With TIFF in mind, and since this is a Web column, here are a few of the Internet’s most notable starring roles.
Early adopters:
WarGames
This trendsetting 1983 flick sees a spry Matthew Broderick hack into the computer networks of such institutions as his high school and the military-industrial complex. Confusing real-life nuclear war with a combat game, the MS-DOS-savvy teen almost starts World War III! Proof that the only way to win nuclear war is to not play. A precursor to future hacking films.
Weird Science
Two sexually wired adolescents – one is Anthony Michael Hall – use data sets to create the perfect woman, Lisa, played by 80s babe Kelly LeBrock. The boys program her to act like an adult but find she’ll never quite replicate human warmth. Director John Hughes was way ahead of his time for 1985 – at least 10 years before Internet pornography.
Dot-com classics:
Hackers
Arriving at the onset of the 90s “cyberpunk” movement, this 1995 film best portrays the competitive, sometimes antagonistic atmosphere that plagues the Internet. A young Angelina Jolie plays one of three duelling hackers who hack too far, irking a multinational oil company and the U.S. Secret Service. A movie with a message!
Pirates Of Silicon Valley
The real-life rivalry between Apple and Microsoft plays out in this made-for-TV classic, again starring the great Anthony Michael Hall as Bill Gates, no less. Especially worth seeing for those interested in the beginnings of the personal computer or who just want to see eccentric Apple co-founder Steve “the Woz” Wozniak portrayed onscreen.
Unintentionally funny:
The Net
Sandra Bullock is in her prime delivering the essential lines “It’s in the computer – everything: your, your DMV records, your, your Social Security, your credit cards, your medical records. It’s all right there. Everyone is stored in there. It’s like this little electronic shadow on each and every one of us, just, just begging for someone to screw with. And you know what? They’ve done it to me. And you know what? They’re gonna do it to you.” Classic!
You’ve Got Mail
Nora Ephron’s ode to email romance is underrated as far as odes to email romance go, but not very forward-looking. The AOL-branded title is laughably obsolete a decade later.
Geocities-level horrible:
Swimfan, FeardotCom and Untraceable
For most, using the Internet is a daily ritual free of terror and hot sociopaths with screen names like swimfan_85. Yet movies about online life are overwhelmingly horrors – and overwhelmingly horrific. Look no further than the poster for Untraceable, which uses a mouse icon over Diane Lane’s lips.
.Com For Murder
An all-star cast of Huey Lewis, Roger Daltrey, Nicollette Sheridan and Nastassja Kinski is wasted in this completely unwatchable date-site sexual thriller.
Firewall
It’s for the best that this Harrison Ford vehicle was a flop, saving audiences from further network-related films like Proxy Server and Local Area Network.
joshuae@nowtoronto.com
