then lend the eye a terrible aspect
Tuesday, 22 September 2009 07:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
freckles_and_doubtSo, jo&stv and I invented a new monthly movie club, the purpose of which is to get together to watch two movies selected by theme. Any theme. Preferably not too serious or meaningful, and I have to add for the record my absolute miff that my fellow members rejected two to one my initial suggestion of choosing films with the theme of RDJ. Next time they're getting Fred Astaire. Last night's inaugural meeting, hosted by me and joined by the Evil Landlord with guest status, somehow caused me to spontaneously produce a sort of walls-of-Harfleur motivational pre-watching speech which went something like this:
"OK, people, listen up, let's lay out some parameters here. Our mission tonight is to subject to rigorous scrutiny and analysis the absolutely shitballs-retarded things that Hollywood does while purporting to represent the internet, programming and hackers in its popular films. To this end we are watching Hackers and Swordfish, in that order, which is chronological. I draw your attention to the fact that actual computer professionals have frequently been, and will continue to be, harmed in the watching of these films: I trust you have all signed Form WTFBBQ in triplicate, indemnifying the assembled company from any damage up to and including drooling, choking and homicidal rage. Particularly the Evil Landlord, who is also not allowed to make derogatory comments about any web developers present.
"I am completely unable to remember any notable plot points in these films, other than the aforementioned shitballs-retarded representation of computers, but in the important category of Psycho-Sexual Narrative, eye-candy division, we have Hugh Jackman and that cute blonde boy, wossname, Jonny Lee Miller. Also Angelina Jolie and Hale Berry, if you swing that way, and for Angelina I might. I would suggest a drinking game in which we drink any time anyone uses technojargon incorrectly or we are shown graphic 3-D representations of the Information Highway or a hacking montage including same plus mucho typing of gibberish, but alcohol poisoning often offends so I'll leave it to your discretion. Got that? Right. Onward."
Hackers is a much better and more entertaining film than I remember it being, actually. Its "colourful" "hacker" "eccentric" kids are all dialed up to the max, but they're well acted, quirky and fun to watch. Moreover, their interests, language and hacking activities all combine to suggest that someone, somewhere on the writing team actually has some knowledge of and affection for computer geeks. The plot is actually all about hacking; it's extreme, melodramatic and overly graphical, but I don't think it does a bad job of representing the hacker ethos of curiosity, competitiveness and entitlement to data. (Those poor kids couldn't have predicted DRM). Bonus points for some cute hacks, phreaking, girl-geeks, Baby!Angelina Jolie's pixie cut (it really suits her), bad guy on skateboard, rollerblades on everyone, really bad techno. (I have no idea if it actually is really bad techno, all techno is really bad to me. Deal.) Negative points: all the geeky guys wear eye-wateringly hideous boxer shorts in bed; evil guy's glamorous sidekick is wooden to the point of a hollow thunk if you punch her in the side of the head, and has really bad hair; movie sets out to demonstrate, entirely erroneously, that hacking gets you Angelina Jolie. For a film made in 1995, though, it stands up very well in terms of editing conventions, it has the quick, jazzy, rapid-cut feel of a far more modern film. Altogether a fun watch, if heavy on the Information!Superhighway!Graphical!Representations! now with extra lightning flashes and giant walls of glass with scrolling text, resulting in the attendant company being forced to chorus "DRINK!" at frequent intervals and becoming inevitably and righteously sloshed.
It's probably as well we were all tiddly by the time we watched Swordfish because, conversely, it's a much worse film than I remember it being. My devotion to Hugh Jackman is undying, but here he's not a hacker so much as a two-dimensional but fairly attractive "hero" upon whom a hacker label is slapped so that the film can be hung off him, like a heavy and inconvenient bundle of roofing materials from a crane. The plot is not about computers, it's about John Travolta's bad guy, the hacker's relationship with his daughter, and an awful lot of blowing shit up. Oh, and a nastily last-minute-sneak-up "God Bless America" right-wing anti-terrorist message for which the writers should have been strangled at birth, thus materially improving this film, hopefully by causing it never to have been made in the first place. The hacking montages are both pretentious and meaningless, the actual hack is of no importance and the hacker's stereotype drunken porn ex-wife is frankly gratuitous. The film's only upsides: blow-job pressure-hack scene, which is so bizarre as to be irresistibly funny, and John Travolta, who should be obliged by law only to play psycho killer bad guys with heavy weaponry for our horrified entertainment. This was not a hacker film. It doesn't even rise to the heights of shitballs-retarded. Bleah.
