16 June 2013

Random Thoughts After Google Movie

We went to the new American Dream movie about finding love and hope and employment at Google today (Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson).

First, disgruntled movie experience notes: 21 minutes of commercials and previews.  And I'm pretty sure that every movie I've seen lately has an Armed Forces recruitment ad before the film.  Today, I nearly choked on a milk dud as the National Guard was promoted as "citizen-soldiers," they were linked to Superman (always the force for good, and "to the rescue") and their website is "soldierofsteel.com"  So, I frankly find the movie-going experience now quite horrifying.


  • It should be clear that this was primarily a template feel-good-move-a-rubber-tree-plant movie with no surprises.  
  • This is the new American Dream (that means this is a new Myth): Old men that George Clooney fired in Up in the Air get a second chance at Google because they have grit and determination and the ability to reinvent the self
  • This reinvention is possible because they don't have selves--they're salesmen and thus take on any persona that will make them money...note this is the same theory of success proposed by Wedding Crashers.
  • The American Employment Reality was given in stark terms.  5% of the interns will get a job at Google.  The American Dream doesn't really include those reinvented out-of-work, bullshit artists; it only includes 5% of the best "talent" that Google recruits to work for them for free dangling a job as the carrot which 95% won't get.
  • The "god" of Google turns out to be hiding in plain site as a fat, bearded, boy-man who has eyes on everyone and turns out to see the "good" in people in order to mitigate the cut-throat mentality of the intern-competition.
  • interns are "teamed up" and Wilson and Vaughn are a handicap to the other outcasts or breakfast-clubbers who might actually understand the tech they are asked to work with.  
  • The "kids" hate the old folks UNTIL they all go get drunk and go to a strip club together where the "experienced" adult men show them all a good time and get them out of their "nerd" shells where life only exists in tech.  In essence, real life is the sex trade and google life is asexual.  True?  Who knows, but that is the movie's brilliant lesson.  Drunken demeaning rituals of sexual "detachment" can make our young nerds more "human."  Color me enlightened.
  • That is to say, the misfits who can't work together become a real team after a night of drunken debauchery that ends with a brilliant "app" idea light-bulbed into existence as they sprawl out at an overlook spot to view the Golden Gate Bridge.  I get the idea--release--let down the prejudicial walls, and see the people as people, not as possible aids to success, and learn the human side of tech....hooey, I think, and easily the worst and weakest moments in the film.  An Asian boy spends the night getting lap-dances and then going to the bathroom to blow-dry his semen stained pants so he can have another lap-dance.
  • This movie is still preferable to the myriad end-of-the-world flicks and those that are entirely based on violent premises--ie, nearly all other movies.
  • I did laugh often...I can't help liking every word out of Vince Vaughn's mouth.   But it should be noted too, that he was the most vulnerable of the group and the most caring and honest of them all and hence all of his lines were good-hearted and full of hope even as jokes.



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