Z/Web

Author: Alice Walker (novel)

Director: Steven Spielberg

Strange that I’d never seen this, but somehow I’d always missed it. It’s good. Long and slow, but good. It’s also depressing. It’s very similar to Roots, except not covering so many generations. Set in the early part of the 20th Century, it tells about the lives of a group of African-Americans. The basic story is two sisters who are separated when teens and reunite at the end. The older girl (a surprisingly good Whoopi Goldberg) has given birth to two children by her own father, and is distraught when the children are taken away. Then she’s given in marriage to a cruel man who just wants her as a maid (and whore). She’s long-suffering and raises his kids, keeps his house, all the time missing her beloved little sister which her husband sent away. She occasionally thinks of rebelling, dreams of a different life, but it’s not until the end when she has the courage to do so. The lives of others are intertwined within the main story. Like the story of Sophia, who marries the main sister’s step-son. She’s famous for beating up the son (she’s a big gal played, impressively, by Oprah Winfrey). Later she ends up in prison for striking a white man who slapped her. She’s a broken woman, and it’s very sad. It’s all wonderful drama, but sad and desperate, and rather depressing. The ending is much happier, but even then there’s a hollowness to things: can a little happiness make up for so many years of despair? My favorite moment was the fantastic line uttered by Oprah. At this point her character’s in a daze, almost a catatonic state, too depressed to be alive. When Whoopi talks back to her husband for the first time and makes everyone laugh at him, she’s warned that it’s bad luck for a woman to laugh at a man. Suddenly Oprah breaks into life, laughing hysterically. She laughs and laughs. Then she says, “I’ve had enough bad luck to keep me laughing the rest of my life.” Great stuff. That leads to another terrific line moments later when she tearfully thanks Whoopi for her kindness and says, “When I see’d you I knowed there is a God.” Wow, that’s some powerful compliment. Excellent film. A little too serious, but everyone should see it at least once.

Interesting documentary on the development of the open source movement and Linux in particular. Little here I didn’t know going in, but it was interesting to put faces on people I’ve read on the Internet or heard about. Like most documentaries, this one commits the “introduce once and never again” flaw, displaying text to identify interviewees initially, but failing to do so later in the film. With 20-some people interviewed, it’s tough remembering who is who. I wish documentaries would just identify the person every time they are on screen, like a virtual name badge. That wouldn’t hurt anything and it’d be extremely helpful. There were a few people I never did figure out who they were. Lame. The big problem with this film is who is it for? It’s an excellent documentary for people who don’t know much about open source or the free software movement; for those of us who are fans, it’s not particularly informative and seems to try to avoid technical material. So if it’s not for geeks, it’s for average technical people, and yet the subject matter seems targeted at geeks. I guess you run that battle with anything technical. However, as usual, I find that filmmakers assume their audiences are dumber than they are (even documentary filmmakers). The most fascinating aspect of this film to me is the conflict between the free software movement and the open source movement. The distinction between the two is subtle but significant: the free software movement thinks all software should be free, while the open source movement simply thinks there’s a place for both free and commercial software in the same market. Watching the debate on this issue by the leaders of the movements would have been awesome, but while the film explains the debate, we aren’t treated to any kind of conflict, which was disappointing. I also would have preferred more Microsoft bashing, as that aspect of the software market is given short shrift. However, keep in mind this all from a geek’s point of view. If you don’t know much about this topic or want a refresher, this is an excellent film. The explanations and definitions come right from the people who invented this stuff and it’s surprisingly well-explained without getting too technical.