Dwight's 15 geekiest movies

Tech journalist Dwight Silverman, a former film critic, has published his list of top movies for geeks.

I am as much a film geek as a tech geek. In a previous life, I reviewed music and movies, and had lots more fun with the latter. If someone offered me a film-review job that paid my mortgage, I'd take it in a second, but I have a feeling that will remain a part of my past rather than become my future.

Sadly, most of the film reviews I wrote back then are not online . . . I'd love to share the absolutely horrible review I wrote of The Story of O for the Daily Texan, circa 1975. But alas . . .

Geeks and movies go together quite nicely. I've been thinking about films that reflect tech and geek culture, and have pulled together a list of 15 movies that should probably be on any geek's must-see list.

Movies on Dwight's list include Brazil, The Matrix, a couple of Star Treks, War Games, Repo Man and Office Space, about which Dwight says ...

No film has captured what it's like to work at an "enlightened" high-tech workplace as has Office Space, which bombed when first released but has become a cult hit on DVD. Who among us hasn't wanted to smash the office fax machine with a baseball bat while profane hip hop plays in the background?

I came to to 1999's Office Space late, having watched it for the first time just a few months ago. Ever since, I've been channeling boss-from-hell Bill Lumbergh ("Yeah, I'm going to have to ask you to just go ahead and NOT waste time reading wavLength today.")

Like Dwight, I love Shaun of the Dead:

This is both the best parody of a zombie movie ever made, and the best zombie movie ever made. All zombie movies are political commentary -- the masses are mindless and dangerous, yada yada -- but few of them have as much fun with it as this one. In Shaun of the Dead, the heroes are misfits and geeks who bust through the conventions of zombie filmdom. It will be hard to make a zombie movie with a straight face from here on out.

...but I don't get what makes it a geek movie.