ken.phillips

This movie accurately captures the spirit of the book and the communist reality that inspired it. The dialog and characterizations of the animals were corny, but they were in the book too. It does not rigidly follow the plot or characters of the original story, but it captures the main ones (Napoleon/Stalin, Snowball/Trotsky, Boxer/Proletariat, Jones/Czar Nicolas) and the neighboring farmer who looked like Hitler was a nice touch. The biggest deviation from the book was the ending, which is perhaps a tad overly optimistic, but it brings Orwell's metaphor to it's eventual historical conclusion. In other words, it finishes the story of the farm as history finished it, beyond Orwell's vision.

A couple of self absorbed people discover that they're not willing to choose to make their relationship work. The paper thin characters, implausible plot shifts and misguided grandstanding combine into a perfect storm of pointlessness. This movie is self indulgent, tedious prattle. Yawn.

Those who are commenting on the mediocrity of the craftmanship of this movie are missing the point. The rise and fall of the dot-coms have become a meaningful part of American history and lore. Stock tickers, balance sheets and bankruptcy sales tell part of the story, but there's a difference between arriving at the scene of a train wreck and actually watching it happen.

The value of this movie is that, in spite of all of its flaws, you get to watch the train wreck knowing full well what's going to come, you can see why the principals didn't see the things that seem so obvious to us watching the film now, and you can see how their hubris, lack of technical understanding and lack of focus lead to their downfall.

I'm sure that it could been a better movie, but it's the only behind the scenes account we have of what must have happened hundreds of times all over the country. Like the Zapruder film and Hanlon & Naudet's account of 9/11, it's value comes from the fact that the cameras were there, catching history as it happened.

This movie should be required viewing for all B-School students, sort of like making student drivers watch Red Asphalt.