Sentimental pseudo-techno-tripe

Rating: 1/10 (21 May 2014)

Spike Jonze/Adam Spiegel sets up easy-to-knock-down situations, taking pot shots at generic targets which have no bulls-eyes at their center, just great big easy-to-hit circles. Yes, it's true people are having others write their intimate missives - so what, they were doing it in the 19th century - what's new? Yes, people seem to spend more time talking into machines than with each other. Wasn't that the complaint about A.G. Bell's new contraption? Isn't that "other people" they're talking to on the other end?
In the end SJ/AS is a techno-sentamentalist, decrying the medium because he can't find the message. This is a paean for the generation that looooooves to Kvetch. Any 3 minutes of Silicon Valley is orders of magnitude superior to this uninspired pulp.
To live a life w/o hope or humor, creativity or imagination is deeply disturbing, but to depict such a life in a film which is itself (deliberately or not) devoid of hope, humor, creativity or imagination is inexcusable. And to applaud such a work as worthy of esteem & major awards is to pander to the worst aspects of our Hollywood-spawned culture's self-referential obsession.