The Imitation Game

The Imitation Game is a recent film about British computer scientist and mathematician, Alan Turing. The story follows Turing through his struggles to crack Nazi Germany’s Enigma code. In doing so, it helped to enable the allies to win World War II. This movie was based on the biography entitled Alan Turing: The Enigma, and stars Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing, with a supporting performance by Keira Knightley as Joan Clarke, a woman who helped aid Turing with his work.

The film revolves around Alan Turing and his team of code-breakers who are racing against time as they attempt to break Nazi Germany's Enigma code during the Second World War. One interesting aspect of the film is that it spans three key periods of Turing's life: his unfortunate teenage years at boarding school; the triumph of his secretive work on the groundbreaking electro-mechanical bomb, and the misfortune of his post-war decline following his conviction of being a homosexual, a criminal offense during that time. Occasionally, the viewer will be whisked back in time in order to get a glimpse of Turing’s younger years. This allows us to get an understanding of where he came from, and how these aspects have influenced his personality and mindset. For example, there was one point in which we were able to see scenes from his childhood played out in front of us. From this, we learned that his best and only friend had died while they were still in school. This tragedy had a profound impact on his life, and now, along with being a generally socially awkward individual, he is made to carry the weight of his deceased friend as well. The film was unique in how it used these flashbacks to better illustrate his story to the audience, and it certainly had a positive impact on the structure of the film.

Mission: Watch Movies

Growing up, I had a best friend who's house I basically lived at during the summers and on week-ends. Even as we got into our high school years, we remained eachother's go-to sleep over person. This led to more movie marathons than I can begin to count. However, once a movie was added to our list, it rarely came off, which resulted in watching the same movies twice, three times, or even hundreds of times. Honestly, I can't even tell you how many times I've watched the same 15 Disney movies growing up, and even now. Sometimes these nights would have themes, such as Disney night, Kiera Knightley night (yes, I know she's a terrible actress, no, that doesn't mean I don't know every word to Pride and Prejudice), and even Richard Harris night.

Now this wouldn't be as much of a problem if I watched movies with anyone else. Except, I really don't. Which means I haven't really branched out in terms of movie watching. Especially old movies. The few classic movies I've seen, I've loved, and I would like to watch more, but I just never quite got around to it. And if I did want to try watching something new, more often times than not it would be added to the back end of the movies for the night, and we would fall asleep long before we got to that point.

So this semester I've decided to make it a point to watch two movies a week that I've never seen before. Whether they be classic, new blockbusters, old blockbusters, independents, whatever. If I have time, I'll watch more. I'm also going to keep a running notebook filled with the titles, key characters, little summaries, and interesting production points from each movie so I don't forget which one's which, or what character belongs where. If anyone has suggestions, feel free to send them my way, because unless it's Disney or The Heathers, I probably haven't seen it.