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movie review - Source Code

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-seven years and one million words

Toronto, 2013.03.15

This is a story about a grievously injured soldier who is put into service in a simulation in order to stop a bombing of a train. Only, it appears that the simulations are actual "other realities" and that each time he fails a trainload of people die. I've never been a fan of "other realities" any more than I have been of "time travel", they both are preposterous on the face of them and seem to be appealing to little more than regret and desperation. Everything we have is here, and what we have lost is gone, my friends.

I liked it because it was clever, original, well done, and ended in a satisfying way. I mean, actually satisfying. They didn't mess up our own emotional involvement, and for that I'm grateful.

Recommended.

P.S. I have no idea where they got the name for this. Source code is the human-readable computer instructions that are compiled and run as programs. I guess someone heard the term, thought, "that sounds techie" and ran with it.

rand()m quote

Work is about a daily search for meaning as well as daily bread; for recognition as well as cash; for astonishment rather than torpor; in short for a sort of life, rather than a monday-to-friday sort of dying.

— Studs Terkel