Hacker Cinema
Startup.com
2001 · Film · documentary · 107 min
Directed by Jehane Noujaim, Chris Hegedus
Friends since high school, 20-somethings Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman have an idea: a Web site for people to conduct business with municipal governments. This documentary tracks the rise and fall of govWorks.com from May of 1999 to December of 2000, and the trials the business brings to the relationship of these best friends. Kaleil raises the money, Tom's the technical chief. A third partner wants a buy out; girlfriends come and go; Tom's daughter needs attention. And always the need for cash and for improving the site. Venture capital comes in by the millions. Kaleil is on C-SPAN, CNN, and magazine covers. Will the business or the friendship crash first?
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81 comments on Hacker News
Not a movie, but a well received documentary on govworks.com
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup.com
Not quite what you're asking, but see this list I have: https://llm-utils.org/Movies+and+documentaries+about+startup+founders
e.g. Pirates of Silicon Valley, Startup.com, Silicon Valley - documentary about Fairchild Semiconductor (2013) - suggested by fullshark on HN
The Blackberry movie was also enjoyable
Startup.com was great. I've also heard good things about Valley of the Boom. And, while not exactly a dot com movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley is a classic about the Jobs vs Gates rivalry.
I don't have that one but I do have the 8-episode "Start-Ups: Silicon Valley" from 2012.
Also "Startup.com" from 2001
And "e-Dreams" from 2001
I watched Startup.com many years ago and haven't seen another movie about startups since. I highly recommend it for anyone that wants to be inoculated.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/?ref_=ttls_li_tt
I'd recommend The Internet's Own Boy, Buckaroo Banzai, Real Genius, Office Space, or Bret Victor's Inventing on Principle ahead of Hackers and Sneakers.
Startup.com is pretty good as a movie about startups (I lived just about every minute of that movie, just at a different company) but it doesn't have any actual hackers in it.
I hear Risk and Citizenfour, both about Wikileaks, and Revolution OS, about Linux and the GNU and open-source movements, are pretty good, but I haven't seen them.
The Internet's Own Boy in particular has 8/10 on IMDB, 93% "Fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, handily beating both Hackers and Sneakers, and is under a Creative Commons license: https://archive.org/details/TheInternetsOwnBoyTheStoryOfAaronSwartz which
I found it very hard to watch because Aaron was a friend of mine.
The Matrix is nominally about hackers (and even, like Hackers, computer security) but, as with Startup.com, hacking doesn't really enter into the movie much; instead it's all running firefights and magic disguised as computers. Like Hackers and Sneakers, it bears the same relationship to hacking as https://axecop.com/ (a comic scripted by a five-year-old) bears to law enforcement. However, it's enormously more popular than all the movies above, even if its Rotten Tomatoes ranking is lower than The Internet's Own Boy.
I hear Masters of Doom is pretty good but I haven't watched it.
I bet this audience would enjoy Startup.com - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
Pretty much any space-related documentaries. Rosetta probe's trajectory alone is one heck of a motivation.
However it's also beneficial to have a dollop of reality on top of Iron Man fantasies. I think that docs like Indie Game and Startup.com must be on the first year CS cirriculum and a required viewing after Social Network. For many, it would help setting expectations a bit more straight.
I highly recommend the documentary "Riot On!". Great documentary, great cinema, and great entertainment. "E-Dreams" and "Startup.com" are also very good. All of them on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0lrIi0ce5E
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j847rYNo2G0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fd8pdniJZk
Watch the movie "Startup.com", exactly the same problem.
https://youtu.be/ibuiUXOTE4M
Those guys really think they can get away with everything, but you really need to be prepared for sociopaths.
1. e-dreams - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/
2. startup.com - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
3. Pirates of the silicon valley - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/
Not specific to devs, but I do highly recommend the documentary Startup.com – it's a rollercoaster ride of the highs and lows of that era.
Free to view on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuiUXOTE4M
Not a book, but a good documentary:
Startup.com
https://youtu.be/ibuiUXOTE4M
Other real hackers tell you why they love the movie "Startup.com". https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/startupcom
What almost nobody knows: He also was producer of the defacto best startup-scam documentary, called "Startup. com" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup.com
Is there more detail to the story of your startup we can read about?
