Spike Jonze

Read Cult of Mac’s latest posts on Spike Jonze:

Beastie Boys Story relives the beer-soaked glory days of hip-hop’s original hell-raisers [Review]

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Beastie Boys Story: Mike Diamond, Adam Yauch and Adam Horovitz in 1993 from an archival photo used in “Beastie Boys Story,” premiering globally on Apple TV+ on April 24.
Beastie Boys turned hip-hop on its head, and a new doc captures the magic.
Photo: Apple TV+

Beastie Boys Story, director Spike Jonze’s endearing Apple TV+ documentary about the first white rap phenoms, proves as powerful as it is screamingly funny.

Jonze, a confidant and collaborator of the group since the Beasties’ experimental mid-career, exhibits an easy candor with his subjects. That familiarity allows all of them to open up, which is important when it comes to discussing their failures and losses.

Apple teases Beastie Boys Story ahead of April debut

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'Here's a little story they're about to tell...'
Photo: Apple

Apple just dropped a brand-new trailer for its original live documentary on the Beastie Boys.

Beastie Boys Story is scheduled to hit Apple TV+ on April 24. It will feature stage shows with Mike Diamond and Adam Horovitz, and is directed by Spike Jonze, who first collaborated with the band on the music video for Sabotage.

Spike Jonze’s Beastie Boys Story headed for Apple TV+

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Spike Jonze directed Beastie Boys in “Sabotage”
Spike Jonze directed the Beastie Boys in Sabotage. Now they’re collaborating on an Apple TV+ movie.
Photo: Beastie Boys

A documentary about the rap group the Beastie Boys written and directed by Spike Jonze reportedly will debut on Apple TV+ this spring.

It will also supposedly be the first film from Apple’s streaming service to appear in theaters.

The 10 best Apple ads of 2018 [Year in Review]

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Year in Review Best Apple ads 2018

Image: Killian Bell/Cult of Mac

Cult of Mac Year in Review 2018: best Apple ads of 2018 The past 12 months have been one of the busiest ever for Apple’s video team.

Apple churned out more than 120 ads and other videos in 2018, unleashing some of its most memorable commercials in years.

After hours of watching all of Apple’s 2018 ads, we rounded up the 10 absolute best, some of which you probably haven’t even seen yet. Get ready to relive all the good times!

Apple caps off ‘amazing’ year with more advertising honors

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2019 Creative Marketer of the Year
Spike Jonze created Apple's most celebrated ad of 2018.
Photo: Apple

Apple marketing set an even higher bar in the advertising industry this year and is closing out 2018 with three commercials in Adweek’s Top 25 Best Ads of the Year.

Adweek listed “Welcome Home,” Apple’s HomePod ad directed by Spike Jonze, as second-best. Nike’s “Believe in Something. Even If it Means Sacrificing Everything” was the top ad, featuring polarizing quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

Spike Jonze’s stunning HomePod ad dances away with more awards

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2019 Creative Marketer of the Year
Spike Jonze created Apple's most celebrated ad of 2018.
Photo: Apple

“Welcome Home,” a television commercial for the Apple HomePod directed by Spike Jonze, welcomed another slew of advertising awards today.

Apple took home two first-place honors in the prestigious shots Awards. It won three other first-place shots for Best Director (Jonze), Editing house of the Year (Final Cut of Los Angeles) and Production Company of the Year (MJZ of Los Angeles).

Spike Jonze’s brilliant HomePod ad wins major advertising award

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2019 Creative Marketer of the Year
Spike Jonze created one of Apple's all-time great ads.
Photo: Apple

Apple’s brilliantly creative HomePod ad, directed by Being John Malkovich helmer Spike Jonze, has won a top prize at the Association of Independent Commercial Producers Show at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.

The awards were handed out on Thursday night. Apple shared the “Advertising Excellence/Single Commercial category” top spot with the absolutely hilarious “It’s a Tide Ad” Super Bowl series of ads for Tide. If you haven’t seen Apple’s excellent HomePod ad before, you can check it out below.

How Spike Jonze created that brilliant HomePod ad

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From The Rock to 'Your Verse': Apple's best ads of the 2010s
Mini-documentary sheds light on one of Apple's best ads in years.
Photo: Apple

A new video reveals the creative process behind Spike Jonze’s brilliant short film “Welcome Home,” which paints the HomePod as a miracle device.

Not just one of the best Apple ads in ages, it’s one of the best adverts anywhere. The HomePod commercial stars English singer FKA twigs as a city dweller whose drab apartment is transformed into a colorful wonderland by an Apple smart speaker.

Apple’s brilliant new HomePod ad brings the Spike Jonze magic

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2019 Creative Marketer of the Year
Spike Jonze is the perfect fit for Apple.
Photo: Apple

Spike Jonze’s surreal new short film about the HomePod is likely to go down as one of the year’s best Apple ads.

The Oscar-winning director’s four-minute creation is unabashedly joyful, which is a feeling that sometimes can get lost in all the Apple minimalism. Check out Jonze’s playful and creative HomePod ad below.

Scarlett Johansson Feels ‘Betrayed’ By Backstabbing Siri

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Her

In Spike Jonze’s latest film, Her, Joaquin Phoenix plays a man who falls in love with a Siri-like “digital assistant,” the titular Her, played by Scarlett Johansson.

But there’s no love lost between the two. If you ask Siri about ‘Her’, she’ll claim that Johansson’s “portrayal of an intelligent agent is beyond artificial” and “gives artificial intelligence a bad name.”

Looks like Scarlett Johansson caught wind, and now, her feelings are hurt by Siri’s harsh words.

Siri’s Sweet Voice Threatens Rude Moviegoers With Humiliation

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Siri has a dark side. Try to send a text in a movie theater, and you might feel the life-destroying wrath of Apple’s perky AI helper.

That’s the message delivered in a new PSA-style video that’s the Alamo Drafthouse‘s latest salvo in the war on rude moviegoers. The creative clip, which will be shown ahead of screenings of Spike Jonze’s Her at the indie tastemaker’s theaters, uses the voice of Siri to send an anti-texting message.

Siri Gets Catty If You Confuse Her With Scarlett Johansson

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In Spike Jonze’s latest film, Her, a mustachioed Joaquin Phoenix plays a man who falls in love with a Siri-like “digital assistant,” Her, played by Scarlett Johansson.

You’d think Siri would appreciate having a movie made about her, but instead, kitty’s got claws when it comes to her filmic counterpart: thanks to Apple’s cheeky and surprisingly timely programmers, if you ask Siri “Are you her?” she will respond: “No. Her portrayal of an intelligent agent is beyond artificial”, “No. You know that it’s just a movie, right?” and “No. In my opinion, she gives artifical intelligence a bad name.”

Spike Jonze’s New Movie Has Joaquin Phoenix Falling In Love With A Siri-Like OS [Video]

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fallinginlovewithsiri

Spike Jonze is coming out with a new movie and this time, rather than dissecting the mind of a famous movie star, Jonze’s new film, Her, takes a look at what it would be like to fall in love with an operating system like Siri.

The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as a lonely dude with a non-ironic mustache who becomes intrigued with a new, Siri-like, advanced operating system named Samantha that’s powered by Scarlett Johansonn’s sexy vocal chords.

We’ll have to wait until November 20th to see what happens when you give Siri a soul and place her in the hands of anti-social men across the world, but here’s the first trailer to hold you over: