Hacker Cinema
Chariots of Fire
1981 · Film · 123 min
Directed by Hugh Hudson
In the class-obsessed and religiously divided UK of the early 1920s, two determined young runners train for the 1924 Paris Olympics. Eric Liddell, a devout Christian born to Scottish missionaries in China, sees running as part of his worship of God's glory and refuses to train or compete on the Sabbath. Harold Abrahams overcomes anti-Semitism and class bias, but neglects his beloved sweetheart in his single-minded quest.
7 positive3 neutralfrom 10 commenters
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10 comments on Hacker News
I was never a big 1980's synth music guy, but for some reason I always enjoyed the soundtracks Vangelis made. Not only for this movie, but also "Chariots of Fire", "Antarctica", &c.
Surprising to me that they mentioned the Pinto, Pacer and Gremlin, but no mention of the Chevrolet Vega, their small/seemingly-economical/not-very-good attempt to compete with the Japanese.
And on a lighter note, a friend who had a Pinto station wagon (which didn't have the fuel tank problem). He picked me up, and as I got in, said, "And you thought Chariots of Fire was a movie about running!"
It isn't that movies like The Deer Hunter are slow, necessarily. It's that the scenes are doing things other than advancing "the plot". Things like revealing a hidden character trait or depicting the quality of the protagonist's world. I remember someone telling me that The Zero Effect (1997) was "too slow", when I thought it was moving along at a fast clip; I finally realized it was the difference in what we were getting out of (or looking to get out of) the movie that accounted for our differing perceptions.
Not that that can't be done poorly, either. But The Deer Hunter never struck me as slow, and I'm a kid who grew up with Star Wars as my template. But I got really into what we might call (erroneously) "character-driven" movies in the '80s.
(Dammit, I liked Chariots of Fire, but there was no way it should have taken Best Picture over Reds. Same with Ordinary People and Raging Bull.)
Aside, he was accused of plagiarising Chariots of Fire from this Greek tv series theme (coming out a few years earlier):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Oti6lkzgH0
He did know and was friends with the composer (also very talented), my guess is Vangelis just heard it at some point and picked up the theme's feel and basic style, and subconsciously copied it. It happens. His version is better imho.
Maaaaaan about the time Blade Runner came out I was a fourth grader fumbling with the Chariots of Fire record pretty much every day. That was the first record I remember associating the different reflections on the grooves with the length of the song. Pretty clear given that side 2 was all one song.
So many elementary school crushes I dreamt of to that album.
Didn't get whacked upside the head by Blade Runner until like 1989 or something and then went on that endless quest to find the version of the soundtrack that most matched what you hear in the movie (there was some legal crap about releasing the original music). Ended up with a few of the CDs floating around.
My world wouldn't be the same without his music.
RIP. He had some memorable soundtracks during the 80s: Blade Runner, Chariots of Fire. Also scores for the TV series Cosmos w/ Carl Sagan. I used to own the cassette tape for "China" which I remember enjoying many years ago.
That's a shame.
His work on blade runner just has this timeless magic to it. The sequel ends on his motif (tears in rain) for a reason too.
I also forgot to mention that chariots of fire is truly great too.
Some parts of his music haven't aged too well, but the stuff that hasn't is sorely missed in today's film scores. Even if Zimmer is brilliant he's not a poet.
It is the "Chariots of Fire" theme song by Vangelis. It was part of a soundtrack for a movie of the same name that was popular around that time.
I'm more interested in what those 20 movies are. I found:
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=1981
1 Raiders of the Lost Ark 2 On Golden Pond 3 Superman II 4 Arthur 5 Stripes 6 The Cannonball Run 7 Chariots of Fire 8 For Your Eyes Only 9 The Four Seasons 10 Time Bandits
Of which I guess 2, 3, 8 isn't original.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/yearly/chart/?yr=2:w014
1 American Sniper 2 The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1 3 Guardians of the Galaxy 4 Captain America: The Winter Soldier 5 The LEGO Movie 6 The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies 7 Transformers: Age of Extinction 8 Maleficent 9 X-Men: Days of Future Past 10 Big Hero 6
Of which only 10 is original.
Well, I upvoted them back to normal :)
Anyway here's my list:
Even if you don't watch this movie called Any Given Sunday, you can find Al Pacino's 5-min inch-by-inch speech. That's the best I've seen. You can look it up on youtube. Worthy 5min :) It sort of dopes you with inspiration.
My favourites (may mostly include lesser known movies):
"The World's Fastest Indian" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412080/) It's based on the real story of Burt Munro, an old hobby biker, from New Zealand who sets the world's fastest land speed record on his Indian motorcycle beating all odds like an unfit, aging body (with prostrate and a ticking heart) and very little money to spare. It's not known that much. But Anthony Hopkins is good in that movie.
This movie is a bit different, there are no bad guys and it's really awesome to watch. Gives you a very different perspective of the world ("everybody is good" sorta thing). It left me in tears after he breaks the world record in the end.
Others: Dead Poet's Society ("Carpe Diem - seize the day"), Walk The Line and a 1990 movie called Chaplin (for which Robert Downey won an Oscar for playing Charlie Chaplin) and ofcourse Forrest Gump ("life is like a box of chocolates you'll never know what you get")
Also Mongol (Story of the rise of Gengiz Khan told from a different perspective). Some other language. But you'll get sub-titles.
And if you like Bollywood (Hindi) movies, try "Lagaan" and "3 Idiots" (this is a must watch).
After reading a lot abt Chariots of Fire, I'm going to watch it this weekend.
EDIT: if you like watching action cartoons, you should try watching Transformers - Cybertron series. Although gets a bit repetitive after a few episodes (loop: "beat villian. he returns again"), the "we are a team" quote echoes thru-out.
P.S: If you notice closely in Forrest Gump, when Tom Hanks is narrating that his friend put his money in a fruit company and it seems like he's looking at a letter for shareholders, you'll notice that the letter contains Apple's old 'colorful apple' logo :D