The fourth feature film from the brilliant and maverick American filmmaker Andrew Bujalski, whose previous works include Funny Ha Ha (the early 00s film that arguably kicked-off the so-called ''mumblecore'' movement of American independent cinema), Mutual Appreciation (an acclaimed comic portrait of love and longing in the Brooklyn indie music scene), and Beeswax (which among its principals starred Alex Karpovsky, the filmmaker and actor who has gone on to renown for his own comedy features and his role in Lena Dunham's Girls).
A boldly intelligent ensemble comedy with a feel and atmosphere that surpass easy comparison, Computer Chess takes place in the early-1980s over the course of a weekend conference where a group of obsessive software programmers have convened to pit their latest refinements in machine-chess and the still-developing field of artificial intelligence (AI) against an assembly of human chess masters. Computer Chess is a portrait not only of the crazy and surreal relationships that come to pass between the abundance of characters who participate in the weekend event (and among whose ranks include Wiley Wiggins, the revered indie-game developer and star of Richard Linklater's classic Dazed and Confused), but of the very era of early computing itself - and of the first, rudimentary video games - and (if that weren't enough) of the hopes and insecurities that persisted through the film's "retro" digital age into the present-day - that semi-virtual, hyper-social, maybe-kind-of-dehumanised landscape that, let s face it, is our very own era. If that still weren't enough: it's also one of the wittiest, most shift-and-cringe-in-your-seat, and entirely LOL-hilarious movies of recent times.
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Supplements
- Feature-length audio commentary by Deep Blue programmer Murray Campbell
- Feature-length audio commentary by an enthusiastic stoner (Kent Osborne)
- Interview with director Andrew Bujalski
- Interview with actor Wiley Wiggins
- Interview with producer Alex Lipschultz
- Sundance Promotion Video
- A video guide to the Sony AVC-3260 camera used in production
- Kickstarter funding video
- Andrew Bujalski's London Film Festival introduction
- Narrated animations of eight historic computer chess games
- Hot Old Personal Computers Internet spots
- Three trailers for the film
- Andrew Bujalski's short 2013 film Analog Goose
- 32-PAGE FULL-COLOUR BOOKLET featuring an essay about the film by Craig Keller, a note on the cover artist, Cliff Spohn; and an array of stills taken behind the scene during the production of the film