Film Connections
In keeping with the theme of this year's book selection, we have put together a list of current movies that connects to the themes of various chapters in The Signal and the Noise.
| Category | Title | Synopsis | Poster |
|---|---|---|---|
| Economy/Business Chapter 1: A Catastrophic Failure of Prediction Chapter 6: How to Drown in Three Feet of Water Chapter 11: If You Can’t Beat ’Em… |
The Big Short (2015) | Four denizens in the world of high-finance predict the credit and housing bubble collapse of the mid-2000s, and decide to take on the big banks for their greed and lack of foresight. |  |
| Inside Job (2010) | Takes a closer look at what brought about the financial meltdown. |  |
|
| Too Big to Fail (2011) | Chronicles the financial meltdown of 2008 and centers on Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. |  |
|
| The Social Network (2010) | Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg creates the social networking site that would become known as Facebook, but is later sued by two brothers who claimed he stole their idea, and the co-founder who was later squeezed out of the business. |  |
|
| Political Pundits Chapter 2: Are You Smarter than a Television Pundit? |
The Ides of March (2011) | An idealistic staffer for a new presidential candidate gets a crash course on dirty politics during his stint on the campaign trail. |  |
| Milk (2008) | The story of Harvey Milk, and his struggles as an American gay activist who fought for gay rights and became California's first openly gay elected official. |  |
|
| Baseball Chapter 3: All I Care about is W’s and L’s |
Moneyball (2011) | Oakland A's general manager Billy Beane's successful attempt to assemble a baseball team on a lean budget by employing computer-generated analysis to acquire new players. |  |
| Weather Chapter 4: For Years You’ve Been Telling Us that Rain is Green Chapter 5: Desperately Seeking Signal |
San Andreas (2015) | In the aftermath of a massive earthquake in California, a rescue-chopper pilot makes a dangerous journey with his ex-wife across the state in order to rescue his daughter. |  |
| Twister (1996) | Bill and Jo Harding, advanced storm chasers on the brink of divorce, must join together to create an advanced weather alert system by putting themselves in the cross-hairs of extremely violent tornadoes. |  |
|
| Medicine Chapter 7: Role Models |
Contagion (2011) | Healthcare professionals, government officials and everyday people find themselves in the midst of a worldwide epidemic as the CDC works to find a cure. |  |
|
Gambling Chapter 8: Less and Less and Less Wrong |
21 (2008) | "21" is the fact-based story about six MIT students who were trained to become experts in card counting and subsequently took Vegas casinos for millions in winnings. |  |
| Rat Race (2001) | A Las Vegas casino magnate, determined to find a new avenue for wagering, sets up a race for money. |  |
|
|
Chess Chapter 9: Rage Against the Machines |
Brooklyn Castle (2012) | Amidst financial crises and unprecedented public school budget cuts, Brooklyn Castle takes an intimate look at the challenges and triumphs facing members of a junior high school's champion chess team. |  |
| Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (2003) | Garry Kasparov is arguably the greatest chess player who has ever lived. In 1997 he played a chess match against IBM's computer Deep Blue. Kasparov lost the match. This film shows the match and the events surrounding it from Kasparov's perspective. |  |
|
| Pawn Sacrifice (2014) | Set during the Cold War, American chess prodigy Bobby Fischer finds himself caught between two superpowers and his own struggles as he challenges the Soviet Empire. |  |
|
| Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993) | A prepubescent chess prodigy refuses to harden himself in order to become a champion like the famous but unlikable Bobby Fischer. |  |
|
|
Poker Chapter 10: The Poker Bubble |
Casino Royale (2006) | Armed with a license to kill, Secret Agent James Bond sets out on his first mission as 007 and must defeat a weapons dealer in a high stakes game of poker at Casino Royale, but things are not what they seem. |  |
| Deal (2008) | As an ex-gambler teaches a hot-shot college kid some things about playing cards, he finds himself pulled into the world series of poker, where his protégé is his toughest competition. |  |
|
|
Global Warming/Climate Change Chapter 12: A Climate of Healthy Skepticism |
An Inconvenient Truth (2006) | Director Davis Guggenheim eloquently weaves the science of global warming with Al Gore's personal history and lifelong commitment to reversing the effects of global climate change in the most talked-about documentary at Sundance. |  |
| The Day after Tomorrow (2004) | Jack Hall, paleoclimatologist, must make a daring trek across America to reach his son, trapped in the cross-hairs of a sudden international storm which plunges the planet into a new Ice Age. |  |
|
| Snowpiercer (2013) | Set in a future where a failed climate-change experiment kills all life on the planet except for a lucky few who boarded the Snowpiercer, a train that travels around the globe, where a class system emerges. |  |
|
| Waterworld (1995) | In a future where the polar ice-caps have melted and Earth is almost entirely submerged, a mutated mariner fights starvation and outlaw "smokers," and reluctantly helps a woman and a young girl try to find dry land. |  |
|
|
Terrorism Chapter 13: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You |
Pearl Harbor (2001) | Pearl Harbor follows the story of two best friends, Rafe and Danny, and their love lives as they go off to join the war. |  |
| Zero Dark Thirty (2012) | A chronicle of the decade-long hunt for al-Qaeda terrorist leader Osama bin Laden after the September 2001 attacks, and his death at the hands of the Navy S.E.A.L.s Team 6 in May 2011. |  |