Hacker Cinema
Dog Day Afternoon
1975 · Film · 124 min
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Based on the true story of would-be Brooklyn bank robbers John Wojtowicz and Salvatore Naturile. Sonny and Sal attempt a bank heist which quickly turns sour and escalates into a hostage situation and stand-off with the police. As Sonny's motives for the robbery are slowly revealed and things become more complicated, the heist turns into a media circus.
3 positive7 neutralfrom 10 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
This is hilarious if you know the movie, Dog Day Afternoon, which is the true story of a bank robber who was trying to help his trans lover pay for surgery. I wonder what part of that got censored?
For what it's worth, I think I did a reasonable job of this. I don't consume any web-based algorithmic feed content and participate in nothing interactive other than Hacker News and do not visit Hacker News every day, or even every other day most of the time. Almost never on weekends. It's really an "I'm bored at work" thing.
As others said, I had to replace these things with something else. I'm not meditative enough to just sit around with a perfectly still mind staring at the wall. For me, it was a few things. Books, first. Not hugely consistent with what they're about. First few years was mostly sci-fi and fantasy, then a year or so of non-fiction pop physics books. Right now, I'm mostly reading cooking books and learning to cook better. That's the second thing. I cook all of my own food, from scratch, and experiment a lot. That consumes quite a bit of time and it's active time. Third, music, but not algorithmic feed music. No YouTube music or Spotify recommendations. Nothing social. I'm listening to complete albums, curated either because I'm in my 40s and already know a lot of music I haven't listened to in a long time, or via human critics the same way I curated music in the 90s. Fourth, movies, but again, nothing algorithmically generated. Just like it's 1999 again. In fact, Alamo Drafthouse is doing a celebration of 1999 for its 25th anniversary. It happens to also be my and my wife's high school graduation year, so a lot of beloved movies to go see. At home, we're doing 70s. We've gotten through Easy Rider and Rosemary's Baby (yes, I know, they're 60s), Badlands, Days of Heaven, Dog Day Afternoon, and Harold and Maude. Quite a few more to go, queued up and ready, curated from prior knowledge. I've already seen most of these but my wife has not. Fourth, exercise. You can't just get off the couch and do it. I spent years building up the capacity after spending the latter half of my 30s mostly inactive due to degenerative spine problems. Started off with resistance bands and walking 6 years ago. Today, I lift for about an hour 6 days a week and then run, row, or both for cardio, anywhere from 60-90 minutes a day. Fifth, concerts. My wife and I saw Judas Priest and Dead Kennedys at the end of last year, Tool last week, and we've got Madonna, Social Distortion and Bad Religion, Ministry, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Slowdive scheduled over the next few months. We usually travel to a multi-day festival or two each year as well but haven't decided which yet for this year. This is also curated from prior knowledge. I guess I miss out on whatever is hot right now, but oh well, there was plenty of great music already out there in 1995 and plenty of these acts still tour.
All in all, this gives me goals, accomplishments, scheduled events, social interaction with a real, non-anonymous person I actually know who is physically present, had made me far healthier, more fit, and better looking, and the quality of my entertainment, though I suppose less "addicting," is much higher.
The downside is this is expensive, but it probably doesn't have to be if you actively bargain-hunt, stay local, work out at a gym instead of buying your own equipment, and eat worse than me. Probably many people on the Internet would say another downside is I'm not very tuned in. It's an election year and I have no clue what any candidates are doing, saying, winning races, and I probably won't vote. Oh well. I'm sure the world will do about the same as it would have done if I didn't exist, which is fine. I'm not that important and neither are you.
Edit: I guess it's worth adding none of this involved or required getting rid of my phone. The phone is, in fact, quite useful. I listen to my albums on it. I buy movie tickets and concert tickets through it and they're delivered to the phone. I buy airline tickets and keep them on the phone. I keep my recipes, log my food, log my workouts, and map my runs on the phone. The local train system sells and keeps passes on a mobile app. There is nothing wrong with phones per se. Just don't let these apps gamify shit for you. Don't opt into social features. Don't create an account if they don't force you to. Disable all notifications. Don't worry about what other people are reading, where they're running, what they're eating. Just worry about yourself. Don't have or use any pure social apps. No algorithmically-generated content feeds. Read full-length novels, watch full-length feature films, and listen to complete albums. Force yourself to exercise at least a medium-term attention span. You don't need a change of theme every 40 seconds.
