Reviews

I discovered this documentary through Jason Scott, a digital historian and filmmaker, who is one of the people featured in Traceroute. Jason recommended the film, and now I understand why. It is a dense, colorful and challenging road trip through the history of nerd culture. Our host, artist and self-proclaimed nerd, Johannes Grenzfurthner shares his life, his obsessions and his worldview with us. I have to admit that I never heard of him before watching the film, but now I want to go grab a beer with him. Two thumbs up!

"They were called 'computer adventure games', and they used the most powerful graphics processor in the world: the human mind." A documentary that tells the story of text adventures through the words of the people who made them, it's taken digital historian Jason Scott five years of researching, interviewing, filming, editing and polishing. And it was worth waiting.

This is oral history at its best.

The filmmakers focused on four of the most eccentric, pretentious, controversial indie developers they could find -- three of whom were essentially starving themselves while working on their games. It makes for an entertaining film, but it doesn't really represent indie development. That being said: I watched the film 5 times. 9 stars.

Even beyond the troubling aspects of a national culture in which a government and its functionaries could target a talented and altruistic young man with such extreme malice and vengeance, it seems we need to ask how Swartz, with so many intelligent and sensitive friends and colleagues, could still become so isolated and despondent as to take his own life.

This film is a hugely interesting and informative one, but I believe it still falls far short of telling us everything we may want to know about Aaron Swartz, who I can't help but think was a young David who was, in effect, slain by a Goliath.