I like movies like startup.com and e-dreams.
The documentary "Startup.com" provided an insider's view into one such dotcom. Check it out.
>The Century of the Self: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s
I think all of Adam Curtis' documentaries are worth a watch:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL617BE1DB723DB1D6
Some others favourites off the top of my head:
808 (about the drum machine): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2268622/
Scratch: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0143861/
Hoop Dreams: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0110057/
Startup.com (a classic!) : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
The Fog of War: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317910/
Heh... startup.com is the exact opposite of an inspiring movie. It's basically the "How not to do it" manual.
That is also a favorite documentary of mine.
My shortlist of inspiring documentaries for people with startup/gaming mindsets:
- Indie Game
- Startup.com
- American Movie (Mark Borchardt has a thing or two to teach all of us about working hard to make dreams become reality)
- Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters
I'm 0 for Thrillers on this list and only 2 for SciFi. So my word is suspect. But still, I would recommend startup.com for the documentaries.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
I'd also recommend 2001, Repo Man, Dark Star and They Live on general principles.
I can guess a few reasons.
1. 90% of a startup is just hard work, it isn't something that makes for good television. Imagine, a person creating and adding content to their financial statement. Not exactly good television.
2. IMO it trivializes the true nature of what YC team & the startups/entrepreneurs do, which I don't think any of the Y Combinator team wants to do.
3. Hard work almost always trumps an idea. You can have a so-so idea succeed amazingly well while an idea you felt was just out of this world great fails. This usually happens because the entrepreneur doesn't work hard enough or fails to see the opportunities. And all this takes a lot of time to work out, so it isn't sexy television.
However, I could see a behind the scenes documentary following one class from YC from acceptance to 1 year post YC. Document what the process is like, how hard it is, let the entrepreneurs have a video confessional, etc. Almost like a pure documentary but with a little Big Brother (the TV Show) tossed in there as you could put video camera's up to catch times you don't have a crew chasing people. I do think that could be really interesting, and having the YC team and the class all giving feedback and details. This show though would cater to a small audience by TV/Movie standards though, likely those who wanted to apply to YC and a specific bread of entrepreneur. But I do think it would be interesting.
There is a movie called startup.com from 2001 (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/) that did a similar documentary type show, and we all watched it around that time. Definitely interesting, but as you can imagine probably cost more to produce, edit and distribute then anyone made.
The concept here reminds me of GovWorks.com (in the movie Startup.com). Their aim was to fix government red-tape.
This reminds me of that documentary.
- Steve Jobs' biographer wrote a book last year called "Innovators" which I found to be one of the best works I have read: http://www.amazon.com/Innovators-Hackers-Geniuses-Created-Revolution/dp/147670869X
- Robert X. Cringely's book "Accidential Empires" is definitely dated but you can read most of the chapters on his blog here: http://www.cringely.com/tag/accidental-empires/
- Cringely also did a three part special back in the 90s that I like revisiting every once in a while. Again, pretty dated but entertaining nevertheless: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuBXbvl1Sg4
- Skip the newer Steve Jobs movies and watch the history of Apple and Microsoft with Pirates of Silicon Valley. It's said to be mostly accurate: http://www.veoh.com/watch/v46093745wbEGkakh
- Kind of random but if you want a look back at what the 90s tech bubble was like then watch Startup.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuiUXOTE4M
Well worth reading to the end of this article, some very good lessons regarding the realities of scaling, applicable for many startups.
I'm planning to see "Print the Legend" later this week, so this was very interesting. I see the Variety review of the film says "Because Lopez and Tweel are tracking the rise but not the fall, “Print the Legend” doesn’t have the falling-apart-before-your-eyes immediacy of “Startup.com” - but is seems pretty clear from this article that there will be a lot of falling apart happening.
startup.com is a must watch for anyone day-dreaming of a startup. Not a video though, but an 1.5 hour long documentary.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ibuiUXOTE4M
Make sure you've seen 'Startup.com' (documentary) and 'The Social Network' (useful for the archetypes even with the fictions). If you do wind up as an early founder out, try to be more like the guy in Startup.com, or Jawed Karim (YouTube), rather than Ron Wayne (Apple).
