Hacker Cinema
Animal House
1978 · Film · 109 min
Directed by John Landis
At a 1962 College, Dean Vernon Wormer is determined to expel the entire Delta Tau Chi Fraternity, but those troublemakers have other plans for him.
2 positive23 neutralfrom 25 commenters
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25 comments on Hacker News
As a fan of Heinlein's book, the movie flattened the exploration of the political themes from the book and turned it into said black comedy. It would be like turning Animal House or Lord of the Flies into a black comedy.
From Stephen Fry: "You know that scene in Animal House where there’s a fellow playing folk music on the guitar, and John Belushi picks up the guitar and destroys it. And the cinema loves it. Well, the British comedian would want to play the folk singer. We want to play the failure."
Homer and Peter Griffin are idiots but they smash the guitar. Charlie Brown gets his guitar smashed.
Ya I'm shocked by it too, said as a Gen Xer born in the late 1970s, occasionally a Xennial.
I partied for 4 years of college which is something like 30 years in sober adult terms. Our ragers were reminiscent of Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds, all of those old party movies that didn't age well. Scenes from Hackers, Fight Club, The Matrix, Trainspotting, Go, Swingers, Made, 200 Cigarettes, SLC Punk, Dazed and Confused, PCU, even Undergrads (a cartoon) were so spot-on for campus life, living for the weekend. Can't Hardly Wait, American Pie, Varsity Blues, Waiting, Superbad, etc came later, and I almost consider those watered down versions of the feral partying that happened earlier just as the internet went mainstream, but still canon.
A Friday night at my city's bar scene today looks like what our Sunday or Monday was. People half tipsy on 2 drinks, even though they're Ubering home later. The faint scent of ganja now instead of basements filled with smoke and first timers trying laughing gas. Nobody puking or disappearing around a corner to relieve themselves. No sound of bottles shattering. I feel like a curator of a museum now, a derelict from a forgotten time.
In fairness, I went to college in the midwest, where there was nothing else to do. Now the West Coast has effectively legalized drugs, awakening much of the country to the full human experience, and people have done the trips and plant medicine and maybe realize at a young age that alcohol and tobacco are rough drugs that tear you up. Which is admirable, but they also prepare you for getting torn up as an adult. To miss out on learning how to make your way home on drunk logic before you black out seems like a crucial rite of passage has been lost.
And it shows. In our country's embrace of puritanical politics like we saw in the jingoist 2000s, regentrified for the antivax era. In the worship of unspoiled beauty, idolizing of influencers, pursuit of financial security over visceral experience. In the fanboyism, bootlicking and drinking the kool-aid for every new evolutionary tech that cements the status quo instead of freeing the human spirit in a revolutionary manner. I gotta be honest, most of what's happening today is laughable to my generation. Blah I sound like a Boomer. Ok cryable then. We're in mourning. We worry about the kids today. All work and no play and all that. It's killing our souls, and theirs.
I guess my final thought after writing this is that partying is one of the most powerful reality-shifting tools in our arsenal. All of this can't be it. This can't be how America ends. You know what to do.
Let’s be real, the overwhelming majority of those 500 are straight up terrible. Netflix alone has produced well over 100 movies, and IMO at best some of them are worth finishing not that I can think of any off the top of my head.
Now I’m sure you’ve looked forward to many movies but off the top of your head list stuff you’ve either seen more than once and or actually recommend to someone that came our in the last 10 years vs…
(78) The Deer Hunter, Superman, National Lampoon's Animal House, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (79) Apocalypse Now, Alien, Life of Brian, Mad Max, Escape from Alcatraz (80) The Shining, Star Wars: Episode V, Airplane!, The Blues Brothers, Caddyshack, The Elephant Man (81) Raiders of the Lost Ark, Das Boot, The Evil Dead, Mad Max 2, Escape from New York, Time Bandits (82) Blade Runner, The Thing, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Poltergeist, Conan the Barbarian, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Tron (83) Scarface, WarGames, Star Wars: Episode VI, Trading Places, The Evil Dead
Obviously not all great movies but that’s ~30 classic movies in just 6 years and I’m sure I’ve missed a few as kids movies are largely missing from that list.
This is a genre of article where an author gets made at a guy he made up, a guy who gets made at being given a nickname. At no point is there actually a cited instance of what he's allegedly worried about - someone being offended by a nickname.
