Hacker Cinema
Chasing Amy
1997 · Film · 114 min
Directed by Kevin Smith
Holden and Banky are comic book artists. Everything is going good for them until they meet Alyssa, also a comic book artist. Holden falls for her, but his hopes are crushed when he finds out she's a lesbian.
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6 comments on Hacker News
Lotta thoughts. There’s a decent amount of talk in here about the woke language policing, and I think there’s a paradox in language that I don’t know how we get past.
I’m pretty progressive. Emotionally I have no desire to denigrate any groups, and I feel in my bones the problem of calling something r-<mentally-ill> or calling bad things “gay”
And yet, part of expressing certain emotions is transgression. We say bad words _because_ they’re bad. That’s what feels good about saying them. I personally drew the line at “crazy”. Crazy is too emotionally salient a word for me not to say crazy because it may offend people who are mentally ill. And I don’t want to offend people who are mentally ill! But I can also acknowledge the paradox that there’s something a little dirty or transgressive about the word “crazy” and that’s core to why I use it. Because I’m trying to describe something crazy!
You can’t replace a transgressive word with a words that’s not transgressive because fundamentally you’re trying to express the transgressive thing!
One of my favorite movies was Chasing Amy by Kevin Smith, in general Kevin Smith was pretty core to my teen development. And I’ve been listening to some reviews of it recently, and most people who are prone to like it sort of agree that it’s a great movie but it didn’t age well. But I can’t help feel like we’ve lost something here. I don’t know what the solution is but I don’t know that I would say we’re strictly speaking in a better place than we were 30 years ago.
And it’s interesting because you’ll never win an argument on the micro. Right? I would feel ridiculous trying to explain to someone why I should be able to say the r-word, there’s no excuse, and yet in the macro there’s something to grok here.
- Hair (and listened soundtrack hundreds of times)
- Coffee and Cigarettes
- Before Sunrise (and to less extent - Before Sunset)
- Pulp Fiction
- Clerks, Chasing Amy
- Leon Professional
- Motorcycle Diaries
These are not as interesting since I assume they're on everyone's list, but I must admit I'm rewatching all movies in the series, even those which are considered weak:
- Lotr, Godfather, Indiana Jones, Star Wars, Matrix
Very cool tech but do keep in mind that California in particular has strong laws around the use of celebrity likenesses (including voices)[0][1]. There's even court cases on use of presidential likenesses in fictional contexts (as in, you can't without permission). IANAL so I don't know what sort of things make you subject to California law, but it's unfortunately worth keeping in mind.
[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Celebrities_Rights_Act
[1] The Kevin Smith movie "Chasing Amy" has a major sub-plot around monetization of likeness rights by Jay and Silent bob ("Man, this likeness rights shit is more profitable than selling smoke!")
> Asking them five times is almost certainly harassment.
Yet this behavior is romanticised is popular culture, and has been from the dawn of time up to and including the present: Oddyseus and Helen of Troy, Shakespeare's "The taming of the shrew", tons of Fred Astaire movies, as well as modern movies like "Ghost", "Life is beautiful", "Chasing Amy", TV shows like "Sex and the city"... I could go on. Lucikly I don't need to, since TVtropes has a site dedicated to this character (the "dogged nice guy"). And note that many of these are targeted at, and very popular with, women (who are usually at the receiving end of the initially-unwarranted attention). Apparently this behaviour can walk a thin line between illegal and very very romantic.
"Park City, UT (January 23, 2012) -- Berry Meyerowitz, President & CEO of Phase 4 Films, announced today that the company has entered into an exclusive distribution deal with SModcast Pictures, the production company founded and run by filmmaker Kevin Smith (Clerks, Chasing Amy, Red State). Through the deal, Phase 4 obtains exclusive rights in the U.S. and Canada to exhibit and distribute up to twelve films per year under the newly created 'Kevin Smith and SModcast Pictures Presents' label. Phase 4 will release four of these films theatrically each year, which will include a live tour with Kevin Smith, similar to that of Red State, with the remainder of films being released via all other traditional and digital platforms."
A woman can also have many partners, etc. etc., and then continue to compare you in her mind with other men. So I'm not sure how useful your fact is without data or context.
Agreed that a woman's reasons for infidelity are probably different than a man's reasons. But I don't think that is much consolation to the man she cheats on. So, I feel that time_management's desire to find a woman not prone to infidelity is wise, but he is embarrassing himself with an immature understanding of women (to put it kindly).
I would also say that this issue is covered in considerable depth in the movie "Chasing Amy", and I think that one of the conclusions in that movie is that, no, it is not psychologically easy for most men to set aside a woman's sexual history, even if he wants to.