Traceroute

I discovered this documentary through Jason Scott, a digital historian and filmmaker, who is one of the people featured in Traceroute. Jason recommended the film, and now I understand why. It is a dense, colorful and challenging road trip through the history of nerd culture. Our host, artist and self-proclaimed nerd, Johannes Grenzfurthner shares his life, his obsessions and his worldview with us. I have to admit that I never heard of him before watching the film, but now I want to go grab a beer with him. Two thumbs up!

I'm a musician, and there is one thing I absolutely HATE: careless, sloppy, unsystematic soundtracks, especially in documentary films. I know that it's hard to discover good music, but: COME ON! If it's true, Traceroute had a *total* budget of $15,000. There are no excuses anymore!

A great soundtrack is more than just a collection of great songs. A great soundtrack pulls a story along while somehow effortlessly blending into the background. The right one can help define a movie; a terrible one can ruin an otherwise decent film.

Traceroute relies heavily on its amazing soundtrack to convey the mood of childhood and rebellion, nostalgia and counter-culture, traveling and arriving. There's a retro-electronic vibe present in most of the tracks, but also classical music, and all-time favorites like Vera Lynn's 'We'll Meet Again.'

I'm glad the track list is here on IMDb. I need it for my own road trips!

A captivating documentary, not only about nerds, but the human condition: obsession, longing, hubris, greatness. Grenzfurthner introduces himself as a tour guide through nerdvana, very ironic and self-aware, but also deeply honest about his upbringing, his interests and his political views. Some of the places, subjects and people are bizarre, some insightful and some politically and socially challenging, but always fun. That is the brilliance of Traceroute.

It's funny that I find myself explaining what "Traceroute" is, this command line utility that's almost as old as the Internet itself. Basically, it's used to show how your packages reach a certain destination on the internet from your computer.

Now I almost feel like using this movie to describe what Traceroute is. Johannes goes on a kind of coming-of-age journey though he's a full blown adult, tracking the origins and path of his own nerd personality through visits to friends, heroes and important landmarks throughout the US.

Johannes knows how to entertain using himself as the material as well as how to drag friends, associates and circumstances to round out the whole journey. Personally, I'm clamoring for a sequel!

(I'd give it a 10 out of 10, but I'm in the movie for a blink so it can't be perfect.)

I was immediately drawn into this film.

As a certified old hacker, the Traceroute message really resonated with me as I watched Mr. Grenzfurthner explore the culture that made him - and me - what we are today. From the opening scenes, all the way to the credits, I have to say that I was hooked on the nerd, and what he had to say about things, pretty much word for word.

Thorough superlative command of geek language, Mr. Grenzfurthner's painstaking, Austrian-level attention to road-trip details provides much to unpack. Who hasn't wanted to take the Golden Nerd Tour from West to East coasts, visiting all the important sites in hacker culture history, with rockets and pornstar-cum-hackers and aliens and movie stars, obscure scientists and techno legends alike, guiding the way?

I'm sure I'd sign up for this mythical bus tour in my old age, as long as we could have a slightly more geriatric Mr. Grenzfurthner as tour guide, and by then I'm quite confident he would have found ever more exceptional means to bake true meaning into the simplest of hacker things.

Lick the prop! See this movie!