BlazeLime Strong and Moving!

Afouotos Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Hayden Kane There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

rsj624 --WARNING: There may be some spoilers ahead for those who haven't seen the film, so just a heads up. In order to accurately review this film, it may be necessary to talk about some key moments.--Computer Chess is very much so an insiders game, and in all fairness, while it may have it's audience, it's as inaccessible and boring a film as they come. Now I for one love looking for a good movie that offers something different or has a unique quality to it that separates it from the rest; but when it feels like said insider's game is more condescending than it is an inside look, or utilizes intelligence at the expense of being interesting, then it's easily one of the worst types of film you can experience, and Computer Chess fits that bill. I was anxious to watch this movie, it seemed like an awesome retro indie film that was going to have some style, personality, substance, and real panache to it, but instead it was a lifeless portrayal of an earlier age of computers that I find hard to believe was THIS boring even among it's most intellectual and socially awkward; and if in fact it was this way ( since I conceit to having no experience with a hobby like this before viewing this film), then why make a movie about individuals who are in no way interesting and who are trying to create the perfect program to beat each others computers at chess? Admittedly it has it's moments, but those are so few and only make up roughly 3 minutes worth of the whole movie. Computer Chess was set up to be as authentic as possible in how it was developed but I found it just translated very poorly into a fun experience, especially with it's kooky and at times creepy paralleling spiritual story that seemed poised for a perfect juxtaposition, but rather felt very misplaced, bizarre and more like blatantly awkward filler.It almost seems to thumb it's nose at popular culture in the worst possible way by going against every conceivable norm in cinema that it can. The acting is sub-par (granted the actors were nonprofessional), the plot barley existent, the music is mostly horrible, the cinematography comes off as forced art more a product of our current times than 1980, conversations are filled with jargon or flat out just not interesting even at their most basic, the cast on a whole is unappealing, the concept dated, the choice to film in black and white hurts more than it helps; honestly the list goes on and this movie is just a headache. A major disappointment and very hard to sit through, but I managed. To anyone who enjoyed this movie I applaud you; I'm sure I must be missing something since it wasn't reviewed poorly, but to me, I would never watch it again or recommend it to anyone unless they were seriously into either computer chess, chess, or the history of computer technology in general. It's just flat out boring.

SgtPluck Films about sport tend to suffer from the fact that it's extremely difficult to adequately recreate sporting action, as most actors play sports about as well as most sportspeople act. This can't be said about chess, which presents another problem for the filmmaker: Films about chess tend to suffer greatly from the fact that chess dosn't really work as a spectator sport. Whilst field games can be convincingly condensed into action set-pieces, chess games go on for days with little obvious progression or tactics to those not deeply versed in it. The more successful attempts have thus tended to have very little chess in them, focusing instead on the personalities involved (Bobby Fischer Vs. The World) or the sacrifices involved in making it in any sport (Searching For Bobby Fischer). Computer Chess instead chooses to see the humour in it, intentionally coming across as a VHS-era oddity found in a skip in Omaha.Much like any good chess film, this film isn't really about chess. Instead, it pivots around a very brief and particular moment in the early 1980s when the prospect of a computer beating a grandmaster was cause for alarm rather than a quiz question as a group of computer scientists convene on a nondescript hotel for a computer chess tournament. The modern tech revolution was born in such enthusiasms, not that anyone cared at the time. The main joy of the film comes from how it sidesteps the problems involved in trying to make a compelling film about chess by avoiding chess scenes for the most part. It's more so an off-kilter ensemble comedy about very intelligent people battling with the limitations of state-of-the-art computer technology (a comedic highlight is the programmer whose computer constantly plays to lose in seeming rebellion against its master), their own social skills and a coldly indifferent outside world that won't let them use the hotel's conference room. The film is shot in grainy black and white so as to look like a cheap documentary from the period, which makes the massive computers and mustaches look a lot more believable. Unfortunately, it's too believable at times, with intentional jump cuts and out-of-sync audio drawing too much attention to the self-consciously "quirky" nature of the film at the expense of cohesion, giving the film an episodic structure. Some of these episodes are brilliant, whereas others are just bemusing. Scenes where characters discuss questions in artificial intelligence and the possibilities of their giant computers are juxtaposed with computer programmers unintentionally participating in self-help seminars and endless shots of cats. Maybe this is intended as some sort of comment on the origins of the internet and what it eventually became. But when watching Computer Chess, these differing elements tend to cross over one another and leave any viewers without a very deadpan sense of humour feeling very lost.On the whole it's a fascinating take on a moment in time: funny and frequently brilliant but also difficult and obscure. It's worth watching, but will probably be loved by a small core of people, liked by a few more and leave many others cold.

Jeff_34 If you are out of sleeping pills or have insomnia.Guaranteed to put you to sleep. I actually had a fabulous nap - 2 or 3 of them actually - while attempting to keep my eyes open. There might have been a premise somewhere in there but only the director and his friends could tell you about it since everyone else will be fast asleep - or doing the neck dance of nodding in and out of sleep.Computers, chess, retro, dry dialogue, vintage cameras.... on paper this could have been fun and quirky and a nice time. Anyway, next time you feel too wired to sleep and don't have any substances to help you, put this on and you'll conk out in minutes (that or throw your TV against the wall).

Turfseer In 1984, I was invited by a friend to a poker game, who happened to have the latest in video equipment at the time and taped all the raunchy conversations between the games' participants, for most of the night. With a little editing, I mind's well submit this old tape to the Sundance Festival. Given the current mindset of most film critics today, with their preening and slavish devotion to anything in the least nostalgic, I might have a good chance of winning some kind of award.I can find no other explanation as to why the critics were taken in by 'Computer Chess', except for this love of nostalgia. Certainly it's not the Computer Chess plot that is at all engaging; creator Andrew Bujalski saw to that. But what he did do was shot the film on the old Portapak cameras, giving one the impression that this mockumentary, about a computer chess convention, actually took place in the early 1980s. As we gaze up on the screen, we see that Bujalski mimics old video--the dimensions aren't large enough to fill the entire theater screen (just like my old 1984 video appears, when I play it back on my computer today). Bujalski also populates the screen with images of beloved old computers and text from word processors, which none of us have seen in decades. So it's a sort of hypnotism that's going on here. It doesn't really matter what happens as far as the story is concerned. It's a meandering affair, where we can get the basic idea in the first fifteen minutes. Think 'The Big Bang Theory' meets 'Bobby Fischer'. A group of nerds have developed software programs, which they pit against one another over games of chess. The games take place at a low-rent hotel where there are two other groups in attendance: a new age group led by a guru from Africa and a bunch of swingers. Bujalski is actually aiming for laughs in this lightweight spoof. His main nerd is a boorish guy who discovers that the hotel never received his reservation, so he's forced to crash in different rooms of his fellow convention attendees, every night. Due to a mix up, the nerds must share their convention room with the new age group and there's also another bit, where a libidinous couple attempts to seduce another one of the nerds, without success.Computer Chess is strictly for those who have a nostalgic longing for the early 80s. It's a film with a little style but virtually no substance. While Bujalski looks sympathetically at his computer nerds, their machinations are of little consequence. For more sophisticated film-goers, avoid this lightweight debacle, like the plague.