This isn't the same thing it seems but I recall a documentary/movie about the dotcom craze in the late 90s called startup.com. My recollection is that the company portrayed in that documentary (GovWorks?) got the lucrative contract of handling NYC parking ticket payments online. Ah ... memories.
Startup.com (2001)
Bit gold (blog post, 2005)
The Social Network (2010)
The Cryptocurrency (2014) ... it staggers the mind at what the plotlines could be and the characters incolved. Some rags to riches to rags story meets its opposite. Maybe a 2015 release would yield more possiblities... the greater awakening of cryptocurrency is about putting money into perspective, and finding some equality in it all: it's not about replacing one paper elite with another (who could end up the same people anyway.) I think this was SM's intention to begin with: new technical structures, creating new economic structures, creating new social stuctures... the characters that realize this earn or retain their money (or fame) in the film.
Startup.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
If you can find it, I recommend Startup .com (documentary about govWorks .com) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/ It follows a dot-com bubble company's founders, but still relevant, interesting and very real.
Are there any other good documentaries about the dot-com bubble era that people here would recommend? I've only seen Startup.com:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
As a younger person who lives thousands of miles away from Silicon Valley, I'd love to see more video from that time. I read tons about it, but reading and seeing are different things. AS the end of Code Rush, the investment banker who talks about how in a couple years physical banks might not be around and how the GAP shouldn't be renovating its store but rather invest more money in its website said so much about the kind of mania that took place at the time. I'd love to see more.
If like me you were too young to witness the madness that existed back in the .com bubble, an interesting documentary to watch is Startup.com. It's a fly on the wall flick that documents the rise and fall of Govworks.com. (1998 - 2001) from almost day 1. Although their fall seemed more attributable to poor management than being bitten by the bubble, it's a good watch. (There's some lessons to learn there about time spent wooing VC's vs. time spent growing the business). I saw it for the first time yesterday...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Startup.com
As a personal exercise please go and watch this documentary:
Startup.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
And then ask yourself if what happened then is anyway similiar to what is happening now.
For starters, I think you will realise that most startups circa 2000/1 were nothing more than litteral "thin air" -- compare that to the likes of Facebook who actually have revenues, hell, they even have a product.
I know that some of the valuation numbers being thrown about can be unreal, but I'd rather have a converation about whether FB is worth $1b or $10bn or $100b, instead of whether is has any value at all.
Seems like a timely opportunity to watch "Startup.com" again. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who has not seen it before - it is an up-close documentary of a "dot-com 1.0" hopeful, from the night the CEO-to-be walks out of his job at Goldman-Sachs to... well, just watch it. :)
This brings to mind the documentary "Startup.com", where the startup GovWorks.com brought in a film crew to document their success. Hopefully it goes better this time - GovWorks ended up going bankrupt in the 2000 tech bubble collapse, which makes for an interesting movie but wasn't the ending they were expecting.
I hate to say this, but this isn't saying, "HOW you deliver your idea" is being judged. YOU are being judged.
As in... how prestigious your school and prior work was; how you speak and what it says about your intelligence; what social class you're in based on clothes, grooming, material possessions, where you vacation, who your friends are; how you look; how you speak.
I absolutely detest this idea because I feel like it lets too many inferior ideas dressed in the right packaging get investment and get built (see Startup.com documentary for a prime example of this), depriving the world of better solutions.
But the more I'm around the world of investors, entrepreneurs, and B2B buyers, the more I realize it's reality and it's not going away, so you're best bet is to adapt to it without selling your soul.
Startup.com is a good one. It's about a dot com that failed back in the 2000 internet bubble.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
Also, "We Live In Public" is a good one too.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0498329/
A movie length documentary is actually something I am working on putting together. Delving into all that goes into being an entrepreneur. You can check out e-Dreams (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-ELRug6fOM) or Startup.com (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bZ27rbJH6hI)for examples of older documentaries that are models for what I'd like to produce.
Truly believe that having a full length documentary that outlines what can truly happen in a startup can help inspire people to get involved (as The Social Network seemed to do).
Have 2 video guys (one produces for MTV True Life) involved in helping out. If anyone has ideas let me know! frank at songsicle dot com
I recommend picking up a copy of the movie Startup.com, it wont assuage your concerns of going into business with family, but it paints a much easier to digest picture.
