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"Rushmore" and The Rise Of Geek Cinema 154

Posted by JonKatz from the outsider-as-hero dept.
"Rushmore" is the latest -- and one of the best -- offerings from the new cinematic genre, Geek Cinema. Until recently, nerds and geeks weren't permitted anywhere in or near movies, surely not in starring roles. That's changed. Sometimes the subject is the nerd techo-culture and its growing power. Sometimes it's the experience of alienation. But either way, geeks are popping up in one movie after another, sometimes celebrated, sometimes feared. A look at the rise of Geek Cinema:

In many ways Max Fisher, the hero of the new movie "Rushmore" is an all-too familiar geek from hell - rebellious, grumpy, obsessive, determined and brilliant. An almost visceral outsider, he - and the straight culture around him - are doomed to contend with one another until one side or the other lies crushed. The movie portrays the bizarre test of wills between a 15-year-old it's almost impossible to like and the rest of the (equally unpleasant) earth.

When it comes time for Max to make piece with one of his many adversaries he offers a choice of the only two things he prizes - his school punctuality and attendance pins.

These are golden times for geek cinema -- a sizzling new genre of film - and it's very unlikely stars. Geek movies can be studio-made or independent, or produced by bands of young filmmakers with credit cards. What defines them is their portrayal, celebration and de-construction of alienation, the ever blurrier boundaries between people others like to call freaks and people who like to think of themselves as normal.

Geek cinema sometimes focuses on the brainy loners who often become the freaks and outcasts of society, from high school on up. Sometimes the subject is nerd techno -culture and its growing power to run the systems that run the world. Although it varies wildly in depth and duration, the experience of alienation is close to universal among geeks, nerds and Webheads, the people who dreamed up, built and inhabit the most vital parts of the Net and the Web.

Hollywood, with its unquenchable lust for hipness, has latched onto this idea. But it's of several minds about where to go with it. Movies (and TV) are, after all, one of a culture's most revealing, reliable mirrors - and what this one shows is ambivalence.

If geeks were once universally reviled, they are now - at least through the prism of geek cinema - both feared and celebrated. Geeks bit the heads off of chickens and rats in carnivals at the beginning of the century in exchange for room and board. The term has broadened steadily in recent years to mean a number of things, but most recently and pervasively (it was co-opted by communal Net homesteaders in the late 80's to describe themselves) people who embrace technology with attitude, from hackers to Web designers to programmers.

For most of history, the essence of being a geek was that straight people wouldn't give you the time of day. But geeks are getting plenty of attention now.

"Enemy Of The State" reflects society's growing fear of geek power, portraying a cadre of NSA computer nerds who gleefully invade privacy, condone murder and use digital technology in the classic Orwellian way, to invade the most intimate parts of our lives, erode our freedom, control our behavior. Geeks have rarely been portrayed as quite that powerful.

In "Happiness", Todd Solondz, the Orson Welles of alienation, takes the very idea of being an outsider and a freak (check out the classic CD-Rom, the "Resident's Freak Show") to astonishing new levels, including mainstream culture's first-ever sympathetic portrayal of a pedophile. One of the best movies of l998, don't expected any Hollywood nominations or awards. We haven't come that far.

Then there was Alexie Sherman's "Smoke Signals," which beautifully captured the strange and sometimes hilarious journey of two Native-American geeks (the director's own description) who leave their Idaho reservation in search of a father's remains.

The latest is "October Sky" - out this week - a rich, touching story based on the so-called "Rocket Boys" in a small Appalachian coal-mining town who defied teachers, peers, cops and parents to battle their way into the Space Age, designing and launching their own rockets.

Although wildly uneven, often with clunky plots and focused narrowly on the deep sci-fi vein of geekdom, the "Star Trek" series almost single-handedly kept outcasts and nerds going to move theaters for years. And, coming soon to every theater near you, there is the mother of all geek cinema, the "Star Wars" prequel.

Meanwhile, enter "Rushmore", the story of 15-year-old walking nightmare of a kid who's ruling over a prep school of the same name until he's expelled. When it comes to geek cinema, "Rushmore" maybe be in a class all by itself.

Although it was technically released in l998 to qualify for the Oscars, "Rushmore" kicks off the geek cinema cycle of 1999 with a bang; it's the funniest and most idiosyncratic addition to this deliciously strange new genre.

As played by Jason Schwartzman, Max Fischer is a dreadfully arrogant and ambitious young human being who, when he grows up, may well be a tycoon just like his friend Herman Blume (Bill Murray).

Brave and bizarre - Wes Anderson, who co-wrote and directed the cultish "Bottle Rocket" - "Rushmore" is a portrait of an oddball way beyond the conventional categories of outcast and weirdo. An academic failure, he runs every club in the school, and is a ruthless and inveterate schemer, a mogul desperate to escape from the constraints of a teenager's life. Fisher tyrannizes the school with his ingenuity and the power of his personality, even as he's an irresistible target for almost everyone in it.

