Started watching The Internship, a comedy released this summer about two over-the-hill sales guys landing internships with Google. After 20 minutes, I considered gnawing my leg off to escape, before realizing I wasn't chained down, and could just turn it off. I even had a bad dream about Google. Oh well, I know I should avoid cheese before going to bed. Google may be hot but this film is not. It stars Vince Vaughn, and Owen Wilson, and I personally found it almost hurtful the way they were in every scene. I did enjoy John Goodman's cameo as the boss they sell watches for, who bluntly tells them what time it is, before presenting them with their "retirement" watches. And Aasif Mandvi is razor sharp-funny as Mr. Chetty, the head of the Google internship program. If only those two doofy guys weren't in every scene.
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Aasif Mandvi brings real intensity to his role as Mr. Chetty, head of Google's intern program.[/caption]And no amount of Googliness, or noogliness, could disguise the tired plot device when the interns split into teams, and Owen, and Wilson end up in a team of losers no other team wants. The misfits versus the cool kids -- the centerpiece of every frathouse movie going back to 1978, and National Lampoon's Animal House. Is that so old it's new again? And throw in a dash of The Hunger Games, because only one team can survive! I bet I'm not giving anything away when I say the oldsters probably teach those genius kids a thing or two about real life, by gum. Hey you kids -- get out of that file tree!
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Thanks for the non recommendation :D
I'll be giving this one a miss too. I'm also proudly ignorant of the Facebook movie and the Jobs biopic. Ever since I saw "Pirates Of Silicon Valley" and found out how far off beam *that* was... well I don't go out of my way to watch stuff like that.
Completely unrelated *cough NOT* - have you seen "Linux: The Code"? I've yet to find a version with the Finnish dialogue subtitled in English. There's another goofy Silicon Valley thing about Linux that was made in the late '90s but the name evades me for the moment. Consult the hive mind - it knows all :D
Don't know why I took a look at The Internship. Like you, I've no interest in films about the computer biz for their own sake, and certainly not the the Facebook or Jobs film.
The best behind-the-scenes things I've seen on computers have all been books: Bruce Sterling's 1992 non-fiction book, The Hacker Crackdown, the much better take on 1990s hackers, Underground, written in 1997 by Suelette Dreyfus (with Julian Assange), and the awesome 1981 non-fiction book called The Soul of a New Machine, by Tracy Kidder. The only Linux doc I've seen is Revolution OS from 2001 -- not nearly enough nudity for my tastes. I'm downloading The Code, as I type. Thanks
Revolution OS - that's the one. The geek rock'n'roll finale made it for me. Eric Raymond scowling and telling the camera "I'm your worst nightmare" was another good moment.
I enjoyed Sterling's book and I've been meaning to get to his other work but never have. The Soul Of A New Machine is one I'll have to track down. Thanks for the rec!
Oh - Underground too - thanks - I'll check that one out.
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