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

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

#21

Post by mechanical_fish » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 6:42 PM UTC

Okay, I'll say this much in defense of the Matrices: (a) the first Matrix movie is emphatically not a stinker; (b) I appreciated the second two a lot better after reading these links [1]:

http://corporatemofo.com/media_and_mediocrity/the_matrix_rel...

http://web.archive.org/web/20071005000019/http://www.corpora...

I mean, I still don't think the sequels worked very well, particularly #3, but I admire the audacity of the experiment.

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[1] (Alas, the second link now appears to be Wayback Machine material. Essayists, defend your archives!)

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

#22

Post by utnick » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 6:45 PM UTC

I recently rented August from blockbuster.

Its about a VC funded startup with little revenue that goes bust.

It was a pretty terrible movie though and the web2.0 talk will make you cringe.

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

#23

Post by mechanical_fish » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 6:49 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #13

Good movies about startups: "Tucker", "24 Hour Party People", and "Ghostbusters".

Wow, Ghostbusters is a movie about a startup. It seems so obvious once it's pointed out, but it never occurred to me before.

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

#24

Post by gcheong » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 6:57 PM UTC

Its sci-fi, but I have no doubt 2001:A Space Odyssey inspired many a hacker to go into AI.

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

#25

Post by gcheong » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:13 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #13

Good movies about startups: "Tucker", "24 Hour Party People", and "Ghostbusters".

DOT http://www.imdb.com/video/screenplay/vi1956839705/

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

#26

Post by rogercosseboom » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:15 PM UTC

mechanical_fish wrote: post #21

Okay, I'll say this much in defense of the Matrices : (a) the first Matrix movie is emphatically not a stinker; (b) I appreciated the second two a lot better after reading these links [1]: http://corporatemofo.com/media_and_mediocrity/the_matrix_rel... http://web.archive.org/web/20071005000019/http://www.corpora... I mean, I still don't think the sequels worked very well, particularly #3, but I admire the audacity of…

I thought about "Matrices" but decided that there was only one Matrix (in all senses of the word...)

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

#27

Post by blender » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:21 PM UTC

Swordfish.

Yah, that was a joke...

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

#28

Post by DaniFong » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:21 PM UTC

mechanical_fish wrote: post #3

My Caltech friend assured me that Real Genius perfectly captured the spirit of Caltech. (It borrows a lot of legendary Caltech hacks.) It certainly is the best fictional depiction of grad school I've ever seen, though it's kind of confused about the distinction between undergrad and grad school. On the other hand, perhaps that's normal at Caltech as well.

It's supposed to be undergrad, which is like that at Caltech (and for that matter, many physics departments).

Real Genius is a terrific movie, and it leapt to mind as being definitive. :-)

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

#29

Post by CaptainMorgan » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:26 PM UTC

Swordfish; if nothing for the totally cool monitor setup he had at Gabriel's place.

Alien; the original- the next couple of movies in the series were okay but the first I think is a classic in form of technology and all that good stuff. If you watch it, it may seem a bit old-school for our time, but for their time that was pretty cool! Finding a solution to space travel at light-year speed? Come-on- that's awesome.

Stargate; another one for space travel, but overall it was kind of corny- I just liked how the Egyptians, or whoever, discovered a way to transport across galaxies.

Enemy of the State; cool NSA tech stuff.

Deja Vu; the ability to go back in time only four days earlier or less... I like their setup and how they explained the plausibility of the technology actually coming to fruition.

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

#30

Post by scott_s » Mon, Jan 26, 2009, 7:30 PM UTC

Apollo 13 has some great hacker scenes. It has, in fact, my favorite hacker moment from any movie.

"We gotta find a way to make this [holds up square peg] fit into the hole for this [holds up round peg] using nothing but that [points to random assortment of crap that they know is on board].": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rNDuGuerpf8