I would like to see a documentary about Justin.TV, like govWorks.com or kozmo.com.
Not really into a fictionalized drama. Justin seems too nice to create any drama like that.
The Kozmo.com documentary was eDreams: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0001EQIFQ/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=littdidd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B0001EQIFQ
The govWorks.com documentary was Startup.com: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00005N5QV/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=littdidd-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399373&creativeASIN=B00005N5QV
+1 Startup.com - great movie
Yes Amazon turned out to be real, but Pets.com, Kozmo.com, Webvan, Flooz, eToys, Boo.com and the theGlobe.com weren't real. My guess is that there will be some winners from the graduating class of Web 2.0 — but there will be bodies. By the way if you ant to see a great film on that era check out Startup.com: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
That is pretty scary. I use everything but Pink Floyd.
K&D, I remember was used when you first started the articulating iMac during initial setup, AND used in an excellent documentary Startup.com
Excellent list!
Great to see Kozmo mentioned a few times, I still to this day have quite a few Kozmo shirts they used to send out for free.
I'd like to add WinStar, they had people going pretty much door to door in Manhattan selling services, I got a pretty decent free lunch off them.
I'd also nominate GovWorks, not huge in terms of money burned or technical blunders, but I credit the movie startup.com for really exposing some sheer ineptitude.
Edit: How could I forget Globix, the colo that had a coffee shop and a gym.
The documentary he may be referring to is Startup.com
I've intentionally not watched 'Social Network' due to the blatant inaccuracies.
Whatever. This guy really doesn't understand "The Valley" at all if he feels this way. He should just leave and go do something else.
I moved out to San Jose in 1994 and things were just starting to heat up with the Internet and it was super exciting. I lived through the crash and started a company in 2002. I eventually left the US for family reasons after having spent 11 years there.
Guess what? Things change constantly. That's the nature of the place. If you are worried that your friends are leaving etc. it's just that they are leaving, not that the place is dying.
> Of course, I’ve only been around for one cycle, and it’s quite possible it was ever thus.
He should have written that line, realized it was true and then deleted the entire article. Since he's obsessed with Zuckerberg he should think a little about the past: people were emulating Andreesen (now he looks like a pretty 'old' guy) and Filo and Yang were heroes. It just goes on and on like that.
> What I’m trying to say, I suppose, is this: I’m bored.
Fair enough. Naff off back to the UK or wherever. For my part, I'm happiest talking to the young engineers and entrepreneurs thinking of the next big thing while emulating Zuck or whoever. Who cares that they are emulating Zuck? If they have passion, they'll try to make something insanely cool. Many will fail, some others will become the people to emulate.
Sure, The Social Network was a good movie and all, but a good movie about Silicon Valley doesn't mean that now it's going to come to an end. How about Startup.com? That was excellent, or if you want to go further back read Soul of a New Machine (yeah, I know it was Route 128).
Frankly, you're a wannabe if you spend your time thinking Sarah Lacy, SXSW or The Social Network are in any way relevant.
All that matters are coders, and I'm guessing this guy isn't a coder. Just another moth flying around the flame.
Startup.com and E-dreams are documentaries about high flying startups (GovWorks and Kozmo.com, respectively) from the first dotcom boom.
Interestingly, both document NYC startups rather than Silicon Valley ones. There are some great Sand Hill road scenes in Startup.com, though.
That list of movies includes "startup.com", which is the quintessential documentary about the insanity during the dot-com boom.
Those guys burned through millions of dollars, paid over a hundred employees, and didn't have a single product or revenues.
All you need to know is right here on this DVD
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
It's called Startup.com and shows the massive initial growth of Govworks web-site (300+ staff), but then things go South and their competitors catch them up and put them out of business. One of my favourite documentaries and gives good insight into the dot com bubble burst of 2000-2001.
It's a bit dated now but Startup.com: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/ Pretty good documentary on what it was like to be inside a high flying late nineties venture funded startup before the balloon burst
If you enjoy "startup" type movies, might I also suggest these (documentaries, not comedy-drama):
startup.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
e-dreams http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/
Exactly. Mod parent up.
I did see the movie this morning at 10am.
