Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#111

Post by sofal » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 12:57 AM UTC

bd wrote: post #82

The Prestige (competing magicians inventing new tricks, cameo by Nikola Tesla): http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/prestige Iron Man (fun movie where the main character is hacker/inventor): http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/ironman There Will Be Blood (not a hacker movie per se, but still kind of startup-relevant, it's about creation of the oil empire from scratch): http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/therew…

Regarding Iron Man: It is hard for me to suspend my disbelief when movies feature world-shatteringly advanced artificial intelligence and yet pay no attention whatsoever to the obvious implications of such technology. Forget the silly flying suit!

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#112

Post by imp » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 1:34 AM UTC

imp wrote: post #72

Slightly off topic, but a good hacker TV show is "Big Bang Theory" on Monday nights on ABC. It's about 4 physics PhD students at Cal Tech. The best part is that they don't water down the physics at all. One guy got dumped by his girlfriend because of their differing opinions on string theory. I just got the season 1 DVD and it's great.

Whoops, it's on CBS.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#113

Post by imp » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 1:36 AM UTC

bd wrote: post #104

imp wrote: post #72

Slightly off topic, but a good hacker TV show is "Big Bang Theory" on Monday nights on ABC. It's about 4 physics PhD students at Cal Tech. The best part is that they don't water down the physics at all. One guy got dumped by his girlfriend because of their differing opinions on string theory. I just got the season 1 DVD and it's great.

They are not PhD students, more something like postdocs. The only one of them without PhD is a target of jokes because of this.

Yeah, you're right. I was just trying to summarize. Either way, still very rare for network TV.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#114

Post by ojbyrne » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 1:37 AM UTC

There's no computers in it, but Coppola's "The Conversation" is a classic - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversation - it's about electronic surveillance. There's a great scene near the end that reminds me of debugging - the wikipedia article has a picture and descriptive caption of that scene:

"At the end of The Conversation, Gene Hackman, as paranoid audio surveillance expert Harry Caul, plays the saxophone in his apartment, which he took apart piece by piece trying to find a bug. The scene vividly illustrates Caul's complete emotional isolation by having him literally tear away practically every vestige of the material world that surrounds him, shattering the safety and security of his carefully-constructed womb."

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#115

Post by Setec_Astronomy » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 1:44 AM UTC

icey wrote: post #97

greendestiny wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sneakers is my favourite film. I don't find it particularly corny, but it's very deliberately paced and most of the acting is understated (I guess apart from Dan Ackroyd) which is why I think it never got the recognition it deserved.

I seriously wanted to name my first startup "Setec Astronomy", but the business people I worked with complained that it had nothing to do with data security (we were working on airgap software for secure file storage).

Perhaps you should have suggested "Acme Stoner Toys." ;)

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#116

Post by gnaritas » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 1:45 AM UTC

aditya wrote: post #77

More sci-fi than pure tech, I just saw: "The man from earth", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0756683/ Highly recommended.

"The man from earth" was awesome, I wish more movies explored topics like this. As cheap as the movie was obviously made, I was glued to it the whole time.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#117

Post by rogercosseboom » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 2:41 AM UTC

sofal wrote: post #111

bd wrote: post #82

The Prestige (competing magicians inventing new tricks, cameo by Nikola Tesla): http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/prestige Iron Man (fun movie where the main character is hacker/inventor): http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/ironman There Will Be Blood (not a hacker movie per se, but still kind of startup-relevant, it's about creation of the oil empire from scratch): http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/therew…

Regarding Iron Man: It is hard for me to suspend my disbelief when movies feature world-shatteringly advanced artificial intelligence and yet pay no attention whatsoever to the obvious implications of such technology. Forget the silly flying suit!

That was exactly what I took from the movie- not the suit or whatever was interesting but how great a user-agent setup he had!

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#118

Post by jasonlbaptiste » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 2:47 AM UTC

I'd personally say The Friday After Next just sneaks into the top ten.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#119

Post by skmurphy » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 2:52 AM UTC

ojbyrne wrote: post #114

There's no computers in it, but Coppola's "The Conversation" is a classic - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Conversation - it's about electronic surveillance. There's a great scene near the end that reminds me of debugging - the wikipedia article has a picture and descriptive caption of that scene: "At the end of The Conversation, Gene Hackman, as paranoid audio surveillance expert Harry Caul, plays the saxophone in…

I always thought Gene Hackman's character in "Enemy of the State" (opposite Will Smith) was Harry Caul 30 years later.

Re: Ask HN: What are some (good) hacker movies?

#120

Post by code_devil » Tue, Jan 27, 2009, 2:54 AM UTC

Dare I say "Italian Job", the guy who hacks into the Traffic System. I think they said in the movie that napster was his idea, but someone stole it while he was sleeping.