Starring: Noah Wyle, Joey Slotnick, J.G. Hertzler, Anthony Michael Hall, Wayne Pére Directed By: Martyn Burke Average Rating: Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Audience Rating: Unrated Binding: DVD Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC Label: Turner Home Ent Number of Items: 1 Region Code: 1 Release Date: August 30, 2005 Running Time: 97 minutes Theatrical Release Date: June 20, 1999
Product Description: The revolution came when we weren't looking. It happened in a garage. In a dorm room. In countless hours of effort imagining and intrigue. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates were changing the way the world works lives and communicates. The event-packed saga of the quirky visionaries who jump-started the future unfolds with exhilarating cutting-edge style in Pirates of Silicon Valley. Noah Wyle (ER) portrays Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone) portrays Gates in this chronicle of the fierce and often humorous battle to rule the fledgling personal computer empire. "The story is almost Shakespearean... it's a tale of lust greed ambition love and hate" writer/director Martyn Burke reflects. And it's a success story unlike any other.Running Time: 97 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 053939699623
Amazon.com: This dramatization of the tangled history of Apple Computer and Microsoft, based on a book by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, hits enough of the right notes to make its failures all the more frustrating. The script follows the entwined paths of Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates with a pointed sense of the cultural divide between the hip, self-absorbed Apple cofounder and the brilliant alpha geek behind Microsoft's eventual software empire, contrasting the Mac's countercultural underpinnings with the PC's more strait-laced origins. But Pirates of Silicon Valley seemingly can't decide whether it wants to be a serious-minded history of these key figures in the personal computer revolution or a trashy wallow in the more ignoble foibles of its principals. As a result, it falls short of exacting history while never achieving the guilty pleasure it might have.
If Gates has become synonymous with corporate conquest at its most striking, Pirates' interest lies more with Jobs, given a nervous energy and flashes of adolescent selfishness by Noah Wyle, who benefits from a reasonable physical resemblance to the Apple chief. Eyewear and a comb-over do nearly as well for Anthony Michael Hall, who also grafts some of Bill Gates's better-known mannerisms onto his performance and renders Gates as a smart if socially maladroit entrepreneur who, like Jobs, provides the ambition and business savvy to exploit his partner's computing talents. There are a few fanciful touches (Ballmer and Wozniak become Greek choruses, addressing the viewer as they comment on the principals), but the story plays out in straightforward fashion. It's tantalizing to consider how the Apple/PC melodrama might have fared with an edgier, more openly satirical script. --Sam Sutherland
The truth of the computer world While not completely accurate, according to Woz, it is very informative, and a good film to watch. To see how we got all the computer info we have, and those responsible for it. Worth the cost.
They changed the World! This dramatization about Apple and Microsoft and focusing primarily on Steve Jobs and Bill Gates is an excellent peek into the early PC industry. Gates is the marketing genius. Jobs it the visionary genius.
Pirates of Silicon Valley does an excellent job of capturing some of the feelings, emotions and personalities of these two driven men who helped to change the world in the last quarter of the century and are still changing it today.
This movie is a good start to understanding what it was like to be part of creating an entire industry from scratch. Jobs and Gates were in the right place at the right time and had the right drive to help them become giants. The movie also does a good job of exploring some of their flaws.
Well worth the time...
Triumph of the Nerds is another movie that is worth the time to see. It fills in some of stories of the other participants in the PC revolution.
The Re-Discovery of Common Sense: A Guide to: The Lost Art of Critical Thinking
Informative and Interesting It's not a great movie, but it gives you a behind the scenes look at the evolution / revolution of the computer and software and the men behind the push that made a difference.
Want to know how it started? A great "made for TV" movie, gives you the idea of how the PC world started. Would recommend for any "Geek"
very entertaining This movie gives an entertaining and informative view of how both microsoft and apple started. it is amazing that in such a short time since this movie was released, how things have changed so much!
Anything Goes Trivia
Last Kiss
Megaton Man
Trevor