Lessig faults the film for not telling the story of Chris Hughs and Sean Parker's utilization of the internet for nonprofits and the election of Obama.
This is a platform that has made democratic innovation possible—and it was on the Facebook platform resting on that Internet platform that another Facebook co-founder, Chris Hughes, organized the most important digital movement for Obama, and that the film’s petty villain, Sean Parker, organized Causes, one of the most important tools to support nonprofit social missions.
The tragedy—small in the scale of things, no doubt—of this film is that practically everyone watching it will miss this point.
I think Lessing really misses the point of the movie. What I saw was a young guy able to take VC money and not lose his post as CEO.
I didn't see Parker portrayed as a 'petty villian'.
SPOILER ALERT: In the movie, Parker first learns of thefacebook after a one night stand with a Stanford undergraduate. He asks if he can check his email on her laptop and notices the site. At that point, Stanford was one of the few university .edu email addresses allowed on the site. He is so convinced, thefacebook will be the next big thing, he needs to find the creators of the site.
Basically, Parker takes Fanning under his wing, suggesting he move to California. There is probably a 20 to 30 minute VC montage, where Parker helps thefacebook get funding, using his various connections. He also has Zuckerberg dress in his pajamas, (Parker drops him off in an Escalade and waits outside) and go to a specific VC, and has Zuckerberg tell the VC, Sean Parker says "Fuck you" and then leave.
I own Startup.com (the movie, not the domain), and also E-Dreams. Watching both too many times, neither movie had a happy ending for the founders (within the context of those specific startups).
Startup.com CTO is ousted by the CEO (the two founders were best friends). Kozmo.com's CEO got ousted by the VCs.
This movie left me feeling icky at the ending. Not "Requiem for a Dream" soul fuck, but you really don't know who is a good guy and who is a bad guy. It really isn't black and white like that.
It did, however, have one of the most cinematic uses of 'wget' I have ever seen.
Also, kind of cheap headline there. I thought it would be a movie review, not an articulated rant. I expect more from that Harvard law dude.
Also, I have never heard of Parker before this movie, I was only aware of Fanning as the Napster creator.
EDIT: Changed ambiguous pronouns
"... Again, she started filming casually and ended up making film history for the second time. ..."
A part of what Jehane did was hack the documentary movie making process. When DA Pennibacker (http://www.phfilms.com/index.php/phf/people/d_a_pennebaker/) / Chris Hegedus (http://www.phfilms.com/index.php/phf/people/chris_hegedus) of (The War Room, Ziggy Stardust, dont look back) ~ http://www.phfilms.com/index.php/phf/films/ great documentary makers themselves wanted to film they carried around bulky intrusive tripods and large cameras - requiring permission and time to set up the shot.
In startup.com the key reason a lot of the shots (shooting inside doing the VC rounds / inside the cars after the deal) was the use of hand held cameras. It was Jehane who took the hand held and got the great scenes and dialog that make startup.com a study of founder dynamics.
The documentaries "E-Dreams" and "Startup.com" are more relevant to HN: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
It's a little old now and a documentary, which might not be what you were asking about, but you should check out Startup.com
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
While this is a particularly nasty situation, absolutely off-the-wall meltdown behaviour like this is actually pretty common in startups when things start going bad. Anyone remember the meltdown between the partners in the documentary Startup.com (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/)? I think most people at least have the wherewithal not to air the dirty laundry out in public.
It's just another risk and potential downside to partnering with someone in business. Everybody's done something at least a little bit crazy and out-of-character when a romantic relationship has hit the rocks. Maybe you did something innocent but pathetic like burning compilation CDs (i.e. Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist). But we've all heard of the crazy girlfriend who dumps her (now ex-) boyfriend's stuff in front of the house after catching him cheating. Business partnerships aren't all that different. Really they involve the same levels of emotional attachment and passion.
It's important to try to assess the behaviours that a potential partner reverts to when under stress. For programmers, that might be shutting the world out and ignoring calls/emails rather than facing the music when there's a disagreement over deliverables. For non-programmer business-types, that might be writing and re-writing business plans and coming up with rather dreamy fantasy plans rather than actually getting deals done. These particular cases I think are the more common revertive behaviours (for lack of a known proper term) for programmers and business types. They're also behaviours that tend to drive the other party in such a partnership absolutely bonkers.
