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Movies Forum Index » Movie Reviews Forum » Review: Google Me (2007)
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| Mark R. Leeper |
 Posted: Tue Apr 22, 2008 12:41 pm |
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GOOGLE ME
(a film review by Mark R. Leeper)
CAPSULE: This light-hearted documentary tells of
what Jim Killeen discovered when he went on a
quest to meet and interview other people whose
names were the same as his. He meets a variety
of people and never really comes to any surprising
connections among them, but does just get to know
six other people who by coincidence had his same
name. The documentary is being released first on
YouTube on Friday, April 25, 2008. But the film
is a pleasant way to meet seven people whose names
all happen to be Jim Killeen. Rating: high +1
(-4 to +4) or 6/10
Jim Killeen, a theater major at Wayne State University in
Detroit, went west to be an actor and got two minor parts in two
minor films in the late 1990s. Then one day he was playing
around on the computer and put his own name into Google. To his
surprise he found references to other Jim Killeens. He was
curious about the other Jim Killeens. Who were they? What did
they do? Did it have some common influence on them that he had
had this name Jim Killeen? He decided to investigate who the
other Jim Killeens were. His first find is in Cobh, Ireland, and
is a jovial Irish priest named (well, of course) Jim Killeen.
Father Jim is quietly proud of being a part of the priesthood and
says nothing much unexpected or earth-shattering. His interview
gives the director a chance to color the film with some nice
Irish music and some nice Irish landscapes. The next Jim Killeen
is a retired police detective from New York City. The detective
tells some stories and anecdotes about his career on the police
force. Detective Killeen investigated the carnage the Happyland
Social Club in the Bronx when arson killed 87 people in 1990.
So with a priest and a policeman, do we expect that Jim Killeens
tend to be straight-laced guys? No, Jim Killeen Number 3 of
Denver, Colorado, is a swinger who is into group sex. So we go
from hearing about the ecstasy of being a priest to hearing about
the ecstasy of going to a sex orgy where (not very attractive)
people turn out the lights and grope each other. Jim (the
original) goes as far afield as Australia, Scotland, and Ireland
finding people with the same name.
And so it goes, as Killeen interviews his namesakes and also an
engineering vice-president of Google and discusses with him the
project. Killeen earlier thought that Google might tell him that
they did not want their name associated with the film project.
Not too surprisingly, that was not a problem at all. After all,
the film does not put Google in a bad light. Instead it showed
somebody who had found a creative use for the Google search
engine. That is really what Google is all about. The vice-
president gives a little talk about democratization of data.
Then Jim (the director) has his mother talk a little about Jim.
He clearly wanted to get the film up to feature-film length
without putting his audience to sleep.
In the end there seems to be little more connection among the Jim
Killeens than there would be with men chosen at random. One Jim
Killeen has no children while another has eight. Killeen asks
each what the purpose of life is and he gets six different
answers. Those differences seem hardly surprising. About all
that would be expected of seven people named Jim Killeen is that
they would be male and of Irish or Scottish extraction, at least
if you go far enough back. So with very little content for the
film to cover, Killeen has to hold the viewer by making the film
pleasant. He is an affable man, but it is about all he can do to
find enough to say to save the film from becoming trivial. His
style is light-hearted and just barely has enough material to
keep GOOGLE ME going for its 93-minute length. This is not a
very ambitious film in theme or in aspirations. It will be
showing on YouTube, presumably without cost. It is a
semi-professional, semi-amateur production. It achieves its goals,
and is moderately entertaining. That is probably enough. I rate
it a high +1 on the -4 to +4 scale or 6/10.
Film Credits: <http://us.imdb.com/title/tt1176730/>
Mark R. Leeper
mleeper@optonline.net
Copyright 2008 Mark R. Leeper |
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