Her Trailer, Now With Philip Seymour Hoffman As The OS

By Rudie Obias | Published

This article is more than 2 years old


With about a month until the Academy Awards ceremony in early March, the movies nominated for Best Picture are getting a second life at the box office and on home video. Spike Jonze’s Her has now opened wide and has become an Internet darling. With people making new Internet memes based on the science fiction romance, there are a few that are clever, while others fall flat. One of the better memes re-teams Joaquin Phoenix with Philip Seymour Hoffman from their days working on Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.

The new video above features audio clips from past Philip Seymour Hoffman films — including Happiness, Punch Drunk Love, Almost Famous, and Magnolia — as a stand-in for Scarlett Johansson’s Samantha OS. While the end result is a bit bumpy, the entertainment value alone is what makes this video worth watching. In a twisted way, the above video is almost like a creepier version of The Master, but with the color scheme from the latest Spike Jonze movie. It’s almost haunting, but delightful to watch.

While most Her-based memes reverse the sexes from the film and re-package the movie as Him, I think Saturday Night Live‘s version really nails the self-involved nature of Spike Jonze’s film. With Jonah Hill playing the Theodore Twombly and the artificially intelligent OS, SNL nails the social commentary that Jonze is trying to hammer home in Her. Also, Michael Cera playing the OS surrogate is the closest we’re going to get to a Superbad sequel now that both actors have moved on from the teen sex comedy. It also seems that Jonah Hill might think he’s too good for a Superbad sequel now that he’s a two-time Academy Award nominee. Did anybody ever think that would happen back in 2008?

Her gained some more exposure with five Academy Award nominations. This is the first year that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has nominated two science fiction films for Best Picture (the other being Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity). The category hasn’t totally ignored science fiction, however; in the past, AMPAS has nominated films such as Inception, District 9, and Star Wars for Best Picture.

Her‘s nominations include Best Picture, Best Original Screenplay for Jonze, Best Original Score for Owen Pallett and William Butler (of the band Arcade Fire), Best Production Design, and Best Song for Karen O (of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs) and Spike Jonze’s “The Moon Song.” While it’s unlikely that Spike Jonze’s latest will win the Oscar for Best Picture, it is likely that he might win the Best Original Screenplay award. Considering that Her is the first film the Jonze wrote by himself, it’s quite the feat for the 44-year-old director. In the past, Jonze collaborated with screenwriters Charlie Kaufman for Being John Malkovich and Adaptation, and Dave Eggers for Where the Wild Things Are.

The 86th Academy Awards will air March 2 on ABC, and Her is still in theaters across the country.