Sat Dec 7
5.15pm
5.15pm
Paranoid Data – Videograms of a Revolution
film
$13 General + $10 Student/Child/Senior + $7 Member
SERIES PASSES ON SALE! $39 General + $21 Members (Five films for the price of three!)
Seattle is the setting for this 1983 classic that stars a young Matthew Broderick in his second feature film role. David (Broderick) is a precocious high school kid that has a knack for computers, and in an effort to find a video game company, he accidentally hacks into a government supercomputer, WOPR. When he engages in a game of Global Thermonuclear War with WOPR, he triggers a series of fake and real scenarios involving nuclear missiles that could possibly start World War III and he must find a way to stop it.
Featuring cumbersome computers that are built to learn, very much like A.I. today, WarGames is a battle of man vs. machine. While in the ’80s it was clear who should win in this scenario, it is less clear who has control today. And don’t forget: WarGames was nominated for three Academy Awards – sound, cinematography, and screenplay.
Imagine a group of computer-savvy teenagers from Milwaukee that watched the movie WarGames and were inspired to hack into high-profile computer systems in the US. They exist; they named themselves the 414s and became the first widely known computer hackers, whose work ultimately changed how we approach computer interconnectivity today.
Pictured: Timothy Winslow. Credit: The Winslow Family.
Paranoid Data is a weekend-long offering of cult classics and FIVE rarely seen films that offer a small window into the ways in which technology, data, and the human body were thought to be affected and influenced by each other. Full program offerings and schedule below.