Max ends up nearly bringing down "Rushmore," the town and himself as he battles Murray for the woman they both love,a young pre-school teacher mourning her late husband.

The movie walks a skillful line between the grotesque, maudlin and outrageous, at times coming close to one or the other, but never crossing the line. The plot gets clunky at times, but the movie is rescued by its innate quirkiness.

Anybody who has ever proudly carried or grimly endured the mantle of geek, nerd or worse will, despite a tendency to empathize, want to slug Max - even as they root for him to succeed. The movie culminates in a memorable Vietnam play, staged by Max with real dynamite and other vivid special effects in front of a high school audience armed with goggles and earplugs. Max triumphs not because he becomes more mainstream or likeable, but because his obsessive instinct to create things means that sooner or later, even he must score.

Like the classic geek, Max lives out of the mainstream culture, but is dependent he is on it. He can't live with it or without it. And it's in the interaction of the two worlds that the movie really shines.

Geek cinema is a Godsend, a miraculous new addition to movie-going. It's impossible to imagine movies like "Happiness," "Smoke Signals" or "Rushmore" even being made in America ten years ago, let alone playing in mall megaplexes. Freaks who would never make their way into a Hollywood drama now seem the subject of a string of creative and provocative films.

Pass the popcorn. It's a good time to be a geek.

jonkatz@slashdot.org
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"Rushmore" and The Rise Of Geek Cinema More

"Rushmore" and The Rise Of Geek Cinema

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  • Enemy of the State (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I thought Enemy of the State was a good movie mostly because it succeeded in being tense and suspenseful. The geek factor was just a bonus. Gene Hackman made a surprisingly good geek, though: much better than I expected. Maybe I'm just not familiar with his talents.

    The supreme irony of the movie, though, is that it's about a good lawyer and his good lawyer wife who are hounded by a bunch of evil NSA nerds (albeit led by a credibly evil empire-biulding bureaucrat and his Lady Macbeth wife). The "good lawyer"/"evil nerd" thing required a little extra suspension of unbelief on my part. Especially the "good lawyer" part.

  • I have to agree that it is getting annoying how Katz seems to lump all geeks into this mass market stereotype. All geeks are not outcasts, loners, eletist, etc.

    Many of my friends are geeks (like me) but I don't think Katz has any idea what kind of people we are. We spend more time playing football or rollerhockey together than we spend in front of the computer together. Most of us are minoring in communications or government/politics along with our CS/IT/Engineering majors. (Okay, so I'm the sole Business major of the group.) Many of use have girlfriends (or boyfriends for the females.) Sure, some of us don't have a life... but you'll find that among non-geeks also.

    Some of us have been programming for over a decade, while others have only been introduced to computers a couple years ago. Some of us run Linux and some run Windows. (There are even a few Be and Mac lovers that are geek friends of mine.)

    The point of all this is that geek is a mindset that is reflected in our lives, but does not dictate our lives (necessarily.)

    Katz, you're a smart guy and you usually are pretty interesting, but if this doesn't soak in sooner or later, you'll get damn annoying. Later.

  • Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:

    If you look through most /. articles, you won't find such across the board flaming. Even m$ stories do not have as much as this thread seems to have, although it is close sometimes. But most /. posts have a variety of viewpoints. So don't be so damn dismissive. Since the editorial was especially bad, even for katz, it is to be expected that there are a lot of flames
  • Posted by The Mongolian Barbecue:

    thats the funniest one I've read in a while
  • Posted by Jeff Pitrman:

    Reading the word "alienation" that many times reminded me of a quote that's somewhat relevant to the 'geek alienation from society boo hoo' theme:
    "I never understood alienation. Alienation from what? You have to want to be part of something in order to feel alienated from it." - Boyd Rice (from Re/search #6/7)
  • Until recently, nerds and geeks weren't permitted anywhere in or near movies, surely not in starring roles.

    Geeks and nerds have been a staple of film forever (Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd...); if you're referring just to computer geeks, even those have been around for a long time (the weird guy in the white lab coat who understands the intimidating room-sized mainframe, for instance - but that was probably rarely, if ever, a lead character).

    Know Your Roots, Katz.

    --

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • What about your Linux box, Jon? How's that all going? Is it up and running? Are you using it. Did I miss something? (quite possible). Just curious.
  • I can't help it: I know we're all 'sposed to be grown-up and responsible now that Linux is in the limelight; I know that flamage really belongs in c.o.x.a.; I know that dissing jk is really not nice or polite; but I can't help laughing my ass off at some of the rather witty and creative ways folks here on /. have of telling jk to basically fsck-off. Well, it's a slow aft, and so I say: "Keep 'em coming, Jon!" What the hell, if we're lucky, we only live once.
  • (NOTE: This is a satire)

    well duh!
  • You know who you are!
  • These flamewars are a lot more interesting than anything Katz had to say aren't they? I still wonder why he just doesn't post this nonsense of his on AOL where it belongs...

