The Imitation Game

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

Somebody else must have seen this but I couldn't find the review.

It's the Alan Turing story of how he broke the Enigma code and helped end the war. One of the main thrusts of the film is Turing's social awkwardness and homosexuality and how they hamper him.

It plays out in two streams. The first is how he comes to be hired to break the code and how that happens and what happens to him after the war when it is found he is homosexual, which was still a crime in England at that time.

It is a really well done film. An ultimately tragic story for what could be argued was the greatest hero of the war. And if you know the story of the screenwriter by hearing his thank you speech at the Oscars you can get a lot of echoes to what happens to Turing and what happened to the screenwriter.

I couldn't explain why Keira Knightly got a nod for her acting since it is the role she usually plays and there didn't seem anything phenomenal about it. Cumberbatch did his best Cumberbatch. He might need to find some other rolls beside twitchy Englishman so he doesn't get typecast and pigeonholed.

I recommend it. No sword fights.

[El Dingo]

I liked it too.

I wish they had gone into more detail about the code breaking attempts. Anyone who has done a cypher puzzle knows to look for a common word first. The movie implied they broke the code by looking for










[SPOILER ALERT]





























"Heil Hitler"

If I was trying to break a German code during WWII, 'Hitler' may have been one of the first words I would look for.

They briefly said the 'key' word was the pet name of the German officer's girlfriend, but never mentioned it again.

Anyway, I realize the message of the movie was the persecution of Turing and thought it was well acted and engaging.

[Greg_phpbb3_import1]

So, I am reading the book upon which the movie is based, as you do. It is really dense and full of Math theory and logic as well as the story of Turing.

If you have seen the movie, I give you the following passage from the book:

We were all very much inspired by him, his interest in the work but the simultaneous interest in almost everything else...And he was a delightful person to work with. He had great patience with those who were not as gifted as himself. I remember he always gave me enormous encouragement when I did anything that was at all noteworthy. And we were very very fond of him.

The more I read the book the more I think the main character in the movie is actually the screenwriter's alter-ego.

[Drunk Monk]

I've been putting this film off. I don't know why. Tonight Stacy started it and went promptly to bed. She'd already seen it and figured I'd get hooked in, which is exactly what happened.

In another life in Santa Cruz, I was a Ph.D. candidate studying expertise, a field of interest as a stepping stone to A.I. back then, so I was very familiar with the Turing test and played with Eliza (an early A.I. program, siri's gramma if you will). I was marginally aware of Turings.'s history, but not his orientation.

At the beginning of IG, I thought Cumberbach was playing his one note like Sheldon Cooper of Big Band Theory, but he delivered in the end. Keira also played her one note, but it's so kute and I've been krushing on her for years. Downton factor of 2. The film came together in the end despite some earlier flaws. Enjoyable, but I'm not reading the book.

[King Bob]

DM, I am a little surprised you can remember anything of your Santa Cruz experience...

[Drunk Monk]

To quote one of my great muses, the inimitable Bob Dylan 
"I’ve still got the scars that the sun didn’t heal"