And the Oscar goes to….

Apologies for the lack of a creative title. I’ve been planning this for a while so i better actually write this post before the Oscars on Sunday!

So basically after the nominees were announced in January i set out trying to watch as many of the nominated films as possible. I didn’t go all out and watch every one with any nomination at all, but i did watch all of the Best Picture nominees (Birdman, Boyhood, The Grand Budapest Hotel, The Imitation Game, The Theory of Everything, Selma, Whiplash and American Sniper) plus a couple of others (Foxcatcher – mostly to size up Steve Carell in his Best Actor nom – and  Mr Turner because of the expectation surrounding it which then didn’t turn into nominations).

I made myself write things down straight after i’d seen them so hopefully this is as accurate as possible. I’m not going to go bonkers writing essays i’m just going to do a bit of a quick fire summary for each one. Head’s up there will probably be mild spoilers if you haven’t seen the films.

Birdman: Interesting, very good acting – deserving of any awards they win certainly wont begrudge Michael Keaton. Quite liked the whole “filmed to look like one shot” thing, that probably should have had more recognition in editing because it was seamless but feel it didn’t help the fact i found it a bit long. A bit *huff exhale* “there’s still half an hour to go” sort of thing. Overall i thought it was a bit “let’s show how deep and truthful we can be about the industry” show-y. Oh look we’re such serious troubled actors, let’s randomly name drop some silly famous people…here’s the press lady who’s so passionate about real art over the ‘celebrity’ image angry because you’re a sell out and let’s have a go at twitter and the public perception of actors like we can’t tell the difference between actors and character’s and we all go bonkers if we see anyone. Trying a bit too hard. Also i predicted what would happen quite easily. I still don’t understand the end…and the whole super-powers thing? Like..what even was happening there? Finally the Critics Choice Award voters were obviously completely blinded by this film because best score? Seriously? It’s some fun bits of same-y drums that is barely a score.

The Grand Budapest Hotel: Absolutely bonkers but brilliant fun! Really fantastic. Some great cameo roles from some big names and great performances by the main cast especially Ralph Fiennes who i really have to see in more comedy things. Fast paced, interesting story though you’ll have to pay attention to keep up! Alexandre Desplat has a nomination for the scores of both this and The Imitation Game and i think he got the BAFTA for this one which is well deserved it’s really quirky and fun. This is the film i’m hoping scoops up awards like editing and cinematography especially. It was like a character in itself and really played a big part in the fun atmosphere of the film. Will have to check out more of Wes Anderson’s work.

The Imitation Game: Okay, less quick-fire but there’s no point in repeating myself. I wrote a post about it HERE.

Boyhood: The first thing i wrote down straight after seeing this was, “for a film that tries to encourage people not to waste their life that was an ironic ten thousand years i just spent watching….the same actors over 12 years thing is cool, that’s it.” I stand by this. Alright, it was a nice idea the over 12 years thing, give Richard Linklater the director award or something then for his “amazing vision” and maybe it was a great experience working on it and seeing people grow up but i’m sorry it is 3 hours long and boring as hell. Computer error: story-line not found…3 hours…nothing happens we just see a series of rather cheesy cliche events of growing up. Hey look the older boy found a magazine with boobs in it let’s point at it, look how difficult the peer pressure is from the older boys to have sex or get called various wussy names, Necessary American right of passage “woah! you’re 15 well HAPPY BIRTHDAY it’s time for your very first gun!” surrounded by hours of people awkwardly mumbling to each other and giving each other “life lessons” like it’s some big breakthrough we’ve never heard on a film before. The effort to be so real or honest or whatever they’re trying to do, is boring. Harry Potter had actors growing up too where’s all their Oscars?

The Theory of Everything: I really really enjoyed this film. Lovely film! It wasn’t like “WOW this is the BEST thing i have ever seen” sort of film but thing’s rarely are. It was very nice. Eddie Redmayne was extremely good, sometimes i felt i was so busy just watching it i wasn’t fully appreciating how good he was being, as were Felicity Jones and the rest of the cast. Eddie’s got lots of awards so far he’ll probably end up with the Oscar. I can’t begrudge him for that because i do think he was fantastic but i’m a bit iffy about people being a bit blind-sided by the acting and giving the film things i don’t personally think it was necessarily the top candidate for *looking at you BAFTAs*. Score is lovely and the use of ‘Arrival of the Birds’ at the end is glorious it’s one of my favourite pieces of music. It’s not a film about Hawking and his work, so if that’s what you’re expecting you wont get it, it’s about his relationship with Jane. This isn’t a bad thing and it wasn’t a story i knew so it was nice.