  • Couldn't have put it better. A real geek movie is "Attack of The Killer Tomatoes"
  • Nah. Beamed into the middle of a storage tank full of antimatter, yeah....
  • I dunno about anyone else, but I'm getting really fucking sick of this whole "geek culture" thing.

    Wow, people use computers. Big fucking deal. Why do I have to be labeled into a some new social clique/scene because of that?

  • I keep hearing everyone spout the same rhetorical nonsense about Katz's writings. Why don't you open your minds for a change?

    Yes, Katz's writings are not technical. Yes, they are sometimes regurgitated. However, they are an interesting viewpoint to subjects that I don't see anyone else here voiceing.

    If everyone keeps looking at the low-level technical aspect of the 'net, then noone will be able to see where the geek culture is going. We are, after all, outcasts. And this is a nice writeup trying to get us all to pull our heads out of the sand (or our *sses).

    Also, regarding spelling; how many of you people *still* spell 'a lot' without a space? Grab that brick-sized book called a 'Dictionary' sometime...it'll help.

    Congrats Katz!
  • the large majority of /.'ers don't care for jon katz one bit. i didn't really care about katz before this article. I never cared for the articles, but I followed, "live and let live", and just didn't read them. i think we should have a poll that decides what the readership truely thinks about katz, and whether we want any of his articles anymore.
  • I personally happen to like his articles. So maybe they aren't the most technically detailed articles on Slashdot... they still have value to me.

    And this may not be true of everyone, but I personally happen to like reading articles on the "geek culture" (or whatever) that have some of the flair and language that one tends to find in more "mainstream" publications.

    Believe it or not, some people do like reading things for the simple pleasure of reading them, not just because they have any new information. I don't happen to get a lot of new info from Jonkatz' articles, but they still make me think, and they are a lot easier to read than a lot of the other stuff on here. That makes them worthwhile.

    If you don't like, then don't read. Jonkatz' name is predominantly placed on the header to the article on the main /. page. But please don't drive him away. I happen to look forward to his articles. They are some of my favourite ones.

    Thanks.

    - Sean


    - SeanNi
  • Which brought us the word "wardialer".
    I understand Joshua's access code is also in several password dictionaries.


    --
  • Anyone feel just a little bit patronized? I enjoyed Katz's stuff in the past, but recently I've started feeling like his sociology experiment.

    I don't want him to leave, I just want him to return to relevance. Tell us more of your Linux adventures, Katz!


    --
  • No really, this is the way it always is.

    The best way to rectify the situation is to set a good example. You may not think anyone notices you if you post intelligently, but they do.

    The worst thing that could happen to /. is if all the cogent people left.


    --
  • Real geeks don't do MS. You shouldn't be offended.


    --
  • People don't just bash for no reason. I dunno, maybe some do.

    But Katz really needs to put his money where is mouth is. If he wants to be a writer, he needs to learn to spell. If he wants to cover "geek stuff", he needs to replace all that image with just a little bit of competance.

    If he would at least try, I bet it would cut the flames down by 3/4.


    --

  • I don't completely agree with your comments. The Existentialists were philosophers and it is silly to say that there were no philosophers before the industrial revolution. The men mentioned above were also authors and playwrights, which existed long before Modern society as well. Camus, for one, wrote his greatest work, "The Myth of Sisyphus", during WWII while he was working for the French Underground.

    He was not a "Modernist" man with a lot of leisure time and wealth. Along with that, I feel that your arguments seem to follow post hoc ergo Procter hoc lines of thought. The alienation that Camus felt was the alienation that humans feel because reality is set up in diametric opposition to what we want. We want to live but we all have to die. This is Camus alienation, his "Absurd". His Absurd is as old as man is and if the history of philosophy were different, it could well have been espoused in the Middle Ages.

    In the end, what I am trying to say is that geek alienation with society has absolutely nothing to do with the alienation felt by Existential philosophers. Alienation from society is fundamentally different from alienation with the way reality is set up. In that distinction lies your error.

  • Argghhh... Humility is the single most important trait in a geek, for future reference.

    "I've been programming since I was thirteen..." BASIC doesn't count, for Chrissake!

    Not that we shouldn't be flaming John, he needs it to improve his avante garde sentence structure ("This looks weird, let's go with it"), but we also need to follow the rules.

    Jason Lewis
  • You still need to learn a bit more humility. Honestly, "BASIC in middle school". Too much information == bragging != humility. Or, Too much information := bragging humility. ;)

    I can't say that I have done more, or that I was programming BASIC in middle school, but you can't base your ego on this. Surely, there are others somewhere who consider this underachievement. Consider them when writing.
  • Maybe you couldn't tell where the movie was going, but it was blatantly obvious to me. The soundtrack is the only thing that saved it in some spots. That, and just as you were ready to fall asleep. something highly amusing would happen.

