Snakes and Rubies This (http://tinyurl.com/hwfgv) three hour epic pits two exciting newcomers to the small screen. Adrian Holovaty plays a tall laconic mid-western journalist come programmer on a mission to turn static websites into a sea of user oriented usability. Aided by Jacob Kaplan-Moss the movie describes their journey to the small Kansas town of Lawrence as innocents in search of fun and adventure. However, under the veneer of small town respectability, they uncover a sea of deception, darkness and 150,000 lines of PHP code. Their quest to overcome this evil makes for a gripping tale and gives Holovaty a platform on which to display his considerable talents.
The story then shifts briefly to Denmark and on to Chicago as we follow David Heinemeier Hanson's coming to America. He is brash, loud mouthed and opinionated but at the same time passionate in his search for truth and beauty. He portrays a man on a mission bent on succeeding and doing whatever it takes in his quest for world domination, even if it means compromising some non-core values. His initial cynical, and perhaps sadistic, needling of java programmers' eyeballs may offend some viewers but he sees it as just one of the necessary steps on his long journey. Later, in scenes reminiscent of Luke Skywalker discovering his real parentage, he strikes down Larry Wall's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. We also see him agonise, although admittedly not for long, over the need for keeping the code pure while at the same time allowing others with commit rights in. Hanson shows his ability to weigh up the risks and the dangers but with an unshakable vision he is happy to chance his hand and take his opportunities when they arise. This is an outstanding performance and Hanson deserves his reputation as Schwarzenegger II. The final third of the movie sees the two main protagonists locked in a room full of questioning hackers in the Computer Science Department of DePaul University, Chicago. They thrust and parry across frameworks, through cool admin panels, automatic RSS feeds and minimising ajaxian ugliness. However, neither is prepared to go in for the kill since the real battle awaits each of them outside those walls. All in all it was an outstanding performance by these two young men and we will surely see a lot more from each of them over the next few years. I am personally looking forward to see how each of them grow and mature. I'll give the movie four stars. David ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Addit: A limited program can be found at http://tinyurl.com/ryzyx
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