Traceroute (2016)

Purely Joyful Movie!

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A geeky nostalgic road movie (get it? traceroute? trace/route? get it? hop hop? nudge nudge?) that follows a pretty crazy dude across a pretty crazy country.'The United States' were really important to young Johannes when growing up in 1980s Krautlandia, so he pays a visit as a pop culture pilgrim. And while Johannes is covering a topic that has been covered a million times before, he brings originality to the film...lots of.You will either really like this doc, or you will be cursing me for wasting 2 hours of your life. Oh well. I'm just sad that he didn't make it to Oklahoma City.

I'm a musician, and there is one thing I absolutely HATE: careless, sloppy, unsystematic soundtracks, especially in documentary films. I know that it's hard to discover good music, but: COME ON! If it's true, Traceroute had a *total* budget of $15,000. There are no excuses anymore!A great soundtrack is more than just a collection of great songs. A great soundtrack pulls a story along while somehow effortlessly blending into the background. The right one can help define a movie; a terrible one can ruin an otherwise decent film.Traceroute relies heavily on its amazing soundtrack to convey the mood of childhood and rebellion, nostalgia and counter-culture, traveling and arriving. There's a retro-electronic vibe present in most of the tracks, but also classical music, and all-time favorites like Vera Lynn's 'We'll Meet Again.'I'm glad the track list is here on IMDb. I need it for my own road trips!

It's funny that I find myself explaining what "Traceroute" is, this command line utility that's almost as old as the Internet itself. Basically, it's used to show how your packages reach a certain destination on the internet from your computer.Now I almost feel like using this movie to describe what Traceroute is. Johannes goes on a kind of coming-of-age journey though he's a full blown adult, tracking the origins and path of his own nerd personality through visits to friends, heroes and important landmarks throughout the US.Johannes knows how to entertain using himself as the material as well as how to drag friends, associates and circumstances to round out the whole journey. Personally, I'm clamoring for a sequel!(I'd give it a 10 out of 10, but I'm in the movie for a blink so it can't be perfect.)

Traceroute is squeezing a lot of (cult) content and philosophy into an engaging film format -- and it is amazing to see how professional and effective the rhythm of visually embedding the (no)storyline unfolds. Achieving this is a real feat, considering that the film is a dense, essayistic road movie without a real "plot" besides driving from A to B. Traceroute works because it is lead by a charismatic (and self-ironic) character, chasing and questioning his own dreams and desires -- and who tries to analyze the state of our civilization. Traceroute doesn't follow the classic structure of a documentary, but succeeds to present a well-crafted pastiche of the past and future of nerd culture. Recommended.