(If you’re interested and haven’t seen it i have a post discussing film accuracy being a factor of how we judge it HERE. It’s mostly centered around The Imitation Game but has some points about The Theory of Everything like the story of the relationship vs the science. Also it contains a link looking into the film vs real life events).

Whiplash: The more i think about this film the more it grows on me. Whilst watching these films i was trying to be fairly open minded and not judge the quality of film based on “my kind of enjoyment” but i definitely would recommend this to people and would watch it again. J.K. Simmons has all the Supporting Actor awards so far doesn’t he? He’s pretty much a lock for the Oscar and it will be well deserved! The film is super intense. I really got into it and enjoyed it as much as one can whilst wanting to give 99% of the characters a slap. I was mostly just angry at the main character’s for either being such a horrible human being or not having enough self respect to walk away from said horrible human being. The music is awesome! Seriously funky. I heard it started as a short film then turned into a full feature and i think it was pretty low budget too so it’s done really well!

American Sniper: I dun’no man i don’t know what the war’s like obviously and he was a real guy and everything so..yeah but gosh it just seemed like one massive excuse for a war film. Was really not feeling it at all. Came away with a really large cliche shaped headache. It was like a checklist: american kid goes hunting with his dad, oh he’s good at guns, guy sees horrors in the world, guy loves America, guy wants to defend America, GUNSSSS, guy joins army, LOTS OF SHOUTING AT ARMY CAMP, guy meets girl, oh we got off to an awkward start and you’re not my type whoops we’re immediately together forever, get married on day they find out they’re going to go out and fight, conflicting emotions faces, AMERICA!…GUNS!…girl is pregnant while guy is gone, gives birth to plastic baby when he comes back (which grows up to learn about guns and go hunting with dad obviously), woah he’s all changed and doesn’t pay attention to his family…then i kinda zoned out. I know that all sounds awful of me i’m not dismissing what soldiers go through etc. but it was a pointless film which has got far too much rave in my opinion. And then it ended with like a sentence on screen and i was just like “…oh….okay?” Erm…why not wait a few years and then tell THAT story. At least that’s unique and not just making a movie about a guy who killed loads of people and glorifying it for the sake of it. I quite like Bradley Cooper but the acting didn’t buzz me.

Selma: I’m glad this got a nomination in the Best Picture category but what on earth happened to everything else?! I heard there was some bad times with the campaign and things, they didn’t send screeners in for voters to see or something? Or they were late doing things? I don’t know the details but whatever it was it was SUCH a shame because what a magnificent film. Really wonderful and very powerful. Definitely deserves more recognition than it got David Oyelowo especially. It got to a point where i was getting emotional every time he opened his mouth! I did a lot of tearing up. Not much more i can say about that. I wish i could comment on it’s nominations in other categories with more detail but it doesn’t have those. Oh! And ‘Glory’ the song which has a nomination too is wonderful! Very deserving.

Foxcatcher: Probably quite good if you like that kind of thing but i really couldn’t get into it, Steve Carell very good, interesting to watch. I admit one of my biggest motivations behind seeing this film was wanting to check out the hype surrounding Steve Carell. I was wondering whether he was getting so much praise just because this role was so outside of his norm not because he actually did a stunning performance but he actually was very good! Very creepy. I was sort of getting sick of him being associated with the world “unrecognisable” but he actually really really is! A bit less convinced by Mark Ruffalo’s nomination but whatever. Also i think they got the guy in who does the ‘orc movement’ training for Lord of the Rings to teach them how to walk. That’s one big argument for the theory of evolution right there.

Mr Turner: Nice to look at, rather dull to watch. Don’t think the fact that it only got a couple of nominations (was it cinematography and costume or something? i think?) was that out of place. As i say it was nice to look at but gosh it was dull. I really like Timothy Spall but i prefer films with a story-line especially if they’re going to be 2 and a half hours. It was just random moments in his life and nothing happened and if anything of consequence happened i didn’t care. And i didn’t really learn very much about Turner. I mean, did we really need dragged out scenes of Mr Turning wailing out a song at the piano and a whole scene dedicated to a spiffing conversation about a gooseberry? Who knows. Mike Leigh got an award at the BAFTAs though and he seems like a cool guy.

