Hacker Cinema
Apt Pupil
1998 · Film · 107 min
Directed by Bryan Singer
One day in 1984, Todd Bowden, a brilliant high school boy fascinated by the history of Nazism, stumbles across an old man whose appearance resembles that of Kurt Dussander, a wanted Nazi war criminal. A month later, Todd decides to knock on his door.
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8 comments on Hacker News
Apt Pupil! Yes, I remember reading that and loving it. Didn't know they made a movie of it. Stand By Me was originally titled The Body in Different Seasons. I must have read that 30+ years ago.. might need to re-read that some day. Wait.. wasn't Shawshank from Different Seasons too? Called something like 'Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption'.. I may be trippin .. don't feel like web searching it lol
Both were in the same story collection: Different Seasons
Apt Pupil was also made into a movie but didn't do as well.
"Apt Pupil" was also adapted as a movie tho not as good as the other two, imvho.
Jordan Peele does a fantastic impersonation of Ray Parker Jr. (“the Ghostbusters guy”) promoting his lesser known movie theme songs he’s submitted through the years. Talk about bad songs! Jumanji, Passion of the Christ, Apt Pupil. lol. https://youtu.be/GxjNOv5QPzM?si=zSduoOlbIULoKOMC
Apt Pupil is also from Different Seasons and both the novella and movie are pretty good.
The intended effect of ridicule is to remove the mystique and potency around the threat of a forbidden idea.
I recently saw a critique of satire[0] that mentioned white supremacists tend to be fans of movies like Apt Pupil which, while criticizing Nazism, still portray it as powerful and potent. But the Producers, which literally portrays an attempt at an in-universe pro Hitler play (albeit for in-universe subversive reasons) and similar parody content isn't well received by them, because it refuses to take them seriously.
So yes, while ridicule might make more enemies, it can also serve to make those enemies less powerful.
[0]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62cPPSyoQkE
"Different Seasons" is my favourite collection, and out of the 4 total stories in it, 3 became movies (The Body became Stand By Me, Apt Pupil, and The Shawshank Redemption). Can't recommend this collection highly enough.
You can find them in a few anthologies.
Those two were published originally in Different Seasons, which had three of its four novellas adapted into movies. (Stand by Me, The Shawshank Redemption, and Apt Pupil)