> Ever after, to be on nickname-terms with someone implies a family-like bond—even when the name walks the line between demeaning and affectionate, as with the nicknames that John Belushi’s Bluto bestows on new frat pledges in the movie “Animal House.”
Yeah, buddy, that's just a form of hazing.
Just sit and watch, while not doing anything else? Die Hard. At least once a year since it came out in 1988. Die Hard and pizza have been a Christmas Day tradition since it came out on VHS in 1989. (I saw it in the theater in 1988.)
Otherwise, if I am watching a movie more than once, it's wile I am doing something else. Working from home, I often have old science fiction B-movies -- both the MST3K versions and unriffed versions -- running in the background. Others I'll "watch" while doing something else are Animal House, Blues Brothers, the Lethal Weapon films, Patton, James Bond, and some others.
A famous screen from the movie Animal House comes to mind - cough cough ..B.. S…
But I’m open to being proven wrong by those who want to buy this any try it out.
Alien vs The Andromeda Strain vs Taking of Pelham One Two Three vs The Godfather vs American Graffiti vs Animal House vs Apocalypse Now vs Tora! Tora! Tora!
Honestly I don't see much connecting "70s-ness" thread between these. You can kind of take a guess at the era by the color tones, or for those movies with a contemporary setting, the style of clothing and cars. But otherwise there is huge range in old movies.
I've got this theory that although technology advances and social mores change with different social standards being imposed on art (e.g. Hayes Code), artistic merit is more or less evenly distributed through time. That is to say, old things are about as likely to be meritorious as new things, there's no general trend of newer = better. However the general public realizing this would be bad for business, new productions don't want to compete with the best of old generations, and so there are efforts to persuade people that old content is unwatchable and a waste of time to even consider. People are strongly encouraged to favor new content over old, for instance by having an averse "eww icky" reaction to black and white movies or even technicolor. Technical developments in film stock, SFX, etc are touted as being extremely meritorious and are heavily emphasized in the promotion of new movies because this is the competitive edge for modern productions.
I am slightly baffled by this comment since my first impression of him was exactly "sleazy vibes". Not in the flashy Ferrari sense but because the look seemed to try so hard to be the opposite of flash - the nasty stretched out t-shirts, shorts and forever bed-head hair. It struck me as a contrived and something of a put on. Google "John Blutarsky Animal House." SBF appears to have patterned his look after Jon Belushi's character in that movie. I think you have to make an effort to look like that so consistently, especially when there are cameras around.
Counter arguments:
While there are a ton of lost movies, we also live in a world in which services like Criterion Channel, Mubi, and Shudder make more film available than ever. The other week, I got curious and watched a movie from Ulrike Ottinger, loved it, and when I get around to it I can watch any of a dozen more of her movies.
Likewise, I just bought a boxed set of folk horror movies from Severin Films. I miss good video rental stores, but even pre-Netflix there weren’t more than a dozen US cities with video stores where you could rent stuff like that.
The top grossing lists are mostly dominated by blockbusters, it’s true, but let’s look at (say) 1978. Grease, Animal House, Close Encounters, Every Which Way But Loose, and Heaven Can Wait (a remake!) are the top five. It’s been a blockbuster-driven market for 40+ years, with the occasional breakthrough art house film and, more frequently, a big non-franchise genre film (The Martian, Us, etc.) None of this has prevented great directors like the Coen Brothers, Soderbergh, or del Toro from making very good movies.
There’s a market for super-hero movies. There’s also a market for “real” film. These two things are sometimes in tension, but I think at the moment they’re both viable.
Blockbuster carried the latest movies from all the studios. Everything newest and most desirable. They had a smattering of classics and art house and older genre films, but mostly it was about everything latest and greatest.
Netflix streaming seemed like that at first, but better! Now, they have a tiny slice of content. And as a content-producer, they seem willing to throw money at anything B-list.
Meanwhile, the studios became more risk averse as people started preferring to watch at home. Then theaters shut down and studios became more risk averse. And Netflix and Amazon arose and started playing studio games and studios became even more risk averse.
That trajectory of fear is mirrored in the content. The 1970s were known for directorial freedom and risk-taking. The 70s gave us Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, The Godfather, Star Wars, Animal House, Annie Hall, Rocky, Halloween, Smokey and the Bandit, Deliverance, MASH, and more - not all high art but all complete gems. Every decade since, we've seen a gradual progression toward samey-ness.
I started in the fall of 75 and graduated in the spring of 79. So, yeah, Empire Strikes Back was later. You were two classes behind me.