Anyway, i’ll shut up now! As i say i didn’t see every film with a nomination but i hope to catch things like Gone Girl, Wild and Still Alice in the future. Fingers crossed to The Hobbit for sound editing. Kind of miffed it missed out on the visual effects category but okay.

It’s not a documentary

With awards season upon us, we have the BAFTAs on our doorstep (literally happening as i’m writing this) and the Oscars in a couple of weeks time, thoughts turn to the inevitable controversy over the ‘accuracy’ of the films based on real events or people.

Don’t get me wrong, i don’t expect these comments to go away, it’s always going to happen and in fairness it is interesting to talk about. But in the end how much is accuracy really a factor when judging a film? I like to think it’s given barely any thought at all when it comes to the actual awards voting (apart from the obvious politics that have pretty much engulfed awards these days), since the film in itself is being judged. But it is more often than not that accuracy crops up when it comes to criticism.

Basically for me it comes down to this – people aren’t stupid. They know films take creative license, are not documentaries and ,fyi, nor do they claim to be – anyone who comes away from the cinema thinking what they have seen is word for word accurate and not a piece of entertainment based on real events to tell a story, that’s their problem. If you expect film-makers to cater to that well what’s the point in films? Have you ever seen ‘The Invention of Lying’ with Ricky Gervais? (a story about a world in which nobody can lie..until Ricky’s character works it out one day – not usually a big fan of his but it’s an enjoyable film, go give it a watch) their entire film industry is just videos of people sitting in a chair recounting history, basically a documentary but less interesting.

People expect too much from a 2 hour film, they want every detail as accurately as possible. Yes, in an ideal world that would be lovely but if they had, for example, put every part of Alan Turing’s life which i would have liked to see and found worthy of being shown into The Imitation Game, it would have been 10 hours long and probably a lot less interesting.

Let’s talk about The Imitation Game because this is the only one where i feel i can make proper judgement personally. I’ve become hugely passionate about Alan Turing and his life and work and i absolutely adore him so i will say, yes, the first time i saw the film there were parts of my brain that didn’t feel completely satisfied but as i say it’s because i want them to elaborate on everything i want them to show everything and it’s just not going to happen.

I’ll keep it brief:

• There are 2 hours to get the story across about Alan Turing and others at Bletchley Park breaking the ENIGMA code and then briefly touching upon Turing towards the end of his life.
• They do not ignore the Polish achievements in breaking the code, there is a brief moment where Alan says his machine is an improvement on a Polish design. The format of the code is different when we reach the time period in this film. You want to hear more about that? You want a different film.
• You want to hear about Tommy Flowers and the Colossus and the Lorenz Cipher, you want a different film.
• Sore subject (apparently), if you want to see gratuitous sex scenes and more information about his personal life, you want a different film.

The idea that they were afraid to include a sex scene is frankly ridiculous. Cast and crew have continuously said they would have done it had it been suitable for the film and i believe them. All this drama over accuracy you think critics might appreciate not showing sex that didn’t happen just for the sake of it. But of course that’s not how it works.

It is clear Alan is gay and it is never implied otherwise, if you have to see a sex scene to have that drilled into your brain than subtlety is lost. Yes his sexuality was of course an important part of what happened to him but in the end that’s not what the film is about, it’s about his work and life achievements especially his work at Bletchley Park. Alan is more than his sexuality and i know his family certainly appreciated the focus being the way it is in the film.

There are no sex scenes in The Theory of Everything, does this mean the film ignored his disability? Sounds ridiculous to say doesn’t it? To me, in this context, that’s pretty much the same as saying you are ignoring Alan’s sexuality by not showing a sex scene. To be honest sex scenes would have been more appropriate in The Theory of Everything because it is not a film about Hawking’s work it is about his relationship.

Speaking of which..i saw a review of The Theory of Everything (not by a professional critic…or i certainly hope not) judging it 1/10 because the whole point of Hawking is his work and this film “missed the point completely”. No, it doesn’t try to be about his work and fails, it is about his relationship. You want a different film there.

