THE INTERNET'S OWN BOY: THE STORY OF AARON SWARTZ @ Sundance 2014

This is the story of a charming and selfless information prodigy that strived to use his talent to make this a freer and better world for which he ended up paying for with his life.

Aaron Swartz was born in Chicago, the middle son, of successful middle-class Jewish parents. Inquisitive from birth, he taught himself to read by the age of three and by the time he reached High School he despaired of his teachers who he complained taught him less than he could read up in an hour. At 13 he won a competition for young people who created non-commercial websites for which the prize included a trip to M.I.T.  From then on, there was no looking back for him.

From there the young genius played a major part in the development of the basic Internet protocol RSS and also co-founded Reddit which became the most popular social news website in the world. His work brought fame in the online communities and also wealth (when Reddit was sold) but this affable young man couldn't have been less interested in either. What did excite him was social justice and political organizing that focused on working to free up inaccessible information online that he believed belonged in the public domain and should be available to all without charge.   It was what would prove to be his undoing in time.

Without Swartz's involvement it is most unlikely that the Stop Online Piracy Act would have been defeated in Congress, but when he set about copying almost 5 million academic articles from JSTOR (Journal Storage) Database at M.I.T. events did not go his way. Swartz maintained that as these articles had been financed from public funds they should be freely available. When he was caught, JSTOR chose not press any charges but the Federal Government did and very aggressively pursued Swartz and indicted him with a total of 13 felonies. To its shame, M.I.T. just stood on sidelines and did nothing.

The beauty of Brian Knappenberger's rather wonderful documentary of this extraordinary young man is that he makes a concerted effort to show not only why the online community was in awe of his seemingly unlimited talent, but by including his very supportive and proud family and friends, he showed what an exceptionally nice person Swartz was too. This very unassuming man was magnanimous and both reserved and quiet but he seemed to blossom as more people called on him to help. He was a passionate thinker who used the same logical approach he employed when programming also in how tackled any social injustice he came across.

Why he took his own life is never really explained in the movie, but what is very clear from listening to all the evidence is that was a wasted life cut short. However his memory just doesn't live on with his loved ones, and with the online community who are in awe of all his inventions and achievements, but also last year in Congress a Bill was introduced to finally reform the ambiguous and outdated Anti-Hacking Law that the Government used so mercilessly against him. The Bill is called Aaron's Law, as well it should be.

Unmissable.

★★★★★★★★★

WEB JUNKIE @ Sundance 2014

China does nothing on a small scale. The Government has established 400 rehabilitation and treatment centers to 'cure' what they claim is over 24 million young people of compulsive Internet use ... or as they crudely term it 'electronic heroin'. This eye-opening documentary looks at just one of these military type camps and how it goes about trying to wean the teenagers off their addiction.

Most of the tearful kids have been forced or tricked into being committed by their parents ..'I thought we were going skiing in Russia' one cried.  They are angry and frustrated, something they let out at the joint therapy sessions they are made to have with their parents, supervised by earnest female doctors who look almost as young as their charges. 

Part clinic, part school, part boot camp, the parents have to pay what is twice the average Beijing salary (10,000 yuans) for their offspring to be 'cured'.  They claim that this really is their last resort as their kids skip school and spend days/weeks doing nothing else than play video games.  The extreme ones even wear nappies so that they never ever have to take a break from playing. 

At the beginning of their three month stay most of the kids show no remorse at all, and without exception claim that they cannot/will not give up their addiction. As one of them explained so succinctly, to them virtual life IS reality! And in the therapy sessions as the Doctors start to probe deeper, the whole Chinese culture of one child per family starts to emerge as one of the main causes of these kids attitudes.  It often appeared that when parents put all of their own personal aspirations onto their only offspring and exerting so much pressure for them to succeed academically, it is at the expense of having any sort of natural loving communication between father/mother and son. 

It was however hard to see from this film if this treatment of computer addiction as a clinical disorder was effective or not.  Most of the young boys were bright enough to eventual learn to give the expected responses to the Doctors that they knew would speed up their release. In fact the movie deliberately ends on a high point as we see one of them finally being allowed to leave with his parents, although I have this sneaking suspicion he will soon revert back to his old ways.

I started out watching this documentary actually thinking how very cruel and inhumane the whole situation was, but if this really is a problem of such epidemic proportions, I simply have no idea what an alternative solution should, or could, be.

Its an excellent and fascinating documentary by filmmakers Shosh Shlam & Hilla Medalia  that made compelling viewing and could become as addictive as it subject.

