The movie you're looking for is The Net, with Sandra Bullock. It came out in 1995.

Exactly - 1995 - it was a century ago! Is there really no material anymore to talk about or what? Can't believe it ...

Well actually there's a direct-to-video sequel to The Net that came out a few years ago.

[/quote] Well actually there's a direct-to-video sequel to The Net that came out a few years ago.[/quote]

Haven't seen that. Does it tell about the social network and about the hundreds of so-called-friends, about advertisements in all such networks etc. etc.? Or about people living is 2nd Life's or Woozworld or whatever all exists and their virtual life versus real life. I guess this all is amazing stuff to use to create great movies.
Or maybe still all this is too new? and we haven't yet figured out what it will be or how it will affect our lives... or just maybe nothing so tragic or special has happened util today that would have triggered such a movie. Weird though.

All that's why I was so disappointed about this particular movie, as the titles seemed to be so promising

Is this because people don't speak/type 'proper' English any more? Either way, it's a subjective point.

Well that certainly makes it worse

But there's a sophisticated brilliance and consistency to written Chinese, and English doesn't really compare. And the direction that written English is heading (r u ready) is certainly not promising. Written Chinese is immune to internetese

There are approximately 47,000 characters in the Chinese written language. There are 26 letters in the English alphabet. How on earth is a system so complicated that it takes a lifetime to learn EVEN AFTER the reforms instituted by the Communists "more logical" than the alphabet?

It doesn't take a lifetime--2 to 3 good years of study and you'll know probably 95% of the characters that you'll ever come in contact with. English letters mean very little due to the deep orthography; there are many words that aren't pronounced like they are spelled, or whose spelling leaves things ambiguous. And alphabet systems become outdated after only three hundred years or so. Ever tried reading something written in the 1500s? Pretty tough. But if you know written Chinese (learning the traditional characters isn't too bad after learning simplified), you can read something written 2000 years ago. Exceedingly few characters have multiple pronunciations. And the characters are an artwork in and of themselves, even the simplified ones.

They may be beautiful, but any linguist will tell you that alphabets are more "logical" than character-based systems.

I don't think too many linguists will actually tell you that

I don't know why you think that an alphabet that regularly does not give a proper indication of how to pronounce a word is logical. The Korean syllabary is outstanding. English? Pretty much as bad as the modern Greek alphabet.

In fact, no linguist will tell you that. Or should.

I am in full agreement with James' review on this one with one minor exception. I thought Eisenberg's performance was very good, but "deserving of an Oscar" is pushing it a bit too far. Playing beyond expectations is too often awarded big accolades, like Sandra Bullock winning an Oscar for acting better than she ever had before. Eisenberg has shown greater range with this role than has previously been on display in his other films, but Oscar material? Not quite yet.

For me one of the best aspects of this film was the story-telling structure employed by Sorkin - jumping back and forth between depositions and narrative was truly effective.

The movie you're looking for is Tron. It came out in 1982. There will be a sequel soon.

I might give you Korean, as they have arguably the most sense-making system of writing language, but not Chinese

I love how this thread has digressed into a debate over the qualities of various methods of communication, which is basically what this movie is about (and, to some extent, what all movies are about!).

Continue.

That's probably because you didn't grow up speaking Chinese--I think that if you did, you would find Chinese to be far more logical than the sometimes arbitrary spelling/pronunciation of English.

Haha, this was even 2 centuries ago And not convinced at all if the sequels on these 2 movies will improve the situation But in any case thank you, Ken, being with me .

I was thinking for a moment that maybe the whole cinema-world is so old-fashioned (the average age of directors etc) that they just are not themselves into it deep enough to understand or even willing to understand or to see it's influece...

Sorry, I must squeeze a mighty blast on the bullshit horn.

What exactly makes the Chinese language more logical than English? More to the point, what on earth do you mean? I feel if people must make such a controversial statement, they should back it up with solid facts (see all arguments for climate change).

For one thing, many of the characters (particularly the classical ones but also the modern ones) have an inner logic to their construction--what elements they use, etc. for another thing, using a character-based system permits one to read a 2500 year old text. Try reading Beowulf--not too easy, is it? The logic is in creating a timeless writing system

That kinda flies out the window though when Mao modernizes the language