Anyway, carrying on

• No the spy story-line was not completely fabricated. We hear the police allude to the Cambridge spies in the film. See ‘The Cambridge Five’ and ‘John Cairncross’ the character that Allen Leech plays (he did his research). Any criticism like “oh John didn’t work in the same hut as Alan” ….seriously? It’s a low budget film trying to show different stories and characters with the resources they have. Would it have been better just seeing a random side story of John Cairncross in another hut never interacting with Alan? No.
• Shoutout to Gordon Welchman who wasn’t included and actually had quite a bit role in creating The Bombe with Turing, his character was sort of merged with Hugh Alexander into Matthew Goode. Again, not completely ideal and i felt that myself but the important points come across, if you want a film about him go and find one.
• Joan Clarke, i can’t judge too much here because i don’t know much about her, but some of the tiny picky points made about her character just miss the boat entirely. They film uses her character to help represent how women were viewed at the time (Keira Knightley has brought these topics up a lot in interviews), along with her as a person and her relationship with Alan. If they add a few things here and there to get that message across how is that bad? *girl power high five*
• “Are you trying to build your universal machine?” Okay, i get this. The Bombe is not technically what comes out of Turing’s idea of a universal machine which i suppose is a bit ambiguous in the film. See the ACE (Automatic Computing Engine) (i’m reading about this at the moment it’s amazing!). But, as i say, i’m reading about this at the moment and the ACE is often building on the his ideas and experiences from his work during the war, it is not as far removed as some may believe. Also his universal machine idea ties into the film nicely with their showing of Christopher Morcom.
• Speaking of which, my final point on this film, one i am very passionate about. No, the machine he built at Bletchley was not called Christopher, it was called The Bombe. But do you know how PERFECT a gesture that is in this film? To represent how much Christopher and his death affected Alan’s life and work? He looked up to Christopher and regarded him as a better student than he was which pushed him in his ideas and motivation to work, for himself and to continue Christopher’s legacy in a way that would make him proud.  It was the drive for Turing’s obsession around the human mind, where does it all go after you die? Did the spirit of Christopher still exist? Leading to his further ideas like his electronic brain, hence the computer. Can machines think? Can they make judgement? Could you get a machine to act in such a way you believed it to be a person? More information here.

In the end, the film is not there to tell you exact facts word by word, it is there to tell you the story and invite you to look into it further, to get people talking about it and introduce an audience to important people and stories they may not have known before.

After i had watched Mr Turner i had a bit of a look. I couldn’t find anything overly concrete to tell me it was inaccurate but i didn’t look much further into it because, you know what, i just didn’t care. I’m going to be posting about my opinions of awards season films soon, but the film was nice to look at and i love Timothy Spall but zero story, dull, i was not interested and it didn’t make me want to know more about Turner.

I saw Selma, wonderful film. I was quite eager to see how accurate that was. The main controversy around that seems to be that they portrayed President Johnson as being quite an obstacle that Martin Luther King had to contend with when in fact he was apparently a great supporter of the movement. Okay, so they changed someone up a bit to make the film more interesting. Good! It was powerful and I enjoyed it and i cared enough to go and find out the truth.

Same with The Theory of Everything. It was a nice story, one i was not familiar with. Not overly mind-blowing “wow i can’t believe i didn’t know this” but i enjoyed finding out how accurate it was – good article exploring that here.

Also, whilst researching Mr Turner’s accuracy i found this (also i typed this in again just now to get this screenshot, same result):

Now if enough people have come away from that film and typed that into Google to give that result, to find out more about Alan Turing and his story and find out the truth even if it’s not all completely represented 100% accurately in the film, well…i call that The Imitation Game: Mission Accomplished.

That’s what a good film can do. Criticism of accuracy is for the documentary category, not for those who never claim it.

Explaining Enigma

Hi there! Something a little different i suppose, but with the release of The Imitation Game, i’ve been reading up a lot on Alan Turing recently and i just completely adore him. What a wonderful wonderful man.

I’m completely astonished that (just showing how powerful and how influential film it can be) until i heard about this film being made just over a year ago, i didn’t really know who Alan Turing was, which frankly having just finished an education that involved a maths degree, A Level maths and further maths and GCSE ICT and history including focus around World War II and with friends having just completed degrees in computer science…is appalling.

