Hacker Cinema
Dirty Dancing
1987 · Film · 100 min
Directed by Emile Ardolino
Expecting the usual tedium that accompanies a summer in the Catskills with her family, 17-year-old Frances 'Baby' Houseman is surprised to find herself stepping into the shoes of a professional hoofer—and unexpectedly falling in love.
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6 comments on Hacker News
When I was a kid, VHS home recording was a thing... so my sisters and I watched a few movies wayyyyy too many times.
The Blues Brothers Stripes Ferris Bueller's Day Off Footloose Dirty Dancing Amadeus These days, everything comes and goes from streaming. I'll watch these when they pop up again
The Expanse Monty Python and the Holy Grail The Ministry of Time Groundhog Day Dirty Harry Apocalypse Now About Time Time Bandits
A couple movies that touched on the abortion question include "Dirty Dancing" and "A Place In The Sun".
I could say that it can feel like a life-ending situation to become pregnant but you might not really get it without some emotional connection, hence the movie references.
Alternatively, you could imagine a situation where you'd want to punch someone in the face for saying "why don't you just live with it?" and substitute that for how some women feel when they're unexpectedly pregnant.
Certainly with legal and safe abortion, many more abortions are performed than would have been in the previous regime. But just like some people will risk their career or commit suicide rather than accept a life changing event, women were willing to risk it all to avoid becoming a mother at that point in their life.
I know a fair few of those people, except they didn't walk to the west, they sailed. Basically my parents, and my aunts and uncles.
Like I said elsewhere, it's a good attitude that you can do it, but it's not actually realistic that you can. People learn this the hard way in sports for example. We aren't all going to starting QB, there's only 32 of those jobs.
> "Dirty Dancing", "Saturday Night Fever"
Movies from back before the drawbridge came up.
> Complaining about not being a billionaire's son is a waste of your life.
Well I actually went to school with a billionaire's kid, and I never thought I'd rather have his life. Nor did anyone else.
There's also a fair bit of gap between "oh why am I not a prince" and "everything I'm good at or want to do will cost me a huge amount of debt".
> What do they know that you don't?
People are mistaken about how other countries are all the time. Do you think Western defectors to the communist blocks were never disappointed?
Keep in mind not everyone knows everything, even after they turn 18.
If you think there's so much opportunity, why is it that people are complaining about the lack of it? Perhaps they've actually tried to search for them and couldn't find any?
It's their choice, not their destiny.
Young people reject their parents all the time. A pervasive issue in parenting is the kids refuse to listen to the parents. Movies about it are quite popular - see "Dirty Dancing", "Saturday Night Fever", on and on and on.
I'm not buying the lack of agency of young people. It's just another excuse for choosing the easy way.
If you are not where you want to be in life, have you done anything today to move towards that goal? If you've done nothing, then choose better. It's your life, not mine. Complaining about not being a billionaire's son is a waste of your life.
If you're in the US, of sound mind and body, and over 18, there's never been a time in history with more opportunity for you. If you refuse to see it, nobody can help you. But just think about all those migrants with nothing walking thousands of miles with the hope of getting into the US.
What do they know that you don't?
Well, to the best of my knowledge, these are nice additions to my list of recommendations :-)
1. I agree, that final scene in An American in Paris is just mindblowing (for the lack of a better word). I've seen it at least 20 times and it still amazes me. Vincente Minnelli was a one of a kind genius. Another highlight for me was Astair's Puttin' on the Ritz from Blue Skies. And as for Gershwin - I myself prefer his Piano concerto.
2. As far as I know, musicals were the most popular genre in 1930s-40s and a lot of talent was put in their creation (and it shows). That said, I just don't like the genre for two reasons:
- Astair/Rogers-style, where actors suddenly transition from dialog to dancing, just seem too weird and far fetched to me;
- Busby Berkeley-style extravaganzas are, indeed, better and, as a rule, visually stunning. But for me they fail as films simply because there is usually not enough plot/dialogues (that is, the whole plot is just a vehicle to show dancing sequences). These type of films are better enjoyed as short clips on youtube :-) Uncharacteristically, I've enjoyed much later Saturday Night Fever and Dirty Dancing, both made in this style. Although I think these two films could have been even better if their creators were more ambitious. There were a lot of unused potential in them.
3. I have no objections to the westerns as a genre. I've included both Destry Rides Again and Stagecoach. It's just that I've seen ~10 westerns from 50s and 60s, didn't like any of them and decided to skip the genre altogether. I might return to them some time in the future.
For me also, the big punchline revolved around a song from the Dirty Dancing movie that I had to actually look up to find out if I've ever heard before. Now I'm a sucker for 80s synth-pop, don't get me wrong, but that specific song I'm 99.9% sure I've never actually played on Spotify. So it kinda seems like they've hard coded some insults with pop culture cross-references. The "AI" be like
select case (person%likes) case ('80s-synth-pop') print *, 80s_pop_insult_char case ('single-specific-artist') print *, person%likes_artist//'-stan' ! (...) end select