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Scroll.in
7 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
Start the week with a film: ‘Mountainhead' is a grim satire about tech billionaires
The world hasn't yet recovered from the blockbuster series Succession. Meanwhile, the show's creator Jesse Armstrong has moved on to films, making his directing debut with a grim satire about tech billionaires. Mountainhead, which is out on JioHotstar, is a tract for the times. Written and directed by Armstrong, Mountainhead has characters who breathe a rarefied air that lets them believe that they can run the planet. Spoiler alert: they actually do. Four very rich men visibly modelled on Silicon Valley luminaries gather at a mountainside retreat for what is meant to be an 'intellectual salon'. The house is owned by lifestyle app founder Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), who is worth only $521 million, not as much as his 'best buds' Venis (Cory Michael Smith), Randall (Steve Carell) and Jeff (Ramy Youssef). It's a 'no deals, no meals, no high heels' occasion, Hugo says, one of the many hollow statements made over two days. The world beyond the mansion is spiralling out of control, thanks to artificial intelligence-powered disinformation flowing from Venis's social media site Traam. As riots rage and countries are pushed to the brink, Venis smirks, while Hugo and Randall debate the possible benefits. Only Jeff appears to be concerned about the real-world consequences of deepfakery. Or is Jeff's dissenting views, which lead to him being labelled a traitor, a reflection of the quartet's tendency to roast each other whenever they assemble? Words fly thick and fast, with enough insults to fill a book. Extraordinarily entitled, self-obsessed and rude as a result, the men speak their hearts out on bothersome government regulations and the inability of mortals to understand what they have created. The film's title is a play on Ayn Rand's libertarian bible The Fountainhead, which is namechecked by Jeff at one point. Despite the carefully controlled temperature on the inside, the thin air on the outside seeps into the house, setting off chaos. The veneer of friendship barely conceals competitiveness between the men, for whom comparing net worth is serious business. The confined setting plays to Jesse Armstrong's strengths. The 109-minute film's critique of amoral Silicon Valley culture, while a bit overstretched, is carried out through strongly etched characters and superbly judged performances. Ramy Youssef is brilliant as the casually dressed, politically aware Jeff, who appears to have wandered in from a jog. Cory Michael Smith nails the smooth-faced and soulless social media site owner whose resemblance to a certain someone is chilling. The savage exchanges are initially hilarious, but the humour is soon overtaken by tragedy, and then fear. That too is intentional in a movie in which grandiose pronouncements have the ring of shocking truth about the world inhabited by billions but controlled by the billionaires. Play Also start the week with these films:
Arab Times
16 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Arab Times
A tech bro-pocalypse in ‘Mountainhead'
LOS ANGELES, June 1, (AP): 'Succession' fans rejoice. Jesse Armstrong has again gathered together a conclave of uber-wealthy megalomaniacs in a delicious satire. 'Mountainhead,' which the 'Succession' creator wrote and directed, is a new made-for-HBO movie that leaves behind the backstabbing machinations of media moguls for the not-any-better power plays of tech billionaires. Or, at least, three billionaires. Their host for a poker weekend in the mountains at a sprawling estate named after Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead' is Hugo (Jason Schwartzman), the solo member of the group not to reach, as they say, 'B-nut' status. His net worth is a paltry $521 million. The others are three of the wealthiest men in the world. Randall (Steve Carell) is their senior, a kind of Steve Jobs-like mentor they all call 'Papa Bear.' Jeff (Ramy Youssef), who runs the world's leading AI company, calls Randall the 'Dark Money Gandalf.' Lastly, but maybe most notably, is Venis (Cory Michael Smith), whose social media platform boasts 4 billion users globally. But the latest update to Venis' platform, named Traam, is