I’ve reviewed a short book based around him on this site before (The Big Idea – Turing and the Computer) and i’m sure you’ll hear more from me in the future now that i’m reading into his life and work a lot..but i won’t waffle on about him here right now because i could seriously go on for days!

I do recommend you go and research him yourself though, such a beautiful, inspiring man and such an unsung hero.

Anyway!

With my apparent love for puzzles and maths (i suppose i have to love it deep down or i wouldn’t have done a degree in it) i got a huge amount of pleasure out of researching about the ENIGMA machine. I’m hoping to learn about Turing’s machine “The Bombe” that cracked the German Enigma code but before i got to that i figured i should understand Enigma first.

Now if there’s one thing i found throughout my degree is that no one ever seems to put any mathematical literature out there so that non-mathematical human beings can understand it, and everything you need never seems to be all nicely together in one place (i know…i sound like it just want someone to do all the work for me but ugh..effort). I mean…i work in maths…numbers..processes…practical examples…not paragraphs and paragraphs of words that make no sense to me…brain malfunction..does not compute. I always end up reinterpreting everything into simpler method explanations and terminology so i can understand it and go back to it with ease.

So this was just for me to start with but i thought….why not share!

I’ve really enjoyed learning all of this for myself, because even with my experience in maths this was still all new stuff for me. I suppose the advantage i did have was being able to understand and explains some of the mathematical notation and verify the calculations myself where i could. But..anyway!

Should you be interested, which i hope The Imitation Game and Alan Turing will inspire people to be, here is my explanation of the Enigma machine. Explanations as to the version of the machine i am using and any disclaimer comments are in the document itself!

Enjoy! Feel free to ask me any questions or let me know if you spot any mistakes or anything i’ve missed! Thanks!

EXPLAINING ENIGMA

“Normal? The world is an infinitely better place precisely because you weren’t”

The Imitation Game.

So i’ve FINALLY seen it!

I actually saw it on November 10th but wanted to wait until my second viewing (the friday of the same week) before i made a proper attempt at saying anything here.

I am going to make an extremely conscious effort to limit myself because i will waffle for the rest of my life about this if given the chance.

This film..is absolutely stunning. Gorgeous, heartbreaking, funny, inspirational…as is the man the story is about. I’ve been following this film for a while and one of the best decisions i have ever made was to go and find out more about Alan Turing. He is a truly TRULY brilliant, genius, lovely and heroic man (why use one adjective where 12 will do eh). I think the most important thing this film does is finally brings his story to an audience and Turing is finally starting to get some of the recognition he truly deserves. I honestly get emotional just thinking about him, if they ever invent time travel he’ll be my first stop.

One issue…okay this isn’t even an issue…certainly not with the film..it’s my issue…as i say i delved quite deeply into the story of Alan Turing before i saw this film and i’ve yet to decide if that was an advantage or a disadvantage. I will admit upon my first viewing of the film, a lot of my concentration was on seeing what parts of the story they actually put in the film and what changes were made. I think of course there was going to be some artistic license and some simplifications of the story, and i think when they do that they do it really well.

I had the odd niggles in the back of my mind going “oh i wish they’d told more of the story there..there’s so much more to that” but if they did that where i wanted them to the film would be ten hours long. Also with a few adjustments and changes (completely understandable for dramatic effect) sometimes i thought “oh…oh that’s not quite right..i feel like i have to tell people that’s not completely accurate” but you know what that’s me being INCREDIBLY picky.

That’s why i waited until my second viewing to do this. Once i’d come to terms with what was in it, i could sit and just enjoy it fully and goodness do i enjoy this film. It is absolutely remarkable and if there isn’t a large amount of recognition at the Oscars then nothing is right with the world!

In following the promotion of this film i can see every member of the cast and crew are so passionate about Alan Turing’s story and seem to have fallen in love with him just as everyone does when they hear about him. They wanted to do it right, do it well and wanted to get the story out there.

Benedict Cumberbatch, well..he’s just stunning isn’t he? Absolutely melts away into his characters and Turing is no exception. It is Alan you’re watching, not Benedict. And on a personal note as a big fan of Benedict’s I would just like to say how lucky we are that a man with such immense talent, such passion and care for the story he is telling and such a wide reach of admiration and influence, is at the forefront of this film. He knows the importance of this man and his story and goes to every length to make sure his life and achievements have been recognised (seriously, have you heard him talk about Alan? goes on for days it’s brilliant).

