Friday, June 29, 2007

Yippie-Ki-Yay, And How's Life Treating You

The good news is Ph's back. The bad news is BM's said goodnight again. What the hell, Gracie? Where am I going to see outlines of a foot on a blog?

The good news is this battle is over. Or maybe not. I had fun stirring up that pot. There is no bad news
***

"Live Free or Die Hard" is a cinematic tour de force, a finely tuned mixture of human drama and technology. Let's face it. They don't make films like these anymore. (I was going to say "movies", but that's such a cheap word, you know?) The film works at so many levels, but it is particularly effective at the upper, middle and lower levels. Be it the emotionally charged study of the father-daughter relationship, the chilling depiction of the tragic consequences of bad computer network administration policies or the startlingly fresh portrayal of the odd-couple-caught-in-a-violent-situation scenario, this Die Hard sequel is a treat for everyone.

Still more surprising was the sheer amount of business education packed into this two-and-a-half hour film. The Bad Guy, played by Timothy Oliphant, lacks general management skills. He throws money at problems. He does not invest in good HR practices. His team structure is flat, which is good, but then he shoots all his programmers at the end of the project. I know, we've all felt like doing that at the end of some projects, but "we just kill you afterwards" is not a good recruiting slogan. Promoting your hot girlfriend to the top of the organization is good old nepotism. (He should have waited till they were married, announced a bad quarter or two, lowered the stock prices, bought back a ton of stock in her name and then hired her into the Board of Directors. That would have been so much more realistic too.) The Bad Guy team should also have outsourced their non-core operations to a good Indian offshore shop. Their (i.e. the Bad Guys') business is to blow up things and take the money and run. Why did they have to own under-performing assets like data centers, computers, networks (and all those dead programmers?)

I could go on and on but I really want you to watch this little gem and draw your own conclusions. Isn't that the whole point of Art and all that crap?

5 comments:

Alok said...

the chilling depiction of the tragic consequences of bad computer network administration policies

lol! havent gone to the movies in a long time. seems like it has to be this one...

km said...

Alok: oh, you're going to love this film.

J. Alfred Prufrock said...

The way I see it, he's bald, he's old, he's potty-mouthed, he has a lot of fancy hardware and he STILL gets to beat up on the bad guys.

What's not to like?!

J.A.P.

Anonymous said...

Does this mean we are talking? :)

km said...

PH: Yes we are. But only if you keep blogging.

JAP: he's not as potty-mouthed as in the first outing. He also doesn't smoke anymore. Times have changed, senor.