causing havoc. As the four gather at Hugo's isolated perch in the Utah mountains, news reports describe violence sweeping across Asia due to an outbreak of deepfakes on Traam that have wrecked any sense of reality. Yet what's real for this quartet of digital oligarchs - none of whom has a seemingly direct reallife corollary, all of whom are immediately recognizable - is more to the point of 'Mountainhead,' a frightfully credible comedy about the delusions of tech utopianism. Each of the four, with the exception of some hesitancy on the part of Jeff, are zealous futurist. On the way to Mountainhead, a doctor gives Randall a fatal diagnosis that he outright refuses. 'All the things we can do and we can't fix one tiny little piece of gristle in me?' Dialogue But together, in Armstrong's dense, highly quotable dialogue, their arrogance reaches hysterical proportions. While the cast is altogether excellent, this is most true with Smith's Venis, a tech bro to end all tech bros. As the news around the world gets worse and worse, his certainty doesn't waver. Earth, itself, no longer hold much interest for him. 'I just want to get us transhuman!' he shouts. Progress (along with net worth) is their cause, and much of the farce of 'Mountainhead' derives from just how much any semblance of compassion for humanity has left the building. It's in the way Venis blanches at the mention of his baby son. It's in the way, as death counts escalate in the news on their phones, they toy with world politics like kids at a Risk board. In one perfectly concise moment, Venis asks, sincerely, 'Do you believe in other people?' If 'Succession' filtered its media satire through family relationships, 'Mountainhead' runs on the dynamics of bro-styled male friendship. There are beefs, hug-it-out moments, passive-aggressive put downs and eruptions of anger. Part of the fun of Armstrong's film isn't just how their behavior spills into a geopolitical events but how it manifests, for example, in which room everyone gets. All of 'Mountainhead' unfolds in the one location, with white mountaintops stretching in the distance outside the fl oor-to-ceiling windows. It could be a play. Instead, though, it's something that either hardly exists anymore or, maybe, exists everywhere: the made-for-TV movie. There's no lack of films made for streaming services, but many of them fall into some in-between aesthetic that couldn't fill a big screen and feel a touch disposable on the small screen. But 'Mountainhead' adheres to the tradition of the HBO movie; it's lean, topical and a fine platform for its actors. And for Armstrong, it's a way to keep pursuing some of the timely themes of 'Succession' while dispensing lines like: 'Coup-out the US? That's a pretty big enchilada.' 'Mountainhead,' an HBO Films release, is unrated by the Motion Picture Association. Running time: 109 minutes. Three stars out of four.
Time of India
a day ago
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Mountainhead Review: A relevant, promising satire undone by heavy talk and blunted ideas
Story: Four ultra-wealthy tech billionaires gather at a mountain mansion in Utah for a retreat as the world reels from a global crisis sparked by AI-fuelled misinformation. Review: 'Mountainhead' is a strange, slightly maddening film that wants to show us just how deluded tech billionaires can be. It's a drama, with flashes of black comedy, trying to get into the minds of the ultra-rich who genuinely believe they're here to shape the world — maybe even save it. The film revolves around four central characters and sets up an intriguing premise, but it never quite takes off. It often feels stuck in its own head, and the characters speak in such lofty, philosophical riddles that you begin to wonder who, exactly, this is for. Coming from Jesse Armstrong, the creator of the brilliant 'Succession,' it's hard not to feel let down by a film that could've had so much bite. The plot revolves around a group of four super wealthy tech friends who call themselves the 'Brewsters' and have gathered at a luxury mountain retreat in Utah called Mountainhead — a not-so-subtle nod to Ayn Rand's 'Fountainhead.' There's Venis (Cory Michael Smith), who runs a social media platform called Traam that's accidentally spreading AI-generated deepfakes across the globe. Then there's Jeff (Ramy Youssef), whose