visitor assumes the form of recently widowed Jenny Hayden’s husband (Karen Allen) and gradually forms a romantic attachment to her whilst on the run from the authorities.

Slightly creepy if you think about it too hard, but it works in the context of this sci-fi tearjerker.

Bridges starred with Kevin Spacey in the similarly themed, but vastly inferior K-PAX (2001).

And finally:

The Man with Two Brains (1983) Amazon Rent/Buy

OK, the late Carl Reiner’s classic Steve Martin (who co-wrote the script) comedy The Man with Two Brains is hardly The Way We Were (1973), but the kernel of the picture is a love story - between Martin’s arrogant neuro-surgeon Dr. Michael Hfuhruhurr – and the disembodied brain of Anne Uumellmahaye (voiced by Sissy Spacek).

The spanner in the works is Hfuhruhurr’s latest wife, the scheming seductress Dolores Benedict (Kathleen Turner), who’s determined to get her hands on the millions he inherited from a wealthy aunt.

Despite Martin’s genuine love for Uumellmahaye, he draws the line at the suggestion of barmy Dr. Alfred Necessiter (David Warner) that they transplant her brain into a gorilla’s noggin:

But don’t worry, all ends well, aided by the unwanted/unexpected intervention of talk show host Merv Griffin’s notorious Elevator Killer who cheerfully proclaims:

‘I’ve always just loved to kill. I really enjoyed it. But then I got famous, and - it's just too hard for me. And so many witnesses. I mean, everybody recognized me. I couldn't even lurk anymore. I'd hear, "Who's that lurking over there? Isn't that Merv Griffin?" So I came to Europe to kill. And it's really worked out very well for me.’

If you enjoyed The Man with Two Brains, why not take (another) look at Mel Brooks’ Young Frankenstein (1974) and The Coen Brothers’ Intolerable Cruelty (2003)?