Ep 6: Swordfish

Screen Testing

In a Screen Testing first, we take a guest's love for a movie and weaponise it against them. It's no holds barred as (alongside Mark Winteringham) we unravel the film which gathers everything that you love about hacker culture, and adds Vinnie Jones and blowjobs.

There's explicit language from the start, as we wonder why John Travolta's character loves to spoil the ends of movies, we compare Gabriel to a demanding product owner, we crowdfund an interesting (but potentially libelous) reboot, and listen to a disturbing number of candid remarks from the director's commentary.

We find a surprising amount of testing-related content, as we discuss chains of command, deadlines, battles with recruiters, bad interview experiences, user interfaces and flow.

In our desperation to avoid talking about the film, we get sidetracked by whether a cashpoint is a computer, how compound interest works and vehicle emissions standards, all of which are far more entertaining than Swordfish.

YouTube clips of notable Swordfish scenes:

• Gabriel's initial monologue
• The opening explosion
• The interview scene (probably NSFW)
• Censored version of Halle Berry's topless scene
• Gabriel's computer setup and hacking montage

Other References:

• Mark's blog - MW Test Consultancy
• Software Testing Clinic
• Cinema.com: Interview with Halle Berry about Swordfish
• PDF of the near-final Swordfish script, before its final "polishing"
• How Did This Get Made podcast (responsible for many blips in Neil's DVD collection)
• YouTube: Die Another Day - Bond surfs a tsunami
• YouTube: Madonna - Die Another Day (ugh)
• YouTube: John Travolta's Al Pacino impression from Saturday Night Fever
• Verywell: What is Functional Fixedness?
• YouTube: 24 - Jack Bauer falls asleep
• Satisfice.com: James Bach - How Do You Spell Testing? (SFDPO / San Francisco Depot)
• HackerTyper.com
• Den of Geek: What Swordfish teaches us about hacking computers
• Cryptography Engineering Blog: Bad movie cryptography, Swordfish edition
• YouTube: Lethal Weapon 2 - plastic sheet scene
• YouTube: American Psycho - similar scene
• YouTube: Christian Bale's rant on the set of Terminator Salvation
• YouTube: Skyfall hacking scene
• YouTube: Hugh Jackman's butt in X-Men Origins: Wolverine
• Wikipedia: the FBI Carnivore program
• Nordic Testing Days conference (SOLD OUT)

Next up, we're going back to the nineties with Matt Bretten, to see how HACKERS (mostly) managed to get it right. We hope you'll join us in a fortnight!

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Intro music: Swordfish Intro Outro music: Paul Oakenfold feat. Amoebassassin - Get Out Of My Life Now