AI tech is spiraling into misuse, and Randall (Steve Carell), a powerful investor now grappling with terminal cancer. Their reunion, hosted by Souper (Jason Schwartzman), starts off with some banter and passive-aggression but soon shifts into something darker. They turn their moral compass toward Jeff, eventually coming to the conclusion that his invention is a threat to humanity. All of this unfolds while the world burns outside, and they continue sipping rare whisky, as if the apocalypse were just another business issue to debate. Armstrong treads familiar ground — the obscenely rich, cocooned from consequence — but where 'Succession' was sharp, messy, and emotionally alive, 'Mountainhead' is colder and more abstract. It also draws directly from real life: Venis' denial of responsibility for Traam's impact echoes Zuckerberg's detachment during the 2016 US presidential election, while Randall's fixation on cheating death recalls Peter Thiel. A close watch will reveal glimpses of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Sam Bankman-Fried in the characters too. There are clever moments, especially when the film leans into satire — like when Souper writes everyone's net worth in lipstick on their bare chests or when Jeff's wealth overtakes Randall's by some obscure metric. But those flashes of absurdity don't carry through the whole film. Much of the dialogue is dense and philosophical, peppered with Kant and Plato, and after a while it stops feeling smart and starts feeling like noise. The performances, though, are solid across the board. Jason Schwartzman, Steve Carell, Cory Michael Smith, and Ramy Youssef do what they can with characters who are often more like ideas than real people. The film does find a bit of momentum toward the end, when the outside world's chaos finally seeps into Mountainhead and shakes the group out of their bubble. It's the only point where the story feels like it has real stakes. Until then, it mostly meanders, unsure whether it wants to be a satire, a character study, or a tech-world fable. In the end, 'Mountainhead' is more of a warning sign than a fully formed film. It has some compelling ideas — and certainly no shortage of ambition — but it's weighed down by its own cleverness. It wants to say something urgent about power, tech, and the people shaping our future, but it often gets lost in its own intellectual fog. There are moments that stick, but not enough to make the whole thing land. In the end, it comes across as a sermon disguised as a satire.
New European
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- New European
Matthew d'Ancona's culture: Mountainhead is a whip-smart dystopian comedy
For those of us who have been in mourning since the finale of Succession in May 2023, travelling the world to watch its stars on stage as a form of grief management (reader, I went to New York), Jesse Armstrong's return as writer and director of this feature-length drama has been giddily anticipated. And it does not disappoint. In contrast to the international grandeur of the Roy family saga, with its debt to Lear and Greek mythology, Mountainhead is a bottle drama about four super-rich tech bros – claustrophobically confined for the weekend to the palatial mountain lair built in the Rockies by Hugo (Jason Schwarzmann); known to the other three as 'Soups', for 'Soup Kitchen', because he is worth a mere $521 million ('Like Fountainhead 'Mountainhead'? Was your interior decorator Ayn Bland?'). Like a younger Elon Musk, Venis (Cory Michael Smith) is the richest man alive and has just released a new version of his social media app, Traam, which has four billion users. Though its unfalsifiable deepfakes are causing riots and bloodshed all over the world, the tech titan is unmoved: 'We're going to show users as much shit as possible, until everyone realises… nothing means anything, and everything is funny – and cool.' His less wealthy but (slightly) more ethical friend and rival Jeff (Ramy Youssef) needles him for launching '4Chan on fucking acid' and does so knowing that – for all his bravado – Venis covets his own company's AI capacity that can bring a measure of order to the mayhem sown by Traam. Completing the quartet is the older Randall (Steve Carell), known as 'Papa Bear' and 'Dark Money Gandalf', who bears a striking resemblance to Donald Trump's first powerful Silicon Valley cheerleader, Peter Thiel. Inclined to quote Hegel, Kant and Plato, Randall – who has terminal cancer – is privately hoping to exploit Venis's deranged tech research in order to upload his own consciousness to the grid. Naturally, Venis loves the idea of a 'transhumanist' future: 'Tron-biking around, digital milkshakes, robot hand jobs!' Thanks to Armstrong's whip-smart dialogue, Mountainhead succeeds primarily as a dystopian screwball comedy; founded on the bathos of four men at a poker weekend casually discussing the means by which they might turn the chaos unleashed by Venis to their advantage. 