    Granted, the funny bits were very good. But it was otherwise completely predictable every step of the way, had huge boring sections and Max was very unlikeable. I sure as hell wouldn't recommend the movie to a friend - The soundtrack, maybe, or a cheap matinee or bargan rental...

  • pi (Score:1)

    by RattRigg ( 4253 )
    I thought Pi would be a better example of a geek movie.
    Still I would hardly consider putting a drill through your head a final triumph over your own mind.
  • Boy, has this word gone through some changes in it's popular meaning lately. When I was growing up, a technical person most likely would not refer to himself as "geek" of "nerd"; these were reserved for people with certain personality types; not so much what one was interested in. To me a "geek" conjured up images of a weak minded, toady or stooge type with no social abilities. Or perhaps someone who freely discussed his latest Dungeons and Dragons adventures with total strangers who were not interested.
    Anyway, I have not seen "Rushmore", but I'm not expecting much. Technical people - ESPECIALLY computer people have been badly represented in hollywood to date. "Good Will Hunting"? Please, Matt Damon is not a believeable geek, with his I'm-so-beautiful-harvard-jock thing going on. It's almost insulting to cast this guy as a geek.
    "PI" came closer, and although it was visually fascinating, it really was a rather weak movie; more like an 85 minute music video.
  • I figured Katz would be jumping on the Geek Cinema bandwagon when I saw this story

    http://www.wired.com/news/news/culture/story/179 16.html

    but I guess his "find all occurrences of the word 'geek' on the internet " TSR somehow overlooked it.

    (read story at least as far as "buffer overflow" remark)

  • There was already a poll, Katz won. It is not a majority of /.'ers that don't like Katz. Flaimers are just noisier than lurkers, that does not make them the majority.

  • The film "Wax: The Discovery of Television Among the Bees" is one of the best examples of "geek-cinema" that I have ever seen. If you have not seen it, rent it soon. It is the story of a programmer for the defense department that is contacted by the spirits of the "future dead" that were killed by his work. They communicate to him through the bees that he keeps. He travels through space and time with their aid. They show him the language of Babylon (code), God (a television broadcast), Heaven (OOP), the limits of the universe, the meaning of his life, and his fate after death.

    I saw many in this thread mention "Pi". I saw that, and saw many similarities between it and "Wax". Notably the relationship between mathematics and language. If you liked this film, Wax goes to another level of surrealism.
  • I generally agree will your comment except for some issues concerning colored/negro/black/african americans. Ever hear of the NAACP? The C stands for Colored. How about the United Negro College Fund? What you miss is that the use of a particular term is historical and reflects upon the culture of a particular time frame. At a certain time, the terms are not negative. However, if that population suffers continual discrimination and prejudice, then those terms eventually take on a negative tone. At that point a new term is coined and adopted for use.

    Another example of this is latino/hispanic etc...

    The term colored people is of current interest. One phrase being used today is "People of Color" to refer to all non-whites. I personally dislike this term (and don't flame me about this, I qualify for this term). So even a "negative" term can return to exulted status.

    So back to your point. Geek/Nerd can have negative connotations. Rather than coming up with a new phrase, I would rather see these terms become more positive. And the only way for that to happen is for the popular image of a geek/nerd to become better.

    Heads up your ass? HUYA! Has a nice ring to it.:-)
  • That's because you're on the internet.
  • I can't believe nobody has mentioned the ultimate (well, one of them) geek movie: SNEAKERS! Come on, people! =:)



    And shouldn't Tron count, too? Flynn's a bit old for my conception of a geek but hey, he's a programmer who owns an arcade! How could he not qualify? =:)
  • Good point about War Games. Hey look, I may be an idiot, but I do NOT have too much time on my hands, for sure. Also check out Rober Ebert's piece on Geek Cinema for a very different take (I'll try and get the URL).
  • I though this a great post. Some of you have e-mailed me that the Medieval Artisans were the first real geeks -- a neat idea --and among the first to feel alienated by technology, in their case their craft tools. I'd love thoughts on this idea.
  • It is true, some of these posts do keep reinforcing my argument about alienation. The tip off is that isn't a matter of agreement or disagreement, but hostility to different ideas.
    But another reminder for the umpteenth time -- my e-mail is quite the opposite. Lots of it, rarely hostile or angry. I keep making that point because the public posts create the distorted impression that everyone here is alienated. That isn't so at all.

  • Katz-Bashers could be a whole new sub-species. My daugher thinks it's a very cool idea... Do go see Rushmore..it's a very good idea..and I posted this up above, but those who want a very different view on this shud check out Roger Ebert's take on "geek cinema" which ran on the Chi Sun-Times website.. He describes geeks as very decadent and repulsive. I'll try and find the URL, which I stores somewhere.
  • This is a great site, filled with tons of smart people who have serious, non-hostile conversations, although sometimes not out in the open. Youdon't need to go elsewhere, though. E-mail me (jonkatz@slashdot.org) But don't go.
  • >Alienation is a pheneomena of the industrial /technological age. Dostoyevsky, Camus, Satre,

    it was necessary to quote that line or order to say this about it: i agree completely.

    now, about movies:

    over the summer Mr Katz wrote (at Wired) a review of Armageddon in which he praised the 'geeks' that comprised the drilling crew. not only was Armageddon one of the worst movies ever, but none of the characters were geeks. they were under-dogs. an under-dog does not a geek make.