The whole cast is brilliant! Seriously fantastic! But i have to mention Keira Knightley because (i can’t believe i’m about to say this) she really surprised me. Don’t get me wrong i absolutely adore her as a person i have such a girl crush on her and i want to be best friends with her asap please and i admit now i’ve not seen everything she’s in so this is mainly a hugely ignorant comment but i have been known to think she was rather….same-y in things. I mean..hardly her fault..i suppose a lot of her characters can be seen as quite similar (again..by someone as ignorant as myself) but i must admit i did wonder if her Joan Clarke (another person to look up by the way..she is AWESOME! Girl power!) would slot into the sort of “same-y” image i had built up in my head. It really didn’t. She was magnificent. And the more i see her in the promotion the more i love her and i think i’ll make myself go back and watch her other work again.

One more thing! Alex Lawther who plays young Alan Turing, watch out for this kid because he is fantastic! He’s such a lovely lad and it’s so sweet hearing him talk about the film. What mainly stuck with me was how well he not only portrayed young Alan, but portrayed a young version of Benedict’s Alan. He seriously is brilliant.

Anyway…that was apparently me limiting myself so i do apologise for the waffle.

Also if you see the film…bring tissues…seriously i was a complete sobbing mess by the end of it…both viewings.

Oh! And buy the soundtrack. I actually have it on right now. Alexandre Desplat knocks it out of the park once again! It is seriously..beyond beautiful.

The Big Idea

Gosh i completely disappeared for a while there didn’t i? I keep meaning to write things and then i just..yeah…

We got a new trailer for The Imitation Game in the UK this week –> HERE 

Sigh…just a month or so to go until that one! But for now i’ve been very much delving into Turing’s life which is just amazing to read about. Currently reading “Andrew Hodges’ – Alan Turing – The Enigma” which i’ll talk to you about soon but before that, i wrote a review for a friend’s website but i hope…since i did write it…it’s okay for me to pop in here too!!

“The Big Idea – Turing & the Computer” – A Review

So with ‘The Imitation Game’ fast approaching I notice many (myself included) have started taking a much more detailed interest into Alan Turing and his life and work.

Now as much as I would highly recommend “Alan Turing – The Enigma” the biography by Andrew Hodges (which I am enjoying immensely!) I know that not everyone would say their interest/time allowance etc. reaches the point where they are willing to dig into this very detailed 500 page book.

Recently I came across “The Big Idea – Turing & the Computer” by Paul Strathern, a much smaller and much quicker read, so I thought I’d give it a go to see if I’d recommend it to anyone just wanting a bit of a brief overview.

To address the good points first – the book is a nice easy read, no crazy complicated science or maths and any that is brought up is well explained. Also it does have a nice little chapter at the start entitled “The BC Era” focusing on the development of the computer up until we reach Turing’s life. Now I can’t account for the accuracy of these facts personally but since the author has a series of these books (other’s including “Einstein & Relativity”, “Hawking & Black Holes”, “Newton & Gravity” etc.) I have no reason to believe any of this information is incorrect.

It might seem strange that I make that point but it’s because – when it comes to the details of Alan’s life it is all very brief (as is most of the book) but as far as I know the details given are fairly accurate – it is when we reach the explanations of his work that my main issue arises.

When reading the small introduction one comes across the phrase “Turing also worked on the Colossus calculating machine, which cracked the German Enigma codes during the Second World War.”

This is NOT true. (Although upon doing some research to write this piece I found there is varying degrees of confusion around this topic in general, so it’s not uncommon that a mistake like this is made)

Basically: (and do feel free to correct me here I’m going by what I’ve very quickly learnt)

• The Colossus was created by Tommy Flowers with input from others.
• It was used to decipher German codes but the “Lorenz Cipher” not Enigma.
• The machine Turing built to crack Enigma was called “The Bombe”
• Turing’s work on the Bombe and ideas around cryptanalysis did contribute to the design of the Colossus but he did not construct it.
• (Also, I believe the Key for the Enigma Machine (at least the one with 3 rotors) was changed once a day, not 3 times a day as this book implies)

This is where the book basically starts confusing itself.