'Maybe we do look at El Salvador as a dry run,' he suggests. But then again, why not 'coup out the US?' Even Hugo, the poorest of the four, dares to dream: 'If we take down China and the nation-state… now we're making memories!' Again, it is left to Jeff to offer a measure of perspective. Are they sure that dissolving the nation-state and seeking global tech domination is a good idea? 'Because Randall, I do think you're boiling an egg with no water.' None of which endears him to the group's elder ('he is a decelerationist and a snake!') If Succession was a bleak elegy to legacy media, Mountainhead is an even darker satire about the age that has followed, as Logan Roy knew it would. To adapt the grouchy patriarch's most famous line, such men may now rule the world; but they are not serious people. THEATRE Stereophonic (Duke of York's Theatre, London, until October 11) 'You need to show up; you need to pay attention; you need to tell the truth; and you need to deal with the consequences. Right?' Such is the advice of studio engineer Grover (Eli Gelb) to his assistant Charlie (Andrew R. Butler), as the two men seek to oversee a chaotic album recording that begins in June-July 1977 in Sausalito and ends a year later in Los Angeles. Though assumed to be a thinly-veiled account of the making of Fleetwood Mac's Rumours (1977), David Adjmi's extraordinary play – transferred from Broadway, having scooped up a record number of Tony nominations – has its distant roots in Led Zeppelin's cover of Babe I'm Gonna Leave You. When Adjmi heard the track on a flight, he knew he had to write something about music. It took him a decade to develop and stage Stereophonic, with the help of former Arcade Fire member, Will Butler. The fruit of all that painstaking work is a drama of many layers and great subtlety, that uses the intense setting of all-night sessions in the studio – a glass screen dividing the engineers from the band – to drill deep into what makes the five performers tick, create music, and love and loathe one another. There is Peter (Jack Riddiford), the increasingly monomaniacal vocalist and guitarist, his relationship with star vocalist and songwriter Diana (Lucy Karczewski) in sharp decline. Bass player Reg (Zachary Hart), ill from booze and cocaine, wraps himself in a blanket of wretchedness, squandering the love of vocalist and keyboard player Holly (Nia Towle). Simon (Chris Stack) is the British-American band's de facto manager, as well as its drummer. Beyond the walls of the studio, their fame is surging; within, they are a portrait of familial dysfunction. Though Stereophonic brilliantly captures the golden age of the seventies album – and is studded with allusions to Nicolas Roeg's Don't Look Now (1973), Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), the Eagles and the Watergate scandal – its power flows from the universality of the pressure-cooker conversations, rows and banter in which the characters reveal themselves. 'I guess I believe we're here to suffer,' Grover tells Reg. In contrast, each of the band members – to a greater or lesser extent – is a dreamer: hence, all the disasters, and all the magic. FILM The Ballad of Wallis Island (Selected cinemas) It cannot be emphasised enough that this wonderful movie is not one of those twee British romcoms in which middle-class people retreat to a remote landscape to discuss their difficult feelings. Directed by James Griffiths and written by longtime collaborators, Tim Key and Tom Basden, The Ballad of Wallis Island is a film of much greater power, wit and poignancy. Wading ashore on a tiny Welsh island, indie-folk singer Herb McGwyer (Basden) is welcomed by Charles Heath (Key), a reclusive millionaire who is