| Ron's Top Ten | |
10. Paycheck (action, PG-13)Despite the fact that Ben Affleck often appears to be a wooden figure on the big screen, his shortcomings as an actor aren't enough to muddle a movie derived from a Philip K. Dick work (I've never seen a movie from Philip K. Dick short stories that I couldn't enjoy.) But this movie's strength is from the plot and the action, not from the acting. (Face it, some movies are just not made to be actor vehicles. This is one of them.) Affleck's character, Michael Jennings, passes over US $90M for a job, choosing instead an envelope full of seemingly random objects -- and he can't remember why. His discovery of "why" -- and how he goes on to save the world -- are like MacGyver writ large. |
9. Ever After (fantasy, PG)Patrick Godfrey's spin on Leonardo Da Vinci -- who appears almost inexplicably in this supposedly "true" version of the Cinderella Story -- is quirky and fun. The kids will love it. Godfrey walks on water with little boats on his feet. Yeah, it's a violation of everything we know about Fluid Mechanics. But somehow you get the impression that's not why Drew Barrymore screams when she first sees him at it. The whole movie is pretty much summed up when Godfrey tells us, "yes, I shall go down in history as the man who opened a door!" As an engineer, I'd like to have seen Godfrey on the screen a bit more. That's why this movie isn't rated more highly. I guess director Andy Tennant must have figured he had to tell a fairy tale somewhere. :-) |
8. Back to the Future (fantasy, PG)As you must know, the second and third in the "Back to the Future" series are repeats of the highly innovative first, only in different settings. But that doesn't take away from the fun of watching the first for the first, or even the fifth, time. Christopher Lloyd's quirky Doc Brown is one of the best individual characters ever conceived in a movie of the "engineer as hero" genre. "1.21 GIGAWATTS!" LOL "What the hell is a gigawatt?" Sure, the movie is filled with Star-Trekish technobabble. Sure, time travel is impossible (as far as we know). That doesn't take away from the fun. The only small zinger I can give this movie is that no kid is going to become an engineer because of being inspired to it by Dr. Emmett Brown. :-) |
7. No Highway in the Sky (drama, unrated)This is appropriate for the kids, too, but they won't watch it. This one is really for the adults. And it's highly technical, too: Jimmy Stewart plays an engineer (though he insists, for reasons unknown, on calling himself a "scientist") who is running a life-cycle vibration test on the tail section of an airplane. The same type of airplane that he is flying from Britain to Canada to begin a failure investigation on yet another of the same type of airplane. (This plane has problems, and Stewart thinks he may know why.) The plot is based on Stewart's fear -- irrational to all others on the plane -- that the tail section will fail before the plane can land safely in Nova Scotia. He is inexplicably able to get Marlene Dietrich to buy into his story, though (as is often the case when engineers explain technical stuff to non-engineers) she has trouble understanding what the heck he is talking about. |
6. Office Space (comedy, R)Office Space has become a symbol for everything that's wrong with the American white-collar workplace. Malfunctioning fax machines, inconsiderate and non-functional colleagues, unappreciative and clueless bosses -- all come together to make a product that as many American engineers can relate to as they do Dilbert. Even when Ron Livingston's character, Peter Gibbons, decides to get his two best friends together in a plot to defraud his soulless company of fractions of pennies from each bank transaction, you find yourself rooting for him, and wondering if there is any way the poor sod can come out ahead. A cult classic and then some. |
5. Iron Man (action/SF, PG-13)Tony Stark was a brilliant engineer and a careless playboy, until a terrorist attack forced him to create a suit of armor to keep him alive. As president of a weapons manufacturer, Stark was able to upgrade his armor to include the latest in weapons and tactical technology, blah blah blah. What makes this movie great is that we can relate to the flawed super-hero character that is Tony Stark. He's got all kinds of problems, and tries to work right through them to do the right thing. This has been the Marvel Comics tradition since the so-called Silver Age in the 60s, when their greatest super-heroes were first created. We find ourselves practically cheering when Stark is able to matter-of-factly say "Yeah. I can fly." There may be better "engineer-as-hero" movies, and there may be better super-hero movies. But there is none better at both. Robert Downey Jr. IS Iron Man, and his portrayal will be the standard by which future super-hero movies will be judged. |
4. The Dam Busters (drama, unrated)This movie features probably the single most interesting device created by engineers in any of the movies of this genre: a bouncing bomb. It is launched from airplanes with speed and trajectory not unlike skipping stones on a lake. Personally, I'm not usually inclined toward war movies: but this one is fascinating from beginning to end. Techies will love it. Somewhere out there on the wide Internet are films of the actual skimming bomb. I'm sorry: I don't have the link at this time. Peter Jackson is signed on to produce a remake of this movie in 2007. |
3. Flight of the Phoenix (drama, unrated)Flight of the Phoenix is the story of a group of men stranded in the desert by a plane crash; who decide (after much argument, dissention, and a few deaths) to rebuild a smaller plane out of the original plane's scavenged parts. Little does the crew know, however, that the German engineer in whom they entrust the new plane design is not a designer of "real" craft at all, but rather of toys. Jimmy Stewart is the pilot of the original plane, torn between the need to keep everyone alive if he can and his lack of trust in the new plane's design. |
2. Apollo 13 (historical drama, PG)Everything goes wrong on Apollo 13: an electrical explosion causes the loss of NASA's command module -- most parts and capabilities -- for what should have been a "routine" mission to the Moon. (Routine in the sense that the American people were no longer paying attention to moon landings. Instead, the failed mission became a lesson in courage (supplied by the astronauts, including Tom Hanks as Jim Lovell) and engineering innovation (led by Ed Harris as Gene Kranz). As an ex-NASA engineer myself, I can't get enough of this one. But there are enough lessons learned in this movie that it should be required viewing for every class of engineers at every university in the world. |
1. October Sky (historical drama, PG)The best engineer-as-hero movie ever made chronicles the experience of the Rocket Boys, led by Jake Gyllenhaal as Homer Hickam (the movie is based on Hickam's excellent book). Four boys (there were more in the book, of course) decide to try to win a science fair by launching a rocket -- Hickam has the inspiration after seeing the attention (and fear) given to the Soviet spacecraft Sputnik by Americans. In this movie, you see rockets fail by the dozens. Each time, Hickam and his friends learn something new and improve their design -- while always keeping up with their studies and battling teenage angst. Of course there is a happy ending too. Something for everyone! |