    Americans have an infatuation with underdogs -- from the Bad News Bears to Revenge of the Nerds to old Jerry Lewis movies (ick), we've always been watching down-on-their-luck people rise above. now that technology is comfortably en vogue we're seeing under-dogs that are technologically talented. the representation is a bit different, i suppose, in that under-dogs are good at something now -- as opposed to simply being a case study in character 'flaws' -- the bad-at-sports cow-lick-sporting chump who gets tongue-tied around women. now we're shown the bad-at-sports cow-lick-sporting chump who gets tongue-tied around women and is good with computers.

    i don't think we're seeing the emergence of a new genre so much as we're seeing the update of an old one.

    nit-picking: Happiness introduced no new ideas to cinema; it was simply a crass, visually uninteresting update of David Lynch's 'Blue Velvet' (from 1986). imho, of course.
  • The movie was "Happiness." Sympathetic is probably not the best term for the portrayal; more like human-scale pathos and pathology, something a bit more complicated and authentic than the typical opaque villainization. It absolutely definitely was neither a defense of nor an apology for pedophilia.
  • Try NewsTrolls:
    Sometimes the regulars can be hard on newbies (especially if the newbies can't defend their opinions), but the topics are killer...it's where the old HotWired threads crowd went after HotWired dumbed down to inanity...and, of course, we're regular /. readers, too...
    Here's a direct link to the Threads at NewsTrolls [newstrolls.com]
    --diva (of course I'm prejudiced, I 'm...)

  • I happen to appreciate Jon's work. In fact, my click-throughs on the techno articles are hit or miss at best. Usually it's enough for me to see the front page blurb, and skip all the rambling commentary by the flamekiddies.

    I always read Jon's articles, though. "Geek Culture" is fascinating to me. I've been trying to understand it for years, from an insider's perspective. What makes me tick? Jon, not being a hardcore tech-head, has an interesting take on things. He allows me to see from an "informed outsider's" vantage. I've always wanted more insight into why we (Geeks) are the way we are, and why the rest of the world has so much trouble dealing with us. In fact, in this Rushmore piece, Jon really put the finger on it with this line:

    Max triumphs not because he becomes more mainstream or likeable, but because his obsessive instinct to create things means that sooner or later, even he must score.
    That very "obsessive instinct to create things" is, I think, what you'll find inside of yourself if you are truly a Geek. Thanks, Jon, for naming it.
  • Like several other people here, I am now at the point where I can barely tolerate reading Katz articles. However, I have an inherent distrust of the reasons for my own discomfort. If reading something is uncomfortable, do you immediately stop and retreat into your comfortable, established worldview, or do you attempt to find a reason for your discomfort and decide if there is something about your worldview that might need to be changed as a result? I prefer the latter. So I have continued to read Katz articles, not because I find them particularly interesting, but in an attempt to discover what it is about them that I object to. With today's article, I have achieved a 'moment of clarity' on the subject.

    The reason I don't enjoy reading Katz' articles is that he writes about the definition of a term that I had accepted as self-referential. As a result, I read his articles as if they were about me - and I object to them strongly because they fail to describe me in any way I find acceptable. So the insight to be drawn from them is: I am not a geek. I have been calling myself one for years; I started programming when I was 7 years old (see footnote); I work in the industry; I read slashdot. But I only called myself a geek because it was a convenient term at the time, and provided some sense of shared experience with others of similar mind. If the definition of the word changes to the point where it no longer reflects my experience, then I must abandon the word, not the experience itself. This leaves me without a good word to describe this aspect of myself, which I find uncomfortable, but as I said before, uncomfortable is often the step that comes before understanding.

    I am not a geek because: I care about my relationship with society and want to operate as a valued and contributing member rather than an alienated outsider. I have two kids and don't necessarily want them to grow up to be programmers--I would rather that they be well-adjusted socially. I am working on an MBA. In a couple years I plan to stop coding (for money, anyway) and become a manager or a marketer. None of these motivations are compatible with the term 'geek' as it is now defined, not only by Katz but by the whole bandwagon that has sprung up around the term.

    This whole business reminds me of the way 'hacker' got corrupted in the 80s. Once I was a hacker; now I am not. I have not changed. Actually, a better comparison would be the way 'Generation X' was misunderstood for so many years. Hollywood and Madison Avenue both thought that the post-Boomer generation was nihilistic, lazy, and heavily influenced by drug and alcohol culture. Even though I'm in the right age group (I am now 30), I vehemently rejected 'GenX' as having anything to do with myself. However, in the last few years, the term 'GenX' seems to have become more like: "People who dig Howard Jones and remember the old hamburgler." This I can identify with. Perhaps, over time, 'geek' will go through this sort of convergence to reality. If it does, perhaps I will adopt it again.

