General > General Technical Chat
Movies with electronics related storyline
cdev:
The Conversation was a good film about surveillance, which has realistic depictions of how I would imagine electronic surveillance was done in the pre-Internet era. Its set in San Francisco in the late 70s.
Also "The lives of Others" was an excellent film, a German film about the Stasi and how they attempted to ruin the lives of dissidents. and tried to divide or ruin people. In its case a German couple involved the arts, in its case they were innocent of any anti-GDR activities. It showed how much energy they wasted spying on them. Itcontained an excellent portrayal of a Stasi official who was trying to do his job and not frame them .(I think, my memory of the plot is fading because I saw it some time ago)
That film deservedly won a lot of awards.
Has anybody here ever gone to the Stasi museum? (In Berlin, I am pretty sure) I have always wanted to visit it just to see what seems to be a unique museum and set of exhibits, (Including the machines that read out the numbers in the mysterious numbers stations, broadcast to GDR's spies outside of the country. An iconic bit of Cold War history. )
Also, deserving honorable mention is 'Death of a Dictator" an episode of Ted Koppel's /ABC-TV news show about the Romanian revolution that took the viewer into the action in a big way - down into a warren of concealed tunnels beneath Bucharest and safe houses maintaied by Romania's feared "Securitate" secret police. (The tunnels were so extensive that they are almost certainly still there) used by Ceausescu for surveillance equipment and spying on it seems everyone. Later in he show after the viewers have already been taken down into the tunnels once and have seen lots of footage of them, rooms of dozens of analog tape recorders (including classic Revox and Tandberg gear and huge walls of patch cables ) a revolution, and changes in staffing, the Army's security apparatus leadership is shown denying the tunnels existence! One gets the feeling that those at the top change but the underlying problems in society that make the in group fearful of the public remain
Koppel with great showmanship and rich irony also shows the chaotic final days of the Romanian dictatorship and the last speech, as well as the conditions leading to the summary execution of Ceausescu and his hated wife both of whom evidently thought until then that help from his army was on the way due to his wearing some kind of rescue beacon in his watch. However they imprisoned him in an all metal armored vehicle and drove them around so that anybody looking for them would have had a hard time finding them. also of course any signals it emitted would have been blocked. So help never arrived.
IMHO they should have been put on trial, not summarily executed, but then there would have been a significant risk of another coup, perhaps even despite their universal unpopularity.
cdev:
--- Quote from: David Hess on April 10, 2021, 03:33:27 am ---Brainstorm (1983) and In ascolto (2006) a.k.a. "The Listening" has as much electronics as any of the above.
--- End quote ---
it would be nice to see a recent documentary about the NSA updated for the Internet era. But, of course.. they likely would never allow it.
:(
All in all the misuse of electronics and the potential privacy problems with overreach is a tremendously important subject, but its one that has gotten a very sketchy and inadequate treatment in film and especially the media.
The treatment of "hackers" has been especially sensationalistic and bad.
It would be great if films assumed a higher level of knowledge and just explored what-if scenarios without all the stuff they put in to "sex it up".
Syntax Error:
To mind within the electronics genre, BLOWOUT (1981) "A movie sound recordist (John Travolta) accidentally records the evidence that proves that a car accident was actually murder and consequently finds himself in danger." IMDb https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082085
Also FREQUENCY (2000) "An accidental cross-time radio link connects father and son across 30 years. The son (Dennis Quaid) tries to save his father's life, but then must fix the consequences." IMDb https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0186151/
Then any movie that features time travel, robots, warp drive, replicators, transporters, biotech, nanotech, laser beams, cyborgs, teenage geeks, wierd science, alien technology and, any reference to a Philip K. Dick novel.
One movie that would not have been possible without the 27MHz crystal oscillator is CONVOY (1978) "10-4 Rubber Duck [helical whip aerial embedded in rubber]" IMDb https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077369
Actually, any movie about amplified heavy metal music. Thank you Mr Schottky :-+
cdev:
Movies about electronics and computing are just the larger than life full size versions of the ridiculous ad industry clip-art image fails we often see. It shows how little ordinary people often know about technology. We've failed in explaining tech areas to the public at large, or at least, the screenwriters.
JohnnyMalaria:
I watched this last night. You need a very dark sense of humor and a good ear for accents...
(Electronically-controlled detonators and eating SIM cards)
One of the lead actors plays the lead in Sound of Metal - a drummer who goes deaf and gets an implant.
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