Movie Details
| Title: | The Perfect Weapon | |
| Director: | John Maggio | |
| Year: | 2020 | |
| Genre: | Documentary | |
| Times Seen: | 1 | |
| Last Seen: | 12.12.20 |
Other Movies Seen By This Director (0)
| Date Viewed | Venue | Note |
| 12.12.20 | Internet | This Screening is part of event: DVRfest 2020 Unfortunately for all the international kenpo star Jeff Speakman fans out there, this is not the 90s martial arts action film that leveraged the amazing jam by a band named Snap! for its trailer and opening credits (i loved that song back in the day... I got the power! duh-duh-duh Dat Dat Dat). This is also not the 2016 Steven Seagal / Johnny Messner vehicle about a... guy in the future who has amnesia? I dunno, that trailer doesn't make any sense. No, this particular perfect weapon is the vague ever-present existential threat of cyber attacks. I initially saw a clip from this movie talking about the Sony hack and thought it would have much more to do with that, but instead that was just one segment in a catalog of sorts describing the escalation activity of hacking maneuvers made by government-sponsored groups. They don't talk about email addresses and credit card numbers being compromised but instead stuff like nuclear weapon sabotage, election tampering, and power grid stand-offs. Pretty chilling stuff. What I find more chilling is the likelihood that the 75-year old white dudes running this country fully understand any of it. Hopefully I'm wrong about that in some respects... I have to think that the analysts who make up our workforce in that area are, to borrow a metaphor from someone in the film, "more West Wing than Veep," but judging from bits of hearing testimony that I've seen with tech leaders like Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey make them sound a lot like my dad when he asks me why his internet is slow. So this was a pretty informative encapsulation of recent events that fits nicely in the category of HBO Documentary. It doesn't have enough frills or sensation to play theatrically, but it's still a solid piece of filmmaking that I found worth watching. I'm not knocking HBO docs by the way... they've aired a bunch of fantastic stuff over the years (Paradise Lost comes first to mind, along with a film i can't seem to track down but can't remember the name of. It was made by the friend of a guy who had committed suicide and it was such an intimate personal film where this friend bared his heart and soul to the camera while telling the story of his friend and his grand dreams and gambling addiction I think? The ending has stuck with me for years and years and years. I wish I could remember the name). I just mean to say they can afford a more specific subject matter at a lower budget to fit their programming. Anyway, this succession of bummer movies has taken me to a very dark place. I guess I'm in the right mood for the next film. |
