journal features

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

On the endless saga of Rob Ford, mayor of Toronto; "It shouldn't have had to come to this. I'm so tired of getting up every morning and wondering, 'What will it be today?' I'm so tired of giving the benefit of the doubt again and again, only to be let down again and again.... Somewhere a responsible adult has to appear, draw a bright moral line, tell the truth and say unequivocally what won't be tolerated. Somebody has to do the right thing."

—Denzil Minnan-Wong