The Bombe is not once mentioned throughout this book as the author clearly seems to have it confused with Colossus. This then means that facts about the Bombe and about the actual Colossus start interweaving with one another. For example, the statements telling us Colossus began operating in 1943 and used vacuum tubes computing in binary are correct, but in other places it uses Colossus where the Bombe is clearly meant.

However, the book does take the correct path on another common misconception when it states Colossus is regarded as the first computer, as this title is often given to the American “ENIAC” machine. This confusion was mainly due to the details of Colossus being kept secret until later in the 20^th century.

So due to this rather….colossal mistake (*smug face* pun intended) being made clear within the first 2 pages it lead to me reading the rest of the book with a small degree of scepticism about the reliability of the facts.

I don’t mean to make out this book is awful, it’s not, and I think if you keep this post in mind it’s a pretty decent way to go if you want a brief overview – though at some points, maybe you are best consulting the internet.

The amazon link to “The Big Idea – Turing & the Computer” is HERE (of course there are other places available along with your regional amazon stores)

The “Further Reading” recommended in this book includes:

• Andrew Hodges: Alan Turing: the enigma (I’ve just realised actually what is printed here is “Alan Hodges”…oh dear…this book is in some serious need of proof-reading)
• David Bolter (at least I hope that’s his name): Turing’s Man: Western Culture in the Computer Age
• Joel Shurkin: Engines of the Mind

Also! I’ve not read this myself yet but from talking to friends I’d also like to add – Jack Copeland:  Turing: Pioneer of the Information Age where I believe more information on Colossus is addressed.

Sometimes it is the people that no one imagines anything of, who do the things that no one can imagine

The Imitation Game, set to hit cinemas in November (14th UK/21st USA) tells the story of Alan Turing and his quest to crack the enigma code during World War II.

UK Trailer

US Trailer

(They are slightly different)

Gosh, i’ve been waiting for this for what seems like forever. Having just completed a maths degree and with friends in computer science, i’m ashamed how little i knew about Turing before i heard about this film being made. Sure i’d heard his name briefly but i never really knew his full importance.

Having watched each trailer now a number of times ( i wont say what number but it’s forever increasing), it seems hard to tell if there will be a topic of main focus for the film. Well, i assume it will be the breaking of the code but bare with me). By that i mean, there’s a range of events hinted at throughout the trailers and i suppose it’s not yet clear if any will fully take centre stage.

As a friend of mine said, it is a 2 hour film about something that took an extremely long time as it is seemingly telling from when Turing began his work on the code up until (i believe) the end of his life.

As i say, as someone who spent the past 3 years doing a maths degree i know that the general reaction to anything maths is to recoil and run as far away as possible and if you say you are studying it out of choice you will get many looks between “rather impressed” and “you have three heads”. So of course there will be some slight artistic liberation (as there is with every film that is based on a true story) to tell the story and tell it right but still fully engage an audience and make sure everything is understandable. So considering the varied nature of the trailers…it’s looking promising so far!!

Those of you unfamiliar with Turing, (i would count these as spoilers but it’s not as if it’s not all out there anyway) he was, along with unfortunately far too many others at that time, prosecuted for being gay. We see the US trailer briefly hints toward his sexuality and the fact that it was considered illegal. As his punishment (which sounds wrong even typing it now) he chose chemical castration, designed to significantly reduce his desires, rather than go to prison.

Now i can’t give much at this point because my knowledge here is extremely limited, but it is believed that he tragically took his own life.

Benedict Cumberbatch who plays Turing here, read a heartbreaking letter, that Turing himself wrote, at a Letters Live event last year.

This can be found HERE and is certainly worth a watch. Benedict had also done some filming by this point too so i’ve been using this as reference of how his voice/accent would be when the film came around!

Other cast members include Keira Knightley, Matthew Goode, Mark Strong and Charles Dance, all of whom i’m greatly looking forward to seeing.

I also believe, though i’ll have to double check, that Alexandre Desplat is doing the score for this film which excited me hugely. He has some gorgeous soundtracks including both of the Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows films. The music in the trailers seems fabulous already so i’m very much hoping to hear the full score when it’s available.

Turing believes machines think,

Turing lies with men,

Therefore machines do not think.

Yours in distress, Alan.