You definitely don't want someone who reverts to a temper tantrum like this guy from fundable. To be fair to him, this is most likely a sad case of both partners having individual meltdowns simultaneously.
You should watch the documentary startup.com
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
Add a few staged infights and you pretty much have Hacker Big Brother meets Shattered (reality TV show where participants didn't sleep for a week), with a dash of Apprentice (you'd have to throw out a coder after each week), Dragons' Den (have nice closeups of bad feature pitches) & even Startup.com.
God, Channel 4'd be all over this. I'd best pitch the idea to them quick!
This story is kind of more of the same and I'm sure a lot of the readers here have heard it before; if not about Joel in particular, than at least about ArsDigita and Razorfish and this era of the tech boom in general.
What IS interesting though is his mention of the Startup.com documentary. If you haven't seen it, and have any kind of passing interest in the startup space or starting your own web company, I strongly suggest you check it out. It's fantastic.
Startup.com was a well-filmed documentary: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
I saw it before I embark on the startup lifestyle, and the story rings true on many levels.
Founders at Work,
Stealing the Network Series (1st two are great :) ),
Startup.com - the documentary
Another case is that of EzGov and govWorks (see the documentary Startup.com) As I understand, govWorks started in 1998 (not sure which month), EzGov started in April, 1999.
EzGov appears to have survived and grew to be acquired by ChoicePoint in 2005. govWorks filed bankruptcy in 2001.
So as others here say, there is a lot more than just the starting date at play.
See the movie startup.com for an example. A Harvard MBA hires his friend, who brags that he's been programming since he was 6 IIRC, as his CTO. But this CTO doesn't really appear to know anything, and the company ends up burning through $60 million of other people's money without making a usable product.
still a few more (some are in the works)
* Stargate
* "startup.com" - about the formation of 'govworks.com' i wonder what these guys think about Obama.
* Takedown - 'Kevin Mitnick's story'
* Serenity
* Star Trek: the Voyage Home
* The Last Starfighter
* Johnny Mnemonic
* Short Circuit 1 & 2
* Crest of the Stars (anime)
* Fahrenheit 451
* Equilibrium
* Batman (begins, dark night, the tim burten one)
* Edward Scissor Hands
* Space Balls
* Avalon ( http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/movie/decade/2000-current/avalon/#comments)
* LAIN: The Serial Experiments (anime)
* Cherry 2000
* Dune
* Ender's Shadow (in the works)
* Ender's Game (in the works)
* Diamond Age (in the works for sci-fi, 'a young girls illustrated primer')
* The Arrival
* The Terminator 1,2,3
* The Sarah Conner Chronicles
* D.A.R.Y.L
* Flight of the Navigator
* Explorers
* AI
* Batteries Not Included
* Blade Runner
* IRobot
* Appleseed (anime)
* Bubble Gum Crisis (anime)
* Ergo Proxy (anime)
* Virtuosity
* Metropolis (all of them are good)
* The Last Exile (anime)
* Cherry 2000
* Robocop (this so hold up)
* Primmer
* Probe ( the TV series, it took me 3 months to find the copies of this Issac Asimov based TV series on ABC ) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Probe_(TV_series)
* Infest Wisely
* Logan's Run
* Planet of the Apes
* Star Trek: First Contact
* CQ ( if you get it, you'll get why this is a hacker movie , 'la resistance')
* Amelie
* 2046
* Trigun (anime)
* Escaflone (anime)
* Tank Girl
* Twelve Monkeys
* THX 1138
* Bicentennial Man
* The Philadelphia Experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Philadelphia_Experiment_(film)
* Seaquest ( some episodes )
* Strange Days ( new yeas hacker style )
* Freejack
I'd like to second (third, really) Startup.com. It's a great documentary showing what not to do in a startup and the problems that faced many of the poorly run Web 1.0 companies before the nasdaq tanked in 2001.
E-Dreams: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0262021/ Startup.com: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
This reminds me a lot of the power struggle behind GovWorks if anyone has ever seen the documentary Startup.com. One founder wanted to keep things true, transparent, and stick to the roots while the other wanted to go big, change the way things worked and in the end the more passive ended up walking away. It's kind of depressing how these stories all end the same: the company goes bottom up
This is great! i recommend 'startup.com' too, a great little documentary.
