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

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled, or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by the dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best, knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who, at worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly; so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory or defeat.

—Theodore Roosevelt, Jr.