Tuesday random linkery is random. Dr. Horrible's Emmy hack should be watched by all right-thinking peoples, it's very funny. Conversely, Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl is wise and beautiful and moving, and is also the only thing in the whole wide world that has ever made me cry because I don't have a daughter.
"OK, people, listen up, let's lay out some parameters here. Our mission tonight is to subject to rigorous scrutiny and analysis the absolutely shitballs-retarded things that Hollywood does while purporting to represent the internet, programming and hackers in its popular films. To this end we are watching Hackers and Swordfish, in that order, which is chronological. I draw your attention to the fact that actual computer professionals have frequently been, and will continue to be, harmed in the watching of these films: I trust you have all signed Form WTFBBQ in triplicate, indemnifying the assembled company from any damage up to and including drooling, choking and homicidal rage. Particularly the Evil Landlord, who is also not allowed to make derogatory comments about any web developers present.
"I am completely unable to remember any notable plot points in these films, other than the aforementioned shitballs-retarded representation of computers, but in the important category of Psycho-Sexual Narrative, eye-candy division, we have Hugh Jackman and that cute blonde boy, wossname, Jonny Lee Miller. Also Angelina Jolie and Hale Berry, if you swing that way, and for Angelina I might. I would suggest a drinking game in which we drink any time anyone uses technojargon incorrectly or we are shown graphic 3-D representations of the Information Highway or a hacking montage including same plus mucho typing of gibberish, but alcohol poisoning often offends so I'll leave it to your discretion. Got that? Right. Onward."
Hackers is a much better and more entertaining film than I remember it being, actually. Its "colourful" "hacker" "eccentric" kids are all dialed up to the max, but they're well acted, quirky and fun to watch. Moreover, their interests, language and hacking activities all combine to suggest that someone, somewhere on the writing team actually has some knowledge of and affection for computer geeks. The plot is actually all about hacking; it's extreme, melodramatic and overly graphical, but I don't think it does a bad job of representing the hacker ethos of curiosity, competitiveness and entitlement to data. (Those poor kids couldn't have predicted DRM). Bonus points for some cute hacks, phreaking, girl-geeks, Baby!Angelina Jolie's pixie cut (it really suits her), bad guy on skateboard, rollerblades on everyone, really bad techno. (I have no idea if it actually is really bad techno, all techno is really bad to me. Deal.) Negative points: all the geeky guys wear eye-wateringly hideous boxer shorts in bed; evil guy's glamorous sidekick is wooden to the point of a hollow thunk if you punch her in the side of the head, and has really bad hair; movie sets out to demonstrate, entirely erroneously, that hacking gets you Angelina Jolie. For a film made in 1995, though, it stands up very well in terms of editing conventions, it has the quick, jazzy, rapid-cut feel of a far more modern film. Altogether a fun watch, if heavy on the Information!Superhighway!Graphical!Representations! now with extra lightning flashes and giant walls of glass with scrolling text, resulting in the attendant company being forced to chorus "DRINK!" at frequent intervals and becoming inevitably and righteously sloshed.It's probably as well we were all tiddly by the time we watched Swordfish because, conversely, it's a much worse film than I remember it being. My devotion to Hugh Jackman is undying, but here he's not a hacker so much as a two-dimensional but fairly attractive "hero" upon whom a hacker label is slapped so that the film can be hung off him, like a heavy and inconvenient bundle of roofing materials from a crane. The plot is not about computers, it's about John Travolta's bad guy, the hacker's relationship with his daughter, and an awful lot of blowing shit up. Oh, and a nastily last-minute-sneak-up "God Bless America" right-wing anti-terrorist message for which the writers should have been strangled at birth, thus materially improving this film, hopefully by causing it never to have been made in the first place. The hacking montages are both pretentious and meaningless, the actual hack is of no importance and the hacker's stereotype drunken porn ex-wife is frankly gratuitous. The film's only upsides: blow-job pressure-hack scene, which is so bizarre as to be irresistibly funny, and John Travolta, who should be obliged by law only to play psycho killer bad guys with heavy weaponry for our horrified entertainment. This was not a hacker film. It doesn't even rise to the heights of shitballs-retarded. Bleah.
Tuesday random linkery is random. Dr. Horrible's Emmy hack should be watched by all right-thinking peoples, it's very funny. Conversely, Neil Gaiman's Blueberry Girl is wise and beautiful and moving, and is also the only thing in the whole wide world that has ever made me cry because I don't have a daughter.
