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Ask HN: Any movies that changed your life?

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Re: Ask HN: Any movies that changed your life?

#71

Post by jeffwass »

api wrote: post #23

I have too many to list. Here are some of the highlights that come to mind. 2001: A Space Odyssey -- had a profound effect on me as a child. It both reinforced my interest in science and opened my mind to the sheer size and scale and mystery of the universe. The original Cosmos series did likewise, and I think it's far better than the remake with Tyson. Sagan just communicates the sense of awe and wonder a lot better…

Primer is awesome, one of the few (if not the only) time-travel movies worth watching. It's the only movie I ever watched in entirety the very next day after seeing it the first time.

Re: Ask HN: Any movies that changed your life?

#72

Post by api »

jeffwass wrote: post #71
api wrote: post #23

I have too many to list. Here are some of the highlights that come to mind. 2001: A Space Odyssey -- had a profound effect on me as a child. It both reinforced my interest in science and opened my mind to the sheer size and scale and mystery of the universe. The original Cosmos series did likewise, and I think it's far better than the remake with Tyson. Sagan just communicates the sense of awe and wonder a lot better…

Primer is awesome, one of the few (if not the only) time-travel movies worth watching. It's the only movie I ever watched in entirety the very next day after seeing it the first time.

I'd also recommend Upstream Color, which has an almost more creatively baroque yet strangely logical plot.

Maybe mix it with this:

http://www.amazon.com/Parasite-Rex-Bizarre-Dangerous-Creatur...

Re: Ask HN: Any movies that changed your life?

#75

Post by scott_karana »

simonebrunozzi wrote: post #26
sogen wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Future Boy Conan and Grave of the Fireflies.

Why?

There was an article/thread about Grave of the Fireflies in particular, just yesterday. I strongly recommend reading the article, at least. :-)

https://medium.com/dan-sanchez/miyazaki-s-beautiful-antiwar-...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10037010

Re: Ask HN: Any movies that changed your life?

#76

Post by apolymath »

sogen wrote: post #12
ak217 wrote: post #10

The Matrix and Miyazaki's movies. Maybe didn't change my life, but had a lasting impact.

Future Boy Conan and Grave of the Fireflies.

I saw Grave of the Fireflies last night for the first time, and it has helped me realize how vital it is for everyone to eat healthy food every day. People take this for granted and eat horribly, and you wonder why so many people are bipolar or depressed or crazy.

Re: Ask HN: Any movies that changed your life?

#78

Post by Mz »

Apollo 13 provided me a solid and inspirational mental model for some of the work I do.

The astronauts are trapped up there. They are pretty much doomed to die. The people on the ground cannot physically provide any kind of aid. Everything they can provide is in the form of information, research, better answers, different ways of handling things and also a bit of enotional encouragement, but, mostly, they can provide better intelligence. And that is enough. It saves the lives of the seemingly doomed astronauts.

That has been enormous food for thought for how to approach my web projects, why they matter, and that they can make a real difference in the world while providing nothing but information.

Re: Ask HN: Any movies that changed your life?

#79

Post by api »

arkem wrote: post #8

Two movies, Sneakers and Hackers led me to my career. They're still two of my favorite movies, each for different reasons.

Hackers is a movie that I thought was terrible when it came out (even as a youngster!), but now seems like a wonderful 90s period piece. It snapshots the whole hacker/raver/"burner" techno-counterculture axis of the 1990s really well, and the schmaltz and cheeze is actually pretty clever and entertaining. It sort of makes fun of itself in an also very 'period' way.

I sort of like movies that start bad and then age well.

Sneakers is also incredible. It's far more objectively cinematically good than Hackers, and it snapshots a slightly earlier era in hackerdom. Sneakers is about the time immediately before Hackers, basically before the youngsters flooded in and started hacking web apps and doing 'E'.

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