MikePadgett.com

• Director: Robert De Niro
• United States, 2006
• 

Matt Damon’s got a tough job here. On the one hand he needs to play the absolute stoic, for whom life-changing decisions are met wordlessly with little more than a glassy stare. On the other, he needs us to empathise with him as his personal life falls apart because he puts his country first.

Damon’s a pretty capable stoic, even if he’s pretty doubtful at everything else. His Tom Ripley was unfathomable, inscrutable. His Will Hunting was frustratingly brittle. And he’s got great support on paper: John Turturro (a wonderfully understated turn), Angelina Jolie (unforgivably miscast in a skeletal role), Michael Gambon, Alec Baldwin, William Hurt. Even Joe Pesci pops up briefly to lend a hand.

Trouble is, it doesn’t quite work. Though The Good Shepherd is a period piece, second time director De Niro can’t rely on nostalgia to warm our cockles as he did in A Bronx Tale. As a facsimile Cold War political thriller, it’s agreeably chilly, but the human story that acts as power generator struggles to get going and we’re left freezing outside.

First, there was panic over students using the World Wide Web to cheat on their essays.

Then it was revealed that CIA employees had been doctoring Wikipedia articles on the subject of such public menaces as President Ahmadinejad and Oprah Winfrey.

The Internet and Hard Fact have always enjoyed a difficult relationship. Sometimes the truths were held to be self-evident to all but the most gullible users (remember the Nigerian 419 Scam?); others were open to interpretation (cf. the Taser incidents at the Universities of Florida and Los Angeles respectively).

For millions around the world, Wikipedia is the cutting edge of information delivery. At the time of writing, the website claims to deliver in the region of 8.2 million articles in 253 languages [source] - it’s a veritable fountain of knowledge, much to the bitter chagrin of commercial encyclopaedia publishers.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia and access to content is free. Whereas access to the 120,000+ online articles provided by a leading commercial encyclopaedia is normally about £5.00 per month. Put it that way and a couple of key points emerge:

• You’re more likely to expect (and forgive) if a bit of inaccuracy creeps into 8.2 million freely available articles in 253 languages
• A commercial encyclopaedia couldn’t compete, even with “a staff of 19 full-time editors and over 4,000 expert contributors” [Encyclopaedia Britannica, source]. more likely to be biased

We don’t really have any numbers on Wikipedia vandalism. One or two concerned parties have taken to documenting outrages, often with the righteous indignation of a juror.

Meantime, those of us on the fringe of the debate might be inclined to see the funny side. Am I the only puerile fool barely able to stifle a giggle at Bill Gates’ portrait defaced with a silly moustache? Or the assertion that George Washington “had a shit on a stick and then told people that it was OK to have unprotected sex …”? Or this non-sequitor I found this evening?

About eight years ago when I was still a student, I visited New York and Washington DC. Washington is home to many of the United States’ government agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, whose headquarters I toured like a good little tourist.

As well as the historical and scientific elements and the obligatory firearms display, at the end of one corridor there was an inocuous-looking wall display. It turned out to be a kind of leaderboard for the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted.

Yes, it’s a lengthy preamble, but I was eventually going to come around to a couple of United Kingdom equivalents [1],[2], [3].

The Crimestoppers site is relatively new. According to a BBC news article, it received 350,000 hits in its first day live. Even the fervently archantitech amongst the mandarins in Whitehall must have noted that.

However, it seems that our nation’s leaders have a bit further to go before they truly appreciate the scope of the Internet. It seems today that the Home Office, ever confident of the infinite wisdom of its management cadres, has announced that sex offenders may be forced to register their email addresses and chatroom handles.

Presumably this glorious concept will allow those who run websites to sort the fiddlers from the tiddlers, so to speak.

The internet child safety expert of children’s charity NCH applauds the idea. Well, perhaps the expert needs to be retrained, because whilst a Most Wanted mugshot is fairly hard to fake, an internet identity is not.

• Director: Spike Lee
• United States, 2006
• 

Spike Lee’s bank heist movie feels like it’s been buffed to a high shine. There’s absolutely no dirt on Inside Man: the characters are impeccably attired and sharp as glass, whilst the cool marble halls of the bank - in which most of the action takes place - are a far cry from the grimy heat of Dog Day Afternoon (which actually gets a mention in the script).

Inside Man is intelligent, stylish, literate, even occasionally witty. But it’s disappointing to find that your engagement with the movie is limited to the appreciation of its cleverness.

Ultimately then, this movie is a limo kitted out with one-way glass. You’ll admire it from a distance as it passes by, but there’s no way you’ll be invited to take a ride in it.