Product Description

The revolution came when we weren't looking. It happened in a garage. In a dorm room. In countless hours of effort imagining and intrigue. Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates were changing the way the world works lives and communicates. The event-packed saga of the quirky visionaries who jump-started the future unfolds with exhilarating cutting-edge style in Pirates of Silicon Valley. Noah Wyle (ER) portrays Jobs and Anthony Michael Hall (The Dead Zone) portrays Gates in this chronicle of the fierce and often humorous battle to rule the fledgling personal computer empire. "The story is almost Shakespearean... it's a tale of lust greed ambition love and hate" writer/director Martyn Burke reflects. And it's a success story unlike any other.Running Time: 97 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 053939699623

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3738 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-08-30
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .20 pounds
• Running time: 97 minutes

Amazon.com
This dramatization of the tangled history of Apple Computer and Microsoft, based on a book by Paul Freiberger and Michael Swaine, hits enough of the right notes to make its failures all the more frustrating. The script follows the entwined paths of Apple's Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates with a pointed sense of the cultural divide between the hip, self-absorbed Apple cofounder and the brilliant alpha geek behind Microsoft's eventual software empire, contrasting the Mac's countercultural underpinnings with the PC's more strait-laced origins. But Pirates of Silicon Valley seemingly can't decide whether it wants to be a serious-minded history of these key figures in the personal computer revolution or a trashy wallow in the more ignoble foibles of its principals. As a result, it falls short of exacting history while never achieving the guilty pleasure it might have.

If Gates has become synonymous with corporate conquest at its most striking, Pirates' interest lies more with Jobs, given a nervous energy and flashes of adolescent selfishness by Noah Wyle, who benefits from a reasonable physical resemblance to the Apple chief. Eyewear and a comb-over do nearly as well for Anthony Michael Hall, who also grafts some of Bill Gates's better-known mannerisms onto his performance and renders Gates as a smart if socially maladroit entrepreneur who, like Jobs, provides the ambition and business savvy to exploit his partner's computing talents. There are a few fanciful touches (Ballmer and Wozniak become Greek choruses, addressing the viewer as they comment on the principals), but the story plays out in straightforward fashion. It's tantalizing to consider how the Apple/PC melodrama might have fared with an edgier, more openly satirical script. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews

Not just for geeks!
For nerds, these two led interesting lives. Steve Jobs may make for a more believable rebel but once you see this documentary you'll see he had his own wild side. Very accurate and keeps a good pace.

Pirates of Silicon Valley
I made a mistake and I ordered two Items of the movie "Pirates of Silicon Valley".Can I sent it back?.

Great film!
When I first saw this film (borrowed it from a friend), I loved it! It helped that I was not aware of the details mentioned in the film about Microsoft and Apple. Its an amazing story of how Steve Jobs and Bill Gates revolutionized the PC industry.

When I came across this on Amazon, I had to buy it!!! If you use a PC, this is a must watch!