I was also off-campus for the 78-79 year, which in retrospect was a mistake, as that caused me to miss a lot of went on.
I'm wondering if the Disneyland trips started in 78-79?
Anyhow, fun story about the Chinese students!
We also had Page House excursions to the premier of Alien, which was pretty exciting for me, whereas today doesn't even elicit a flicker of interest :-/
The best was a House excursion to see Animal House. The one-liners from that movie became memes from the next year. One dude was taking an extra year to get his degree, and all year people would pass him in the hall with <cough>5 years of college down the drain!</cough>.
It's nice to see a fellow techer here on HN, especially a vintage 1970s one!
I don't understand what point you are making?
1) Superbad was sleeper hit - it did well in the theatres but far better in the long run. It launched a bunch of careers into the mainstream. It's also a broad comedy.
It was no more or less 'Hollywood' than the films you listed.
2) The films you listed are mostly Oscar Winners - which get a massive, global boost from that kind of exposure. They're also 100% 'artsy' kind of comedies made by highly respected auteurs - they're not broad comedies like Airplane or Animal House (or Superbad).
3) They're also mostly from the 2000's era, in which the general point is being made about 'challenging to make comedies' these days.
4) I don't think the box office differential rally helps that much as conceivably Superbad is going to naturally appeal a little bit more to North American audiences for the reasons you stated.
Here is a Hollywood reporter take on it [1] the decline of comedy is not a controversial idea.
"It’s been a decade since any comedy launched a blockbuster franchise. "
"The studios have backed away from comedies, just as they have mid-budget dramas, perceiving both as far harder to sell than tentpoles. "
"Even a comedy superstar like Will Ferrell has had trouble getting movies made. “It’s becoming a little finicky,” he told the podcast Armchair Expert in early June. “I’ve recently come across things where I thought, ‘Boy, what a great idea,’ and went around town and everyone just went, ‘Nope.’ “"
...
[1] https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/comedy-box-office-dwindles-but-is-netflix-blame-1219121/
This article reminds me of the Simpsons episode where Homer goes to college and expects it to be exactly like Animal House and Revenge of the Nerds.
> The culture wars the republicans have been running on since the 80s turns off thoughtful people - anti-intellectualism
There was plenty of anti-intellectualism in the US in the 70s. The movie "Revenge of the Nerds" wasn't made in a cultural vacuum. Neither was "Animal House". Sports heros have always been worshiped, not so with intellectuals (other than Einstein).
Much of this changed with Bill Gates. He was derided for being a nerd for years, until he made so much money people stopped laughing at him.
I have to confess what I know about Paradise lost comes from the movie Animal House.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ciw1os85nz0
Society goes back and forth on what is considered 'right' and 'wrong'. You only need to look at older movies to see how things change.
What was once considered neutral or even progressive is now considered racist/sexist/etc. Watch 'Dumbo', 'Animal House', 'Blazing Saddles', etc. None of those would be filmed today. Yet we still have not cured many of the ills that plagued society in both times.
The left must relent and let conservative voices be heard. In the long run, it will be destructive to the left if they do not.
> different in the US: individualism
It's funny, but in the US it's common for college freshmen to have two choices of lodging: either in a fraternity (Animal House, the movie ;-) or in a dorm room, two people per room (hence the 'Roommate from Hell' stories that grace the internet).
Not big on leaving individuals alone.
Stephen Fry said
>You know that scene in Animal House where there’s a fellow playing folk music on the guitar, and John Belushi picks up the guitar and destroys it. And the cinema loves it. [Belushi] just smashes it and then waggles his eyebrows at the camera. Everyone thinks, "God, is he great!" Well, the British comedian would want to play the folk singer. We want to play the failure.
"Maybe it's not related to being in 2015, maybe it's just that after 25 in modern societies it gets more difficult to get close to people."
Being a student used to mean being a teen, and that gives maybe a decade to party before the biological clock starts ringing and nobody can party all night because they have little kids. Sure, outliers always existed, but they were rare. Post teens were adults with adult incomes but not adult responsibilities, like kids, for quite a few years, usually.
The modern economic strategy of extending childhood by about a decade by extending education and eliminating entry level positions and near elimination of the high school grad career path has all kinds of fascinating economic effect, mostly bad, but one big effect is by the time the advanced degrees and internships are done and someone finally has an above poverty level income and medical insurance and a place to live other than parents house, the biological clock is ringing and if you don't immediately start popping out newborns, you aren't going to have biological time to do it, thus dramatically limited party culture.