I am a big fan of http://omnisio.com/startupschool08 (Jeff Bezos, David Heinemeier Hansson, Mike Arrington, Paul Graham...) I also enjoyed the movie "startup.com". Hope that gives you a place to start :)
Two feature length documentaries about Bubble-era startups:
Startup.com (about GovWorks -- they had the contract to process parking tickets for NYC parking tickets but they of course blew it with their extravagant spending)
E-Dreams (about Kozmo.com (RIP). haven't seen this, if anyone has it I would like to borrow/buy/digitally share it) The first 8 minutes are free here. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1283742294319360518&ei=CnLMSI_EMIjk-AGot-zFAg&q=e-dreams&vt=lf )
Watching startup.com and e-dreams made me wonder if any of this generation of startups have invited a film crew to watch.
also checkout - startup.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
I am sure that the mistakes that clearly caused the failure of the company in "Startup.com" (recklessness, poor planing, wishful thinking) will be show to be genius business aptitudes in this stupid movie.
I thought Startup.com was worth watching primarily because it was pretty entertaining (e.g. how easy it was to get funding during the Boom; how much of a scam artist that Kaleel guy is). Watching the company collapse was instructive -- they didn't focus on making something people wanted. It was also interesting to see how badly they mishandled conflict among the founders, and how they were able to blow through so much money so quickly.
Startup.com was lame, it moved slow and had no point. I never did care at the end that their website blew up considering they never really explain why it blew up.
E-Dreams conversely was a better documentary in the same vein but harder to find. It talked about the rise and collapse of Kozmos.
Aadvark is lame. It's just a bunch of kids being hyper that they're working in New York with fancy schmancy big screen LCDs.
PBS also did a lot of features back in the 90's. Code Rush as someone mentioned and Revolution OS are both good to take a look.
In Search of the Valley http://www.stage4.co.uk/film/dvd_offer.php is also worth a look. The filmmakers examined why Silicon Valley is Silicon Valley and talked with quite a few well known people.
Dont forget:
- Forbin project ~ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colossus:_The_Forbin_Project
- E-Money with Cringely ~ http://www.pbs.org/opb/electricmoney
- Nerds 2.0.1: with Cringely ~ http://www.pbs.org/opb/
- NerdTV: Cringely interviews ... ~ http://www.pbs.org/nerdtv/
- Doug Englebart Mother of all Demos ~ http://ross.typepad.com/blog/2005/06/doug_englebart_.html
- More Doug Englebart ~ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8734787622017763097
SEEN
- Startup.com: 9/10: How things get all messed up b/w friends in startups, 'lets get to work'.
- Revolution OS: 8/10: Nerdy interviews with the GNU, Linux & Free software movement. Worth it to see Bruce Perens hair & Eric Raymonds 'we are your worst nightmare' speech to an MS exec in a lift.
- Pirates of Silicon Valley ~ 8/10: Very funny take on Gates, Woz & Jobs http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122
- The Triumph of the Nerds ~ 7.5/10: Cringley doing his stuff with web1.0 startups. Great to see Joe Kraus with Excite ~ http://www.pbs.org/nerds
- Apollo 13; 7/10: Brings back memories of my childhood & Apollo missions. Not long after I got this on DVD I got to see Jack Schmitt talk (last man on the moon). Best bit was on how they handled the complexity.
- The Fog of War ~ 7/10: Robert McNamara, how smart people can get fooled http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fog_of_War
- Walking with Dinosaurs: 7/10: Ok
- E-Dreams: 6.5/10: Dark, gritty and how did they get all that money?
- Project Aardvark ~ 6/10: Uneventful, nerdy guys building co-pilot ~ http://www.copilot.com/
The Triumph of the Nerds http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0115398/
Revolution OS http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0308808/
Startup.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/
Highland was one of the VC's that ripped into govWorks (startup.com) in 2000 If I remember correctly ~ http://www.phfilms.com/index.php/phf/film/startupcom
The documentary is probably startup.com
Kind of like, Startup.com http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0256408/