The title of Jenny Carchman's film is “The Most Shocking Scandal in the History of Silicon Valley” and it actually lives up to that high bar. Produced by Allyson Luchak (who worked on the groundbreaking “The Staircase”), “Whatever It Takes” is the story of Ina and David Steiner, a normal, pleasant couple who had a deep interest in online commerce and wrote about the changes in the industry on his EcommerceBytes blog, which had been around in some form since 1999. The site features news, but that naturally leads to unbridled criticism coming through the comments sections, and life at eBay was a bit tense back in the decade. 2010. When someone aggressively tweeted at the Steiners about the damage they were causing the company, it seemed relatively harmless at first. It quickly turned into something much darker.
The Steiners faced continued and terrifying harassment over the next few months, including an attempted delivery of a fetus pig, an actual delivery of a “Saw” mask, live insects, and even a shipment that included a book about living without your spouse. . —a not-so-vague threat against at least one of their lives. Was crazy, escalating to robberies and someone literally following the Steiners in a van. Everyone involved is lucky that no one was physically hurt – a scene where David has just been followed and then the stalkers order a pizza for his house made me think about how easily Steiner could have shot the man who pulled out a leather case. black on the back. from his car in the middle of the night.
Without giving too much away, it's not difficult to figure out who was behind the harassment, but the ridiculousness of this story only grows as it is revealed. Interoffice affairs, training via clips from “Training Day” and “Full Metal Jacket,” general toxicity of sexist bullshit: “Whatever It Takes” is the kind of story that would seem unbelievable if it were a Hollywood script. In other words, it's a documentary filmmaker's dream come true.
A very different story unfolds in Alison Tavel's deeply personal and moving story. “Resinator” the story of a woman who tries to learn something about the work of a father she never met and discovers much more than she could have imagined. “Resynator” runs out of chords to play before it ends, repeating many of its best ideas and revelations, but Tavel is remarkably likable and it's easy to root for his journey to success, finding closure in a way that most of us who have lost loved ones we could never imagine. “Resynator” is about a device that turns organic sound into something technical; The film attempts the same reverse journey, finding strength through human emotions like grief rather than the details of how this technology works.