So lets say culturally theres a shift from the delay between "I graduated and now I'm an adult" and "I got a herd of kids and after school stuff to attend and kids sports and ..." used to be a decade and now its maybe two years? So you'd naturally expect a decline of maybe 80% in party culture, taking it from dominant activity in the 20s to its basically gone?
There is also the biological effect that scenes from the movie "Animal House" look like fun to a teenage brain, maybe not so much to an older brain, so increasing the drinking age and dramatically criminalizing drinking while also socially pushing the mantra often heard on HN that its impossible to socialize (party) without being an alcoholic (which is criminalized) will result in a natural decline in party culture.
He was involved in some of my favorite movies: Animal House, Caddy Shack, and Groundhog Day. He will be missed.
> I sincerely hope that the laws will get struck down, but I also fear that the classified nature of many things that touch this will lead the courts to say that we can't show we have standing, and therefore decline to rule on the constitutionality.
So, the Supreme Court will let claims of 'secrecy' trash the Constitution? I don't think so! The court should be able to find some ways around such claims of 'secrecy'! Telling those nine justices that they can't get 'secret' details promises not to 'play well'! The NSA is worried about tracking some loser, wacko, nutjob Jihader from Somalia, and the Supreme Court is worried about saving the US Constitution -- hmm ...!
> More importantly, what matters is NOT just what the laws say, but whether the government follows them!
If the executive branch is violating a law, bring a legal case. While this answer is simplistic, and usually is not an easy path, it is basically the way the process works. But such a case has to be brought and decided only once -- after that any judge can say that the issue has already been decided. While the process is not always easy, in important cases it tends to get followed. E.g., if the FBI goes to Google and says "gimme", Google can reply "see you in court". "Double secret probation" worked in the movie 'Animal House' but won't last long before the Supreme Court.
> What the King Does Is Legal
Not really true, but there is a lot of 'latitude'. And there can be a 'time window' until legal cases are brought. But the President is Commander in Chief so can tell the military to take that town. If the town is in the US, then there is a law about that. If the town is in another country, then the president should have some 'war powers', but the way it usually works in practice is that the president asks Congress for an authorizing vote. Then of course the president needs Congress to vote the money for the military action. And Congress can also pass a law that says that no money will be used to take the town in question -- in which case for the money the president has to run a bake sale, sell some arms and call up Colonel North, or some such. If the vote is 2/3rds in both houses, then it overrides any presidential veto and stands. So far the pushing and shoving from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue have not gone beyond such things. E.g., in effect for Gulf War II, Congress voted some 'authorization' (I'm no expert with details), did vote the money, lots of money, often, and didn't vote "no money will be spent in Iraq" or any such thing. W didn't do Gulf War II by himself and, instead, had a lot of help from Congress; it wasn't all W's fault. Cheney's "There's no doubt that Saddam has WMD."? Well, if count chembio weapons, that was true. Why? Because we still had the receipts from when we shipped those materials to him when he was fighting Iran. I was 100% against Gulf War II, but it wasn't all W's fault; he had a lot of help, enough that at least the spirit of the Constitution was followed.
It's simple: Nearly all the power is in Congress, if they can get a sufficient majority to use it. But if Congress goes beyond the Constitution, then they can get slapped down by Supreme Court just across the street. We had some darned smart founding fathers: They were working to give up a lot of the power of the separate states to a central government and were darned careful about doing so.
Gitmo is a legal mess: (1) It's not in the US, deliberately so. (2) It's supposedly about what we are now calling 'prisoners of war'. Somehow a lot of people want to regard the prisoners in Gitmo as having the right to access the US legal system, but that's not so clear, and, indeed, how the US military handles 'justice' on the in times of 'war', or whatever we are calling the fight against Al Qaeda, etc., has long or always been a long way from the US domestic criminal legal system. E.g., the stories go that in Viet Nam, the US had four prisoners and wanted them to talk but they didn't want to talk. So, all four prisoners got a helicopter ride. From maybe 2000 feet up, the prisoners were asked one last time to talk. When they didn't, one prisoner went outside for a 'walk', from 2000 feet up. The story is that then usually the other three prisoners were willing to talk. The Geneva Convention may have something to say about such tactics, but I don't recall if the Geneva Convention applied in Viet Nam. Maybe Senator McCain (whom I rarely agree with -- he didn't actually sink a US aircraft carrier although he came close) can give some details on how the Geneva Convention applied in Viet Nam. I was very much against the US in Viet Nam soon after I heard General Maxwell Taylor speak and asked him a question and got his answer; but with the US military actually sent to Viet Nam, some of the details on just how they talked to prisoners I was less concerned about. Broadly just what the heck the US military does on battlefields is to me a bit far from the US Constitution here inside the US.
