Louis Proyect
2014-10-20 15:24:02 UTC
The ?Hacker Wars? opened at Village East Cinema last Friday and is
playing through Thursday. This review is a bit belated but I do want to
urge New Yorkers to check out the film since it puts a spotlight on
figures in the Anonymous movement that were of some significance despite
being obscure to many of us, including me. The film also hints at why
the ?Hacker Wars? were lost, an outcome that is in many ways parallel to
the demise of the Occupy movement, its second cousin.
Let me start off by saying that it took me a while to warm up to this
documentary since director Vivien Lesnik Weisman made the decision to
adopt an MTV type aesthetic that made use of exceedingly short fragments
of the various principals speaking about their experience as hackers
that must have been calculated to appeal to a younger audience that
ostensibly lacked the patience to hear someone speak for a lengthy
period?like five minutes or so. When you superimpose a hip-hop
soundtrack over the interviews, it becomes rather annoying to an old
fogey like me.
That being said, there?s some important material in the film that must
be considered by a left that has grown accustomed to the Guy Fawkes
mask-wearing activists who made up the rank-and-file of both Anonymous
and Occupy, many of whom were self-professed anarchists.
The film is basically a profile of three victims of the war on
hactivism: Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer?aka ?Weev?, Jeremy Hammond,
and Barrett Brown. All have spent time or are spending time in prison
for their role in Anonymous and its ancillary cabals. And all of them
leave something to be desired as personalities and activists.
full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/10/20/the-hacker-wars/
playing through Thursday. This review is a bit belated but I do want to
urge New Yorkers to check out the film since it puts a spotlight on
figures in the Anonymous movement that were of some significance despite
being obscure to many of us, including me. The film also hints at why
the ?Hacker Wars? were lost, an outcome that is in many ways parallel to
the demise of the Occupy movement, its second cousin.
Let me start off by saying that it took me a while to warm up to this
documentary since director Vivien Lesnik Weisman made the decision to
adopt an MTV type aesthetic that made use of exceedingly short fragments
of the various principals speaking about their experience as hackers
that must have been calculated to appeal to a younger audience that
ostensibly lacked the patience to hear someone speak for a lengthy
period?like five minutes or so. When you superimpose a hip-hop
soundtrack over the interviews, it becomes rather annoying to an old
fogey like me.
That being said, there?s some important material in the film that must
be considered by a left that has grown accustomed to the Guy Fawkes
mask-wearing activists who made up the rank-and-file of both Anonymous
and Occupy, many of whom were self-professed anarchists.
The film is basically a profile of three victims of the war on
hactivism: Andrew Alan Escher Auernheimer?aka ?Weev?, Jeremy Hammond,
and Barrett Brown. All have spent time or are spending time in prison
for their role in Anonymous and its ancillary cabals. And all of them
leave something to be desired as personalities and activists.
full: http://louisproyect.org/2014/10/20/the-hacker-wars/