    -Graham

    Footnote: Per a previous thread, I feel compelled to provide some details. I turned 7 years old in 1975. We did not have a home computer at the time, but my father sometimes brought home a printing terminal for the IBM 360 at work. He arranged for me to have an account in a training area where I couldn't hurt anything, and let me loose. I wrote simple programs in BASIC for a while and got good at it. Through the era of my dad's homebrew machines of the late 70s, I stuck to BASIC as if it were a religion--although I did code some inner loops in 6800 and then 6809 assembly language because it was the only way to get performance. On my 14th birthday, in 1982, my dad bought me a copy of Turbo Pascal for CP/M. My teenage rebellion was against structured programming; I liked GOTOs as a child. But after a year or so of fighting against it, I saw the light and converted to Pascal. In point of fact, I still program in Pascal (Delphi) to this day, although somewhere along the way I also picked up C/C++ and Perl. So when did I start programming? If BASIC doesn't count, then I started when I was 14. If you don't start until you're paid for it, then I started when I was 15--but that was in BASIC. If you aren't a programmer until you have programmed for money in a language other than BASIC, then I started when I was 19. If you aren't a programmer until you've written your own operating system kernel, then I'm not one yet and probably never will be (although I have written a simple compiler). And yes, my only reason for telling you all this is simple ego gratification. Live with it.
  • Forget Pi, how could you miss Sneakers? If the main players in that movie aren't a bunch of geeks, what could they possibily be?

    Of course, the ultimate geek movie in my mind is still Revenge of the Nerds.
  • you people ALWAYS pounce on Katz whenever he writes an article. Jezus christ, whenever I read a katz article, I scroll down to the bottom to read all the immediate "Man, that sucks," "Katz, how stupid can you be," and "Another inane piece from Katz." It seems like you dont even read his articles, just scroll down to the bottom and start bashing.

    Personally, I think katz's articles are, for the most part, pretty good. I've actually been convinced to see Rushmore because of this article. Why dont you people just chill out and give the guy (Katz) a break?

    you people ::= katz-bashers

    -Laxative
  • Alienation is a pheneomena of the industrial /technological age. Dostoyevsky, Camus, Satre,
    Kierkegaard (et al) were all Modernists, explicitly the product of a technological culture which generates the wealth that gives us time to think.

    How beautifully circular that (some of) geekdom should seek to reclaim the power of alienation through the technology that gave it birth.

    [Dynamically linked] libraries gave us power [tekknowledge.com] ...
  • Thanks, Jon, now I'll get the same flamage as you ;)

    re: artisans / 'Guilds' -- I could be wrong but IIRC weren't Guilds (medievil unions) established partly to *restrict* the free spread of information ? Isn't there part of the Hypocratic Oath sworn by MDs that prohibits the dissemination of The Craft / Lore of medicine ?

    Geekness / hackerdom etc has always been mostly
    about solitary exploration of technological possibilities ...

    Yes, geek != alienated, and vice versa; as someone once said, mental hospitals are full of depressed non-writers and smackheads who don't play jazz. Or grunge. You have to, um, plough your own furrow ...
  • How much more trite can you get than Hollywood's idea of a hero?

    Ronald Reagan?
  • ...including mainstream culture's first-ever sympathetic portrayal of a pedophile. One of the best movies of l998, don't expected any Hollywood nominations or awards. We haven't come that far.


    Most of this stuff I don't care about, but I had to point out this paragraph. Is this what we consider progress? What's next... "Pedophile Pride"?

    ick.

    ----

  • I've never heard of NAMBLA. Perhaps I should not view that site at work (?)

    ----

  • I think it depends on how you define "manager". If one is the "lead from the front" kind of manager who sucks a good idea from the group and represents it as one's own, then in my experience one isn't technical. Most people either spend time studying people or studying technology. Few people split their attention.

    If on the other hand, one is the "influence from within" kind of "manager", one sets an example of technical excellence which the group admires and follows of their own free will.
  • Soo.....what, next we're going to have "Real Geeks" on MTV? I certainly never asked for this gig, and I certainly don't feel very hoity toity about being a geek, but I reeeally don't want to have to deal with today's teenyboppers being tomarrows programmers because MTV or Vogue or Style tells them to. Help us all if this turn of events blows up in our faces.
  • I went to Rushmore thinking it was going to be really good (I see a lot of movies--usually one a week and sometimes as many as four or five), but I was disappointed. It was okay, I guess, but it wasn't really too nerdy or entertaining, or anything. Now, what was really good was Pi [pithemovie.com]. Other nerdy ones I liked were Tron, and Good Will Hunting was pretty good, too. I count myself as a nerd/geek, but I don't really care about that side of things when I go to movies. I just go to see good acting and scriptwriting, like in Life is Beautiful, Shakespeare in Love, Buffalo '66, Pi, A Simple Plan, Ronin, and Waking Ned Devine. All these movies have in common is that a) I saw them in the past year and b) I liked them a lot. That's just because they were good movies.

