Five Movie Computers
Posted on June 8, 2008 at 8:00 am
Computers can sometimes be full characters in movies — they play an important part in stories of all kinds — adventure, science-fiction, even romance. The one thing movie portrayals of computers seldom are is accurate and people who actually work with computers sometimes find that annoying. But these five movie computers and the movies that feature them are great family viewing.
1. War Games
Matthew Broderick plays a high school kid who is trying to hack into some unreleased computer games when he connects to the Defense Department’s super-secret missile launch program instead. Made in 1983, the real-life computers available to the film-makers were not up to the task of creating the massive computer system required by the screenplay. So, the set (at the time, the most expensive single movie set ever built) used old-fashioned animation for the computer screens. Today, it would be the other way around, with the real-life computers creating special effects that will look “real” on screen.
2. Desk Set
3. Galaxy Quest One of the funniest films of the last 10 years is this hilarious story of a “Star Trek” like television series that turns out to be the real thing when a group of aliens replicate it in outer space. Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Alan Rickman, and Tony Shaloub are the washed-up television stars relegated to fanfests and store openings who find themselves in the midst of an intergalactic battle with a tyrannical alien who looks like a big lizard in an eye-patch (and of course has the obligatory attribute for a movie villain — an English accent). One of my favorite lines is when Sigourney Weaver explains that she only has one job on the ship — to repeat everything the computer says!
4. You’ve Got Mail This third version of the classic story about a man and a woman who feud during the day, not realizing that they are exchanging tender anonymous love letters, updates the story to the era of email and takes its title from AOL’s memorable notification. Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks communicate via their laptops in this charming love story. (The delightful pre-computer versions of the story were “The Shop Around the Corner” with Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullivan and “In the Good Old Summertime” with Judy Garland and Van Johnson.) NOTE: Screenwriter Nora Ephron is the daughter of “Desk Set” screenwriters Phoebe and Henry Ephron.
5. 2001: A Space Odyssey Probably the most famous computer in movie history is HAL, voiced by Canadian actor Douglas Rain, which greets astronaut David Bowan with a smooth, “Good morning, Dave” (there’s a sly tribute to that moment in “Independence Day”). Its name comes from Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic Computer, and not, as often speculated, because HAL’s letters are each one away from computer giant IBM. We should guess as soon as HAL explains, “The 9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made. No 9000 computer has ever made a mistake or distorted information. We are all, by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error” that even a computer can be guilty of hubris.
Lionsgate/HIT Entertainment announce a new narrator for this fall’s upcoming feature-length Thomas the Tank Engine DVD release, “Thomas & Friends: The Great Discovery.” Following the wonderful voiceover work from Ringo Starr, George Carlin, and Alec Baldwin is this 
If Dad is in his 50’s, he’ll enjoy some of the television shows from his childhood collected in 
. It includes “Kukla, Fran And Ollie,” “Howdy Doody,” “Flash Gordon,” “Lassie,” “Annie Oakley,” “Ding Dong School,” “Time For Beany,” “The Paul Winchell Show,” “The Roy Rogers Show,” “Captain Z-RO,” “The Rootie Kazootie Club,” “Winky Dink And You,” “Super Circus,” “Andy’s Gang,” “The Cisco Kid,” “Sky King,” “The Magic Clown,” “Kids And Company,” “Juvenile Jury,” “The Pinky Lee Show,” and “Sheena, Queen Of The Jungle.” At least a couple of them are guaranteed to bring back memories. 
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, the story of the legendary “Rumble in the Jungle” fight between Muhammad Ali and George Foreman. 
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Robin Williams inspires his students not just with the thrill of poetry but with the thrill of independent thinking. 
Sidney Poitier stars in this fact-based story of a teacher in a poor neighborhood in the East End of London. He teaches them the importance of respect for themselves and each other, starting with calling him “Sir.” You can also see Poitier as part of an unruly class with a dedicated young teacher in 
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Jane Trahey’s memoir of her experience in a Catholic girls’ boarding school inspired this rollicking story of rebellious students (Hayley Mills and June Harding) and the Mother Superior (Rosalind Russell) who understands them better than they thought. See also: Whoopi Goldberg teaching parochial school students played by future stars Jennifer Love Hewitt and Lauren Hill in “Sister Act 2.” The wonderful Mary Wickes appears as a nun in both movies.
Like many of the teachers in these films, Mr. Holland (Richard Dreyfuss) does not let the bureaucracy and his own conflicts about whether he wants to teach prevent him from touching the lives of a generation of students. Watch for Terrance Howard in a small role. And I dare you not to cry in that last scene. 
Robert Donat beat Clark Gable’s performance as Rhett Butler for the Best Actor Oscar in his role as “Mr. Chips,” who overcomes his initial shyness and reserve to become an inspiring figure in the lives of three generations of boys. 
This is not based on a real-life story — it is a real-life story, a documentary about a teacher who has her inner-city students put on a production of those most venerable (if white-bread) of American plays, Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town.” Watching the students really make the story their own makes this a mesmerizing film and as we watch, we, too, become part of the lucky classroom of teacher Catherine Borek. Other great documentaries about real-life teachers include “He Makes Me Feel Like Dancin'” and the follow-up 
, “Small Wonders,” which inspired the Meryl Streep movie “Music of the Heart,” and the magnificent French film about a one-room schoolhouse, 
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Edward James Olmos is electrifying as Jaime Escalante, the teacher who insisted that the inner-city students everyone else had given up on could excel in calculus.