Hacker Cinema
8 Mile
2002 · Film · 111 min
Directed by Curtis Hanson
For Jimmy Smith, Jr., life is a daily fight just to keep hope alive. Feeding his dreams in Detroit's vibrant music scene, Jimmy wages an extraordinary personal struggle to find his own voice - and earn a place in a world where rhymes rule, legends are born and every moment… is another chance.
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8 comments on Hacker News
Movies I think I truly great I usually only watch once, sometimes twice. If a movie ends and I just sit there thinking to myself… “wow”… I will probably never watch it again.
Movies I watch over and over again are movies that I relate to in some way or find comforting. These are ones I’ve watched at least 5 times, and some I’d bet more than 30 times.
- Back to the Future
- Home Alone
- What About Bob?
- It Could Happen to You
- Matilda
- As Good as It Gets
- Office Space
- Cruel Intentions
- Boiler Room
- Finding Forrester
- Training Day
- Super Troopers
- 8 Mile
- The Transporter
- Elf
- Bad Santa
- Mean Girls
- Saved!
- Garden State
- V for Vendetta
- Thank You for Smoking
- Stick It
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Idiocracy
- Hot Rod
- Run Fatboy Run
- The Other Guys
- Wreck-It Ralph
To name a few.
Pirates of the Caribbean was a Disney film from a director with a record of past successes, a team of actors largely pulled from blockbusters, and an executive producer of some of the most memorable and (at the time) highest-grossing crossover blockbusters. It was not a risk to Disney at all.
Dr. Dre, one of the most successful rap producers of all time, signed Eminem after watching him perform. By then, Eminem was already well-known in local circles for his rap skills, and there was no risk of him being seen as Vanilla Ice (a joke, incidentally, which worked its way into 8 Mile, which was loosely based on the life of Marshall Mathers).
Not up on the current but there were houses for ~$10k a few years ago. That's next to a burnt out crack house from the Eminem movie, like #8 below:
https://detroit.curbed.com/maps/lose-yourself-in-this-8-mile-filming-location-map
How would I know if it is harder for me to enjoy movies than for somebody else?
I don't like "music movies" such as High Fidelity, 8 Mile, School of Rock, Blues Brothers. They are just average comedy/drama flicks for me. Maybe normal people like them more?
For a while if someone asked me what music I like, I replied film music. I do enjoy film music but maybe just because the music makes me remember the movie?
I'm definitely affected by the music. Maybe music can still emphasize emotions for a musical anhedonic and it just that music in itself does not do much?
> between 1902 and 2015, of all the films made in the US, only 299 of them were in some way significantly concerned with issues of poverty and homelessness.
I think the author is fundamentally wrong about this claim, just like he's wrong about the number of recent movies dealing with poverty.
I haven't paid the $35 to read his prior work that he's citing, but nothing in the abstract suggests that it's a comprehensive list of films about poverty. It's simply an analysis of 300 films on the topic he considers particularly important. And, honestly, it fails the laugh test. Of tens of thousands of American films, many made during the Great Depression, many made in the 70s and 80s, a total of 300 deal with poverty?
Either 'all' is simply untrue in that claim, or 'significantly concerned' is so narrow that 8 Mile wouldn't count because "it's about rap, not poverty".
This is a few years old. IMO it's very worthwhile reading. Altucher is a gifted author.
The tl;dr version is Altucher discusses a scene (perhaps the climax, I don't know I didn't see the movie) from the Eminem movie 8 Mile. It's about how Eminem quickly wins a crowd over by contrasting himself with another rapper.
Altucher ends his article thusly:
Doesn’t it seem silly to analyze a rap song for ideas how to be better at sales and communicating? I don’t know. You tell me.
Being from Detroit, it's great to see young tech companies springing up in the city but I think that video Knoxville did with Palladium Boots sugar coats things a bit too much. Hipsters starting underground bars/clubs and photographing urban decay is not going to revive the city.
A plan for a $500m railway was recently approved and I can't see any way it's going to be successful in its first phase. My main issue with the proposal as it is now is the fact that the line only extends to 8 mile.
For those of you unfamiliar with the city, the mile roads lie parallel to the Detroit River and span outwards all the way into rural areas. Driving into the city, things start to go downhill fast around 8 mile -- which is why everyone knows what it is now thanks to Eminem's movie. If I'm going to a sporting event or casino from my house in the burbs, I'm not going to drive 15 minutes to 8 mile, park my car in a shady parking lot, and get on a train when I could just drive another 15 minutes instead.
Anyway, for this new train venture to be even remotely successful I think the track would have to extend to at least 12 mile if the city is looking for an influx of wealthy suburbanites.
Well, I don't know about the rest of them but number 3, lose yourself, seems to be about his life- rapping. Not about start ups. "Palms are sweaty, knees weak- arms are heave, vomit on your sweater already- mom's spaghetti." Ect. Ect. He seems to be talking about the rap battle he is about to have..you know, like in the movie 8 mile..