Blog

The title says it all. Congrats!

If you want more info, click here.

Life is hectic. Let me elaborate: I work 12 hour shifts, and because of my recent trip to NYC, I’ve had very little time to catch up on business. Thus, during my two days off I was:

• Writing an article for PCWorld.
• Organizing an interview for the Piracy Documentary.
• Organizing an interview with SANS.
• Making final preparations for my trip over to San Jose for the Zero One conference.
• Studying up on IP law and recent developments for the said conference.
• Writing the script for the H4CK3R5 film.
• Celebrating a few missed birthdays; spending time with family.
• And getting new glasses [woot!]

While the “On Piracy” documentary is in somewhat of a stand-still pending a final interview, I’ve decided I can’t hold off my next project any longer. Therefore, I’d like to announce the birth of “H4CK3R5.” This is a soft spiritual remake of the film “Hackers.” I say “soft remake” as the plot is somewhat different, and the 3D CG effects of flying algorithms have been replaced with realistic hacking exploits. Akin to “On Piracy”, this movie will be donation-based and released %100 for free on the Internet. I’ve gone ahead and registered the domain h4ck3r5.com.

Hackers of the world, unite.

This is a pretty neat little movie. It stars Albert Brooks as himself, who embarks on a fictional project headed by the US Government to figure out what makes the muslims laugh. If anything, it is a social satire on the [ignorant] perception of muslim culture in the Western world. Or perhaps, the scriptwriter truly was unaware of the stereotypes s/he was writing up. Either way, this movie is funny.

It’s hard to categorize the humour here. Yes, the movie is funny – but at the same time it felt somewhat schizophrenic. In the beginning of the film, the laughs consist of situational comedies: funny situations that one encounters in every day life. Plausible and witty. The latter half of the film, however, has a completely different approach. Its as if it was a different scriptwriter that took care of that last portion of the movie. The comedy is less intelligent, along the lines of slapstick. It works, but it was kind of sad to see the intelligence of the humour dwindle as the movie progressed.

The quick ending especially surprised me. Somehow they go from being in the middle of an unfolding story to a complete conclusion in 3 minutes. A rushed ending? Who knows. There are also bits which were menial (Al Jazeera.) Was it necessary to remind the audience that this plot was supposed to be mildly realistic? In any case, this is a movie that is definitively worth the rental.

This is one film I wanted to see in theatres. Unfortunately, it never made it to the cinemas over here in Ottawa, Canada. I’m sure something along the lines of “Brainless Action Flick #42423” took its place.

PS. Having done standup, I can also appreciate with Brooks when he encounters a dead audience.