paying him £500,000 to play a private gig for an audience of 'less than 100'. From the start, Charles's remorseless banter and quips drive Herb to distraction: he calls him 'Dame Judi Drenched' after he falls in the water; describes his 'rider' of Monster Munch, Braeburn apples and Johnnie Walker Blue Label as his 'Winona'; and says of his own travels: 'Kathmandu? More like Kathman-did!' Though Herb badly needs the money to pay for his next album, he is increasingly alarmed by Charles's manic eccentricity; by the lack of facilities on the island and its lone, under-stocked shop, overseen by the amiable Amanda (Sian Clifford); and by the dawning realisation that, in this case, 'less than 100' means 'one'. His host is an obsessive fan of McGwyer Mortimer, the folk duo of which Herb used to be half – until, nine years before, he parted ways with his partner in music and life, Nell Mortimer (Carey Mulligan). 'I'm in Misery,' he says to his manager from the island's payphone. 'I'm going to wake up with no ankles!' But a greater shock lies in store when Nell arrives on the island, accompanied by her husband Michael (Akemnji Ndifornyen). Charles's dream is to use the power of surprise to encourage a musical reunion. At this point – if it were called Folk Actually – the movie might have descended into intolerable schmaltz. But it does no such thing. Nell, who now lives in Portland, Oregon, and makes chutney to sell at farmers' markets, is distinctly unimpressed by Herb's desperate efforts to remain musically credible – including the acquisition of a large back tattoo and a series of 'collabs' with younger artists. For his part, Herb is completely thrown by Nell's sudden presence and initially coils up like a scorpion. In this respect, we see unexpected parallels with Charles, a widower whose logorrhoea, it becomes clear, is a symptom of quiet desperation. To watch him play Swingball furiously on his own is to behold a man wracked by grief, anger and loneliness; just as Herb is a tight knot of pain and loss. If there is a saving power in all this, it is Charles's passion for the music which reminds him of a happier time. And it is his total enchantment as they finally rehearse that helps Herb and Nell to remember why they were so good together, why the songs meant so much, and why they still do. The catharsis they experience does not reflect mawkish nostalgia but a gentle peace treaty with the past and a coming to terms with its place in their respective histories. For Charles, too, there is tentative hope that his frozen emotions may now thaw. A movie full of heart, in the best possible sense. STREAMING Dept. Q (Netflix, all episodes) Four months after he is shot in an ambush that kills a police constable and paralyses his partner DCI James Hardy (Jamie Sives) from the waist down, DCI Carl Morck (Matthew Goode) returns to work – and is reassigned to run a new cold case unit in the station's shabby basement. Based on the best-selling Scandi-noir thrillers by Danish writer Jussi Adler-Olsen, Dept. Q transposes the drama to Edinburgh, where Morck is respected for his talents as a cop but is a constant source of aggravation to his boss DCS Moira Jacobson (Kate Dickie), under pressure from Holyrood to deliver results. Created by Scott Frank (who was also behind The Queen's Gambit) and Chandni Lakhani, the nine-episode series spreads its wings and takes its time – to compelling effect. The through line is the unsolved case of lawyer Merritt Lingard (Chloe Pirrie); missing, presumed dead, for four years. Along the way, in a manner that recalls the early seasons of The Wire, the spectacularly anti-social Morck builds a team that includes Akram Salim (Alexej Manvelov), ostensibly an IT expert whose past in Syria is shrouded in secrecy, and Rose Dickson (Leah Byrne), a talented detective afflicted by PTSD. Morck himself is assigned a course of therapy with Dr. Rachel Irving (the always excellent Kelly Macdonald): help which he knows that he needs but is characteristically reluctant to accept. There is also a debt to The Silence of the Lambs, which I will not spoil. The plot is twisty, complex and absorbing. Goode, playing completely against type, has never been better, matching all the darkness with profane gallows humour. Dept. Q is one of the best television dramas of 2025 and richly deserves a second season.