★★★★★★★★

THE WOLF OF WALL STREET

Martin Scorsese's take on a big time financial crook who swindled money out of a legion of small time people to finance his life of excess and debauchery is a piece of faction.  Based on the real life of convicted stockbroker Jordan Belfort whose Firm fraudulently sold billions of worthless penny shares, it does however use Belfort's own memoirs as source of information, so its very questionable to how much of it is actually true.

Belfort was born in the Bronx, and brought up in Queens by his Jewish middle class parents who were both accountants.  His first job on Wall Street was as a runner but when he passed his exams and qualified to be a Broker the Market crashed on his first day trading and he lost his job.  Virtually unemployable he ended up in crummy office in a Strip Mall in Long Island where some itinerant salesmen were trading with Penny Stocks and making a meager living from it. Belfort quickly caught on to the untapped potential of selling these shares and he racked it up more than a notch of two and started making really good easy money.

This was just the start of an extraordinary tale of unbridled greed that spurred Belfort to bigger and wilder illegal schemes that would rake in countless wealth for him and his sidekicks.  He would quickly trade his first Office in a disused garage for the most flashiest trading floor in a skyscraper on Wall Street in the same cavalier manner that he also would replace his childhood sweetheart bride for a racier sexier young one.

With seemingly limitless monies pouring in, Belfort indulges in a hard-partying lifestyle with excessive amounts of pills, women, cars and other toys that it allows him to buy, and they in turn drive his obsession to keep making even more money regardless of its legitimacy or morality.

Scorcese portrays this all like a depraved manic circus-like orgy that is so ridiculously wild and salacious that it seems like it couldn't possibly have happened.  It's not just the fact that Belfort is such a repugnant character but the way that he draws in his cohorts to ape his obscene behaviour too.  It is a sight to behold, and one that stuns you into complete silence as it is so repugnant.

In the movie Belfort, in a superb Award winning performance by Leonard DiCaprio, is a charismatic handsome charmer that we are meant to admire.  And even when the FBI catch up with him and have him in a tight corner facing ruin and a potentially long prison sentence, he acts like an honorable man he is reluctant to snitch on his friends to save is own neck.  Whereas in real life he co-operated with the Authorities with hardly any hesitation at all.

As a piece of pure entertainment, Scorsese has provided a jam-packed three hours of exhilarating and extravagant story telling that leaves one quite exhausted.  As for the reality, it glamorises a really nasty self-indulgent crook who robbed thousands of very ordinary people of their life savings and more. Even years later after Belfort has served a short prison sentence he has moved to Australia so that he can keep all the proceeds from his two books, this movie and his inspirational speaking gigs and thus avoid paying back any of the Restitution to the Victims as ordered by the U.S. Courts.

Available on Amazon

★★★★★★★

ALL THE LIGHT IN THE SKY

Marie is a middle-aged bit part Hollywood actress who has still not had her big breakthrough part. She has been successful enough to be able to live in a Malibu Beach apartment, albeit a small rented one. She's a bit of a hippie and leads a healthy lifestyle with her daily routines of paddle-boarding and regularly drinking the very un-appetising looking vegetable smoothies she makes herself.

What little there is in the way of plot in this movie is furnished with the arrival of Marie's niece Faye who is an aspiring actress and who is visiting her Aunt for a vacation and some mentoring. Having the younger woman around gives Marie to verbalise on where she went wrong with her life choices so that Faye doesn't repeat them. And she in turn she invites her Aunt to hang out with her own party-going friends, one of whom ends up taking Marie to bed.

Marie is in fact smart enough to recognize all the signs of her own fast approaching mid-life crisis, but she is still unable to stopping the inevitability of it happening.

Co-written by actress Jane Adams who also played Marie which to all intents and purpose was surely just playing herself.  Co-written and directed by Joe Swanberg .... the most intriguing and prolific of contemporary filmmakers and actors .... who with his hand held camera was the sole crew member on location. This is ultra-micro budget filmmaking at its best.

Whether Jane Adams was actually acting a part or not, this sad reflective woman on screen was sufficiently engaging that you became invested in the outcome. Although there was little point to that, as this was not so much a narrative in the usual sense, but more an essay of where one woman found herself in the middle of a life which has disappointed her so far.

Swanberg made this movie in 2012 before his biggest 'almost mainstream' movie 'Drinking Buddies' finally started attracting a much wider audience for his work at last. This one is not in the same league but is i fact somewhere between 'Drinking Buddies' and his early mumblecore works,  but much more accessible than the latter ... and more enjoyable too.  He is definitely a filmmaker who I will always look out with great interest to see what he delivers next.

Compulsory viewing for any actresses about to hit 45 ....!

Available on DVD & VOD at Amazon


★★★★★★