> This time around, the fact that it's being done by the NSA with the President's permission allows them to claim that the classified nature of nearly everything at stake here means we should trust them.
They can claim all kinds of stuff. E.g., they might claim that no kittens or puppies were harmed by the NSA. Fine. Irrelevant but fine. Similarly they might claim "you can trust us -- we love the US and work hard everyday to protect and defend the US and honor the laws and the Constitution" -- close to some things they actually said recently and about as relevant as not harming kittens and puppies. Instead, as we know well, very well, all too well, and as I am fully sure that all nine Supreme Court justices know with brilliant clarity,
"The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
Besides, it's not up to General Alexander, the NSA, or President Obama to determine what is "constitutional". And it's not up to Senator Feinstein, etc. either. As we know well, instead, with a suitable case brought, the issue is up to the Supreme Court.
> Getting the laws overturned will be a HUGE first step
Shouldn't be. That's just the way the process is supposed to work. Congress and the president go with the excitement of the moment but eventually a case is brought to the Supreme Court and cooler, wiser heads prevail. In the meanwhile a General Alexander is able to say maybe that he loves America while he tracks mud over the First and Fourth Amendments.
Have some faith: The Constitution is fairly clear. The Supreme Court is highly respected. Nearly everyone in the US understands that the Federal Government is not supposed to be listening in on pillow talk, phone sex, steamy e-mails, or following people around, e.g., via cell phone towers, as they meet for their romantic engagements, etc. And the government is not supposed to be getting all that data, from Verizon, Google, Microsoft, or the Internet backbone even if the government does not use it. E.g., an ordinary phone wiretap takes a court order, and grabbing all the Internet traffic covers wiretaps, literally, and more. That no alligator clips and reel to reel tape recorders need be used is irrelevant -- grabbing voice over IP is the same as a wiretap; grabbing that data for 330 million US citizens within the US instead of just some one suspected Mafia thug is at least 330 million times worse and not better; and without a court order, in line with at least the Fourth Amendment grabbing all that data is just flatly illegal and unconstitutional.
Net, for the Supreme Court to strike down the laws that enabled a lot of what Snowden showed will be an easy slam dunk from a 10 foot stepladder. Telling the Supreme Court that they can't strike down such laws will be one of the most outrageously funny jokes ever cracked near DC. Take that claim and go down the present list of Supreme Court justices and guess who will even smile: Let's see, will Justice Scalia smile? He never smiles! Justice Ginsberg? She's so serious she can laugh and smile and no one believes it's genuine. Justices Sotomayor and Kagan? They are both busting their gut everyday to be sure no one can claim that they, as women, are not up to the full seriousness of the Court.
Trust in the founding fathers, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution. So far what the NSA did may be roughly 'legal' with current laws; that may not be the case much longer.
Got animal house made.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077975/trivia?item=tr0781514
It started as just a joke, but I've personally seen more than one CS undergrad living out the brogrammer stereotype because they thought it was cool and was part of "startup culture". No joking involved.
Various movies marketed to teens have elicited similar "life imitates art" trends. Now it's hoax memes. When I was that age, it was the movie "Animal House."
"I won't laugh much at a genuinely funny comedy if I've already seen it 10 times, so why would I laugh at 500-year-old puns that I've heard before...when even the best puns rarely cause laughter the first time?"
I've seen the film Animal House[0] about 20 times and still think it's funny. Part of the humor is the set-up and delivery. Yes, I know John Belushi is going to force potatoes out of his mouth, but when it happens it's still funny because of all the little details.
Same for A Night at the Opera. Dated in some ways, but hysterical in others. Grouch Marx is just funny, even when you know the jokes.
Now, my wife wonders how I can watch the same movie twice, since I what happens and how it ends.
My brother, though, compares this to listening to music; you know the words and how the melody goes, but you still like listening to a familiar song. Some people are that way with books and plays and movies, too.
[0] Yes, I am that old.