Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

news.ycombinator.com

71–80 of 237 posts

Re: Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

#71
post #24

Gattaca, because so many people limit themselves by what they think is possible.

Andrew Niccol's movies are always thought provoking. Even his Netflix movie Anon .

I loved Gattaca. I've seen it many times.

I tried to like Anon, but I didn't. Same thing with another one his movies, "In Time"

Re: Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

#72
post #20

Jodorowsky's The Holy Mountain

Everything from Jodorowsky is great. Especially this one particular movie, which is probably the most famous one that was never made.

It was made. Are you talking about his version of Dune?

Re: Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

#74
Macross: Do You Remember Love? (超時空要塞マクロス 愛・おぼえていますか)

I saw it in the movie room at a con, and learned:

(a) there was a world of sci-fi beyond the US

(b) it's possible to follow a movie with neither subs nor dubs

(c) the Itano Circus (板野サーカス) was unlike anything I'd ever seen on screen

Re: Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

#75
post #8

Synecdoche NY, specifically this scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9PzSNy3xj0 But there is also a scene (which I cannot find online) where the main character (a playwright) is explaining that the only way to make his play work is to make everybody a main character. He realizes that everybody, everywhere, is living out a rich life and that they're the main character of that life. It is a fantastic movie and i hi…

Oh my.

I love Philip Seymour Hoffman (RIP), but I found Synecdoche, New York to be sooo incredibly anti-interesting in its multiple layers of ironically unironic self-indulgence that I really truly hated the film.

I have never had such a strongly negative reaction to any other movie. I'm having trouble thinking of a somehwat-close second. Maybe Blue Velvet?

If I heard someone else say that, I'd imagine that they had missed something, or just didn't "get it", but I don't think that's the case! :)

Re: Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

#76
Fight Club qnd The Matrix have already been mentioned, and they continue to sink in.

Dakota 38 (documentary about a 330-mile memorial run/ride for the Lincoln-ordered execution of 38 (and later two more) Dakota people on December 26, 1862. The full movie is on YT, and here's an MPR article about it: https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/12/23/descendants-of-exec... This impacted me because I grew up in MN, didn't learn this in school, and it reminded me that indigenous Americans are still around despite efforts by dominant American culture to squash them.

Re: Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

#78

Once you’re familiar with bible, aristotle, platoe snd few other foundational sources - no movie or book can really change your perception. Whatever you see - It’s all been described many times.

I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while without coming up with anything to post, and I think this is part of why: the handful of titles I can come up with were influential to me around ages 12-18 but I now consider a bit trite (I’ve now read and watched their influences…) and I’ve watched and enjoyed a lot of films since then, but I mostly get mood and vibes out of film these days. I think it’s because some time in high school I began to outrun, if you will, the maturity of the films I was watching with the reading I was doing.

Re: Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

#79
post #45

Blade Runner, as it was the first one I saw that was about the meaning of memories and beliefs. I actually liked The 6th Day when it comes to ideas of our "natural" view on identity and ownership of individual assets etc. Matrix, of course, for its search for reality/truth behind ones inherited perceptions, no matter what consequences (there are more ideas in the movies, though).

Blade Runner 2049 got me thinking a lot about what “real” or “authentic” mean.

it's why i thank chatgpt after a great answer, and feel there's some value in personifying AI

even if they're not actually human, we still are

Re: Ask HN: What movies changed your perception of reality or life?

#80
post #69
post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's the same David Mitchell.

Very much not, although both are English. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mitchell_(author) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Mitchell_(comedian)

Ah. Thank you for the information.
Post reply on HN