USA Today
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- USA Today
'Mountainhead' stars on the 'incredibly dangerous' mentality of their uber-rich characters
'Mountainhead' stars on the 'incredibly dangerous' mentality of their uber-rich characters Show Caption Hide Caption 'Mountainhead' teams Jason Schwartzman with 'Succession' creator "Succession" creator Jesse Armstrong's new HBO film "Mountainhead" stars Jason Schwartzman in key role. 'Mountainhead' stars Jason Schwartzman, Cory Michael Smith and Ramy Youssef felt like they hit the jackpot as recruits for the first movie directed by 'Succession' creator Jesse Armstrong. After all, the HBO drama series, which centered on the children of media mogul Logan Roy fighting to take over his empire, earned 76 Emmy nominations throughout its four seasons. 'When Jesse Armstrong reaches out, (you say yes),' says Schwartzman, 44. 'Being such a massive fan of 'Succession' and his point of view ... you would do it even if you maybe didn't have any knowledge of what it was.' Join our Watch Party! Sign up to receive USA TODAY's movie and TV recommendations right in your inbox Youssef, 34, thought 'Jesse Armstrong? I'm in. Tech bro, hell, yeah.' Smith, 38, counts 'Succession' as 'one of my favorite shows of all time. I watched that show salivating over what these other actors got to do, and this being an opportunity to work with him was just like no questions asked.' But maybe you have questions, like what is 'Mountainhead' about? The film, debuting May 31 (8 ET/PT on HBO and streaming on HBO Max), chronicles the weekend shenanigans of a (mostly) billionaire boys club gathered for poker at Hugo's (Schwartzman) modest 21,000-square-foot estate, dubbed Mountainhead. Hugo is the poorest of the four with a measly $521 million to his name. Venis (pronounced "Venice" and portrayed by Smith) is the richest with a $220 billion fortune amassed from his social media platform Traam, currently inundated with deepfakes so realistic they're inciting international incidents of violence. He's in dire need of Jeff's (Youssef) AI which can flag fake content for users. Randall (played by Steve Carell) is eager for Venis and Jeff to partner because it will increase the likelihood Randall can upload his consciousness before cancer overtakes his body. The movie filmed at breakneck speed over five weeks this spring in Park City, Utah. 'It was so accelerated,' Schwartzman says. 'Part of being in the movie that was unspoken was like, 'Are you prepared to just give it all you can and no matter what, just put it on the line?' Doing that with these gentlemen, it was really inspiring and moving.' The characters' desires and delusions about the world and themselves make for an interesting dynamic. 'They respect each other, and they have an anti-respect for each other,' Schwartzman says. 'And it's hard to kind of figure out what is what and who's feeling what, but it's almost like these four guys need each other.' The film looks at those who 'have incredible authority and power over all of our lives,' Smith says, asking, 'What are they like behind the scenes? How much do they care? Are they nihilists and do they have any consideration for the well-being of all of us in the midst of political and economic turmoil around the world? I don't know.' The tension of the film is 'incredibly different than 'Succession,'' Youssef says. 'Fans of Jesse are going to be happy, but it's a different thing.' Armstrong's voice and style are apparent, and the characters 'are powerful and deal with privilege and are rich,' Youssef says. But 'we're not looking at nepo babies. We're looking at actually self-made guys who view themselves as underdogs in a world where actually they are in more control than they should be. And that kind of cognitive dissonance is incredibly dangerous.' Youssef, born to Egyptian parents, says he crafted his role of Jeff as someone with similar origins who struck it rich. 'When you're after money, it is never enough,' he says. 'Everyone comes to that realization that what is going to really give you that feeling of wealth is going to be having a rich personal life, and this character doesn't have that. In my own personal life, it was a quick realization that you get a few things that you're hoping to get, and then once you get them, you go, 'OK, that's not really what I was after.'' Smith, who grew up in a working-class family, wanted to be a theater actor. Being rich was not the goal. 'The thing that I really wanted when I decided to go to drama school and then moved to New York was to be able to support myself doing the thing that I loved,' he says. 'And when I accomplished that, being able to do that, that was like a crazy thing for me.' The experience of working on 'Mountainhead' is its own fortune, one which Smith gets choked up reflecting on. 'Being invited onto this movie was so mind-blowing for me because 'Succession' is one of my favorite shows and getting a personal call from (Armstrong) offering me this job was just crazy, dreamy,' Smith says. 'For the four actors and Jesse and everyone else to also just be really kind, supportive, wonderful people ... making friends with these people is beyond.'
