wavecat13

Here is an old favorite of mine. Some scenes have been cut from the original version (in particular one of the schoolgirls' romantic relationship with one of the teachers, which is presented as nothing terrible or unacceptable) for the sake of political correctness, but they never say that anywhere in the credits. I actually called the production company to complain about this, and the girl who answers the phone just openly lied and said that nothing was missing. Anyway, this film belongs in the early 1980s time capsule. And it was also the debut of some very big talents, like Sean Penn (who seems to have single-handedly created the stock character of the stoner surfer) and Robert Romanus.

It must be difficult to do a documentary about a man who was deliberately opaque, who wanted to be known only for his work, or as his work, and tried to reveal as little about himself as possible - even to the point of hiding his car's license plate! Some info about him does come thru here - not surprisingly he was a perfectionist workaholic whose one real love in life was Apple Computer, a project that was very personal and emotional for him. He had a thing for Japanese culture and Zen Buddhism, and their aesthetics influenced his designs. We see him on stage performing at Apple events (something he did well), and it becomes clear that his genius was for marketing and design. It was his lesser known teammates that did the nitty gritty programming and financial work. It is safe to say he was a genius - but was he a good man? He could be dishonest, he could be mean, he could be selfish (as revealed in his treatment of his first partner and his first child), and philanthropy didn't interest him. When he died, his multi-billion dollar fortune went into several anonymous trusts. Ultimately I felt like the world did not really get to know Jobs - and I guess that is how he wanted it.

I am a HUGE Alex Gibney fan btw - keep them coming, Alex - you're the best!

This is questionable in many ways but visually stunning. Curtis goes over the history of Western relations with Libya's Qadaffi, along with references to Hamas, suicide bombings, the Assads in Syria, Blair, Bush II, and Donald Trump. It is hard to understand what he is getting at, but the main idea seems to be that world leaders are using technology to manipulate people.

I really don't know what to say about his political views. At one point I thought of him as a radical moderate. Clearly he looks for drama and irony. It all may just be an excuse to string together some exciting news videos. Is there anyone who weaves together news and stock footage in the way that he does?