  • pi!!! (Score:1)

    by r ( 13067 )
    yes, i just saw it for the first time a few days ago. and the most scary thing - i could understand the main character, and his reasons for doing what he did!

    yes, there were a few blunders (the four-pin, automatically-configurable chip?), but in spite of those, the movie truly great! highly recommended to all mathy geeks on /.
  • >We are, after all, outcasts.

    You may be and/or feel like an outcast, but I am not.
  • While I appreciate Jon's comments on geek-cinema, I must say that he is missing some important history here. The "smart kid who saves the day" is a cliche in movie and TV history with a long, proud and sometimes not-so-proud history. (Come on, who here didn't want to see Wesley Crusher beamed into a wall?)

    As others have pointed out, the 80s, with John Hughes riding teen-age angst for he was worth, saw a plethora of geeks from Anthony-Michael Hall (now reborn as Bill Gates on TNT) in The Breakfast Club to Weird Science. And for my money, there was never a better movie geek than Matthew Broderick in War Games.

    But even before that, where would suave James Bond be without his Q? And think of all the geeks in the 50s sci-fi movies. Granted, they were usually relegated to finding out the crucial piece of imformation before the much-better-looking hero went out and saved the day, but hey, they were certainly there.

    The fin-de-millenium movie making has seen a rebirth of the geek as hero and anti-hero, but I'm not sure it's a full-blown revival, because I'm just not sure we were ever gone.

    -- Chris
  • I was tricked into watching it 52 times....

    I'm bit more wary now.

  • I don't like to be called a geek, even by other geeks. It's similar to a black person who doesn't like the N-word, even when used by other blacks. Geek and nerd have negative connotations used by the "head up their ass" non-geek crowd. A fellow geek may use "geek" in place of "techno-literati", but it still sounds like "Spaz!" to me.

    Black people don't like the name "colored" or "Negro". They didn't choose those names for themselves and they especially didn't like the way white people used them. So they picked their own name. (Now they changed it to "African American" because of the way white people says "Black". Personally, I think they should kept Black and told Whitey to go screw.)

    So let's pick a name we can live with and make our own. Then, let's make up a few to call the heads up their asses crowd (and not tell them) because "head up your ass" is so unwieldy.
  • It's just a word, neither good nor bad. I didn't want to alienate a potential audience and tried to be diplomatic. No big agenda. Who knew who might read my comments? Adding or deleting nigger wouldn't change the meaning of my post, everybody knew what the n-word meant. I don't say it in general discourse, not that I haven't used it, so why write it here?

    No one is upset because I didn't say "We should give ourselves a better fucking name."
  • i was just going to say that..

    how bout also:
    The Wiz (which first introduced Super Mario World 3, btw)
    War Games
    Hackers (chuckle.. well.. this is sorta nerd)
    The Net

    Hackers and the Net kinda dont count since they're really retarded media protrayels of cyber geeks, but anywho.

    -Zebulun
  • So if you consider /. a news site (which it is) why bother putting in your $.02? Are your opinions less valid than his?

    Don't pretend that what we're doing here is pure news. Or indeed that "pure news" is free from a writer's prospective before you get a chance to see it.

    Katz's work on this site IS on topic and it DOES relate to this site. If what he writes here has any low-level political biases, good. Maybe that way the reader can get some perspective on his writing. Rather than a regurgitated AP press release. (It's not like he's Jerry Falwell and you could guess from what subtext his missives arrive!)

    I would encourage Mr. Katz to continue doing what he's doing. Maybe an article about "Geek Cinema" is not that different from the myriad "Star Wars Prequel" Articles that some readers seem to really enjoy.
  • I mean, I read the whole "article" and no mention of porn. I thought Sex(tm) was going to be the catalyst to launch the Internet (and I guess Geekdom(tm)) into Paradise(c). Guess that newly acquired Linux box is collecting dust now that Katz is spending time at either the movie theater or the adult book store.


  • Just for the record, when I read an article or editorial, I read for content and not delivery. If I wanted to read something for delivery, I'd go read Faulkner or something and revel in the way he actually delivers what's to be said. What I'm trying to say is, as much as a significant percentage (read: the posting one or two percent) of slashdotters thinks that Mr. Katz' writings are inane and pedantic, I for one think that what he writes brings content, if nothing else, to SlashDot. Keep 'em coming, Jon.

    Now, on to matters of greater import-- the movie! Personally, I liked it, if only because the character of Max Fisher appealed to a more creative side of me, a part of me that wishes it'd done something as productive with its high school years as write a play or start a fencing club.

    A nit to pick: I believe Miss Cross taught the first grade, not preschool as Mr. Katz wrote. (I tried to check my information on this, nothing on the topic on the Rushmore movie page)

    p.s. I think I'm biased towards this movie because of Max Fisher's asian girlfriend. If you know me personally, you know what I'm talking about .

