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Reviews
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
formulaic
The movie is good for what it is: a big, long sci-fi themed battle sequence.
It will entertain you for the most part, but don't look for anything terribly original. As usual the hero of the movie is kind of a rogue character with a penchant for pompous one-liners; as usual he battles 100 bad guys at once and doesn't get a scratch on him; as usual he looks like he might be defeated but then comes back to save the day.
The best part of the movie is the cinematography. There isn't as much in the way of amazing new technology that we're introduced to. A few neat gimmicks here and there, but the heart of the movie basically revolves around Vin Diesel kicking lots of bad guy assage.
I didn't walk into the theatre with high expectations so I can't say this was a disappointment. It is an OK movie.
One thing that does bother me though, is the goofy premise that in the future, people are still going to be fighting with cave-man-like weapons. Riddick's weapon of choice is *surprise* a fancy knife. While everyone around him are wielding blasters, he's dancing around breaking peoples' necks and slashing their throats. You don't see policemen in Japan carrying saumari swords, so why in the hell are future "warriors" going up against blaster-wielding thugs with bowie knifes? It's just stupid.
If you like your bad guys dumb. If you're fond of the classic I-have-you-now-but-before-I-kill-you-let-me-tell-you-my-evil-plan scenario. If you like mega-embellished sound effects where knives and swords sound like hurricanes whipping through the air. If you like never having a doubt over whether the hero will prevail, this is a movie for you.
Startup.com (2001)
Not a movie about .coms or tech
Startup.com is not a movie about the dot-com boom. It's not a movie about building a business; it's not a movie about technology and new industries.
It's a movie about greed and ego.
The two founders start off with the idea that they want to create a "dot com" -- they bounce around a bunch of goofy ideas like virtual cemetaries and eventually settle on a portal for government-related services. The fact that they wanted to document the startup of this venture from day one is another testimonial to their ego, greed and lack of focus.
I agree with most of the comments others have said about the movie. It's fragmented, and has gaping holes in it relating to explaining what's going on. The viewer ends up really not having a clue as to why the venture failed, which is another testimonial to the principals in that apparently the nature of what went wrong wasn't nearly as important to them as the fact that it did go wrong and their dreams weren't realized. Boo hoo.
After seeing the movie and not having much additional information on the project, I am left with my own thoughts as to some of the blanks that the film left open. Specifically, these guys failed because they were more interested in the fruits of their labor, than the labor itself, which was a means to an end. That's why they failed. The only reason they got as far as they did is they ran into others, greedy employees, greedy financiers who were just like them and had no passion for the job, just the brass ring that was promised at the end.
They might have had "good people" working for them, but I'd bet that there wasn't a single person in the company who actually had innate passion for the application and industry they were in. If you ask any successful businessman what's the secret, the first thing they'll likely tell you is, "Do something you enjoy doing." I'm sure Kalil enjoyed hob-nobbing with rich people, but that wasn't the purpose of his company, though it looks like his subsequent career involves that.
We're left to try to figure out exactly how things went wrong.
The one thing that I'm left with is, the tech end of the project never worked right. I'd bet good money the whole foundation was built on Windows technology and was never very flexible or manageable. And Tom is probably responsible for dropping the ball there, but then again like I said, these guys didn't really care about the business... they just wanted to be successful.
If anything, the movie doesn't really teach us lessons about startups. It is a tale of two misguided, self-absorbed guys who find other self-absorbed people with more money and get a free ride for a little while.