Jul 20 2005
Game Over
I saw Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine last night, a documentary about the 1997 chess match between Garry Kasparov and IBM’s Deep Blue. Kasparov lost and then claimed IBM cheated. IBM’s behaviour was indeed suspicious. They had something like 30 grand masters as ‘consultants,’ but you have wonder if some of these guys were in a back room somewhere over-riding some of Deep Blue’s moves. It’s an intriguing subject for a documentary, but the approach to it is stupid. Instead of letting the facts stand on their own, a variety of techniques are used to dramatize the events. An inaudible voice-over narration where two guys whisper the whole time as if they’re watching a chess match. Interviews where the camera is constantly going in and out of focus, moving all over the place, or filming from behind an office plant (like a hidden camera?). Music that sounds like it was written for Darth Vader. After-the-fact slow-motion close-ups of Kasparov’s eyes. All of this is done so badly, it makes the subject laughable and distracts from the real drama of the events. Too bad. If they’d just done a straightforward documentary, it could have been good. (More research about chess would have helped too.) If you want to watch good movie about chess, check out Searching for Bobby Fischer instead.
I just updated this post, adding the image to it, testing out the non-FTP method of uploading images.
It works.
The documentary is a waste of time. Reading the Wikipedia entries for Kasparov and Deep Blue are more informative and more interesting. However, there is one bit of interesting bonus material on the DVD: A move-by-move account of each game in the match, with analysis. It’s computerized, but interesting, especially the last game where Kasparov gets killed in 19 moves.
I watched High Fidelity last night. Much funnier this time around compared to when I first saw it a few years ago. Laughed out loud many times. John Cusack as and his sidekicks, Jack Black and some other guy, were perfect. People who work at used record stores must be a universal breed, because the guys in the movie are exactly like the guys who work at a second-hand record store in Halifax. Music collectors should enjoy this movie.