  • Skip now if you are expecting another Katz Bashing.

    Ok, without debating the point of what qualifies as a 'Geek Film', I think there is a quickly evolving genre of sci-tech films that are often mistakenly being grouped in the Geek/Nerd/Hacker bucket.

    There is nothing new about the sci-tech genre of films, it has always existed but the context of the sci-tech has evolved. For the mass media, computers and programming are the modern equivalents of alchemy or building ion-based propellants for space ships - they are thrilling, exciting, and sometimes frightening subjects because most people do not understand the truth of the subject. The image of an all-powerful computer system or hacker that reads your email, crashes the NSA's software infrastructure, and then redirects all of your savings into a Swiss bank account is popular because of the 'mystery' that surrounds the sci-tech itself. This is not new, mass media has been doing this for hundreds of years - the thrill is in the unknown.

    Why is "Pi" considered a 'Geek Film'? How many people in an average movie going audience could explain (or have even heard about) the Golden Spiral theory? Nothing that mysterious, but it's a mystery to most, so it carries the aura of excitement.

    My opinion of a captivating sci-tech film is a recent indie called 'Cube'. It's sort of a Hitchcock-ian sci-fi thriller that exudes the threat of technology rather than slamming it down your throat (read: there are no "let's hack the mainframe" lines in this film). It's on tape. Go rent it.

    -b
  • i'd like to think i'd never flame anyone for making a genuine effort, and of course slashdot shouldn't be off-limits to those of a non-technical disposition (we're here to spread the word, no?), but it's getting to the point where i just can't help but cringe when i see a new jon katz post. don't you?

    come on, jon. there's no need to constantly (and almost deliberately, it seems - i guess there are worse ways to get attention) make yourself into prime flamebait every time you post. in almost every article you make bemused reference to the raging clique-centric 'geeks' who constantly bombard you with criticism and distaste after every posting. and yet each time i read a new one, it seems almost purposefully crafted to elicit irritation to the max among /.ers.

    the old routine is getting tiresome. maybe the mainstream media is fascinated with katz-esque articles; maybe the people who buy newspapers and magazines love to read about how the world is being taken over by 'geeks' and how [geeks | oss | linux] is going to be the solution to poverty, world hunger and facial herpes. but this is slashdot, for god's sake, and i can't imagine that anybody here could enjoy reading article after article that basically amount to "there's this [geek | oss | linux] thing out there, guys, and *boy* is it gonna be BIG!"

    we know, jon, we know. thanks for the heads-up. can you write about something else now? why not use your (considerable) talents to report back to us about what's happening in the *rest* of the world - which would actually be useful, since many people here have their heads so buried in 'geekdom' that they don't notice the happenings outside of it - instead of trying to tell us about ourselves.

    we already know, and we don't need it to be analyzed by you, because you're not in any position to analyze. you definitely belong on slashdot, and slashdot definitely needs the perspective of someone like you; it would just be great if you could put some more effort into finding your proper place.

  • I would love to see a remake of this movie using modern computer graphics technology. I still dream about having one of those badass light cycles...

    Jason
  • i'm as smart as he is...
  • Um...this is getting kinda boring.

    Does anyone here actually *like* what JonKatz writes about? Then we can have a general discussion/argument/flamewar.

    But it's too boring with everyone going:

    Poster 1: "I hate Jon's articles"
    Poster 2: "Me too..."
    Poster 3: "Me too..."
    Poster 4: "Me too..."
    ad infinitum...
  • from my anal-retentive persective, i must point out that it's Sherman Alexie, not the other way around...
  • I agree, I hate 'geek'. If someone wants to label
  • A fellow geek may use "geek" in place of "techno-literati",

    Actually, I perfer the term "techno-illuminati"
  • hi me again, testing out my new username :)
  • The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai Across the 8th Dimension.
  • Tron
    War Games
    Sneakers
    Hackers (really a wannabe film, but Angelina Jolie is /HOT/)
    Revenge of the Nerds

    many more not mentioned.... however, add to the list:

    October Sky. An /excellent/ movie. If you have not seen it, go see it. It is the /true/ story of a NASA rocket scientist who grew up the son of a coal miner in rural West Virginia.


  • Sounds romantic enough to me. For geek love, see Real Genius. Jordan == hot *grin*
  • How about Strange Days and Waterworld (!) ?
  • I propose the 1940's British word "Boffin", which really means Scientist.

    These are the guys who:
    1. Invented the Computer (Alan Turing)
    2. Invented the Atom Bomb (Robert Oppenheimer)
    3. Invented Radar (Meredith Thring)
    4. Discovered the structure of DNA (Crick & Watson)
    5. Developed Rockets (Werner von Braun, Robert Goddard)

    I could go on and on......

    These are the people who made the world what it is today.

    (bitch) Try making some bonehead jock play football without the helmet that some geek/boffin invented for him. (/bitch)

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