The movie Dog Day Afternoon (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_Day_Afternoon) from 1975 was based on a 1972 bank robbery where the motive was to pay for a sex reassignment surgery.
It is hard to overstate how much Godard changed cinema, even in America. If you don’t believe me check for yourself. Open the best picture nominees between 55’-65’ and watch their trailers. Films like Marty/On the waterfront/12 angry men/To kill a mockingbird/The Caine Mutiny/Sweet smell of success is what movies were like in the late 50s.
The acting/writing was pompous, actors talked like reciting Shakespear. The movies were about heros of impeccable character doing heroic things and there always was a happy ending. Movie shots followed strict guidelines and the creative head of the movie was the producer while the director was akin to a contractor, someone hired to film the scenes.
Starting in the mid 60s there was a radical shift, topping the nominations we have films like Five Easy Pieces, The French Connection, The Godfather, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, The Deer Hunter, Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver etc. Actors would act and behave like normal everyday people facing everyday problems. The new Archetype is the Anti-Hero, someone with flaws/vices in their character, someone that viewers can relate to. We see the rise of the director as the auteur, the creative master of a film. Every known filmaking rule is being tested to it’s limits and broken by young experimenting directors.
The catalyst for this change was the French New Wave, a group of young filmmakers tired of the old style of cinema wanting to do films about their own life and experiences. The poster boy for the New Wave was Jean-Luc Godard starting this revolution with his 1960 film Breathless.
I don't think you remake excellent movies like "Dog Day Afternoon", you remake the bad ones, usually B-movies, that showed potential. Maybe revisit "A Boy and His Dog", for example.
I didn't watch the shows you mentioned.
I was late to Netflix.
The original movies I saw were beyond bad. In every movie they used every plot twist ever invented, and every bit of cliched writing. The overpaid actors just read lines.
It's almost like they locked sober hack writers in a room and told them just write. Write like your audience is an angry/perverted Forrest Gump, and can't speak English. (I threw in sober because even if under the influence--they might have written better?)
They just wasted money.
I understand comming up with original clever scripts is hard.
I felt they could have redone classic movies though--instead of the garbage they threw at us.
I was watching Dog Day Afternoon the other day. The movie aged very well, and is an all time classic. No one is going to top that movie on any level.
Netflix could have tried to remake it though with up to date references, and even change up the script. Sonny, and Sal could have made it on the plane, and go from there.
Dog Day Afternoon is a bad example because it aged so well, but their are other good movies that could have been brought up to date?
I believe it's too late for Netflix.
In retrospect, I would have rather had them throw money at students in film school.
(I don't bet on stocks, but we all saw this comming. Every studio was working on their own pay per view service a year after we started talking about Netflix. Someone brobally made millions shorting that company.)
As an actor, John Cazale. Made 5 movies in his life. All of them nominated for best picture (with three winning.)
The Godfather
The Conversation
The Godfather II
Dog Day Afternoon
The Deer Hunter
The original “Fail Safe” is a great movie btw, if you’ve never seen it. As mentioned in the article, that and “Dr Strangelove” were based on the same book, with “Fail Safe” being the more sober interpretation. Amazing cast, and Lumet (“Dog Day Afternoon”, “Network”, “Twelve Angry Men”) is a legendary director.
>The fact that the government doesn’t get to step in and insist on sanitized portrayals of American life is a huge part of why Hollywood has the soft power it does.
Well, as a European cinephile, I find the portrayals of American life in most Hollywood films (even the 'gritty' ones) so soapy and sanitized, that the government doesn't need to bother.
The last decades Hollywood movies with any real bite (the way, e.g. Dog Day Afternoon once had) are few and far between.
I'd say the "soft power" is more due to Hollywood being a kind of McDonalds for movie-goers, and the bigger budgets allowing no continued competition on this front from other parts of the world (whereas a European cop flick or western could compete visually with the average Hollywood one up until around the mid-late 70s).
As an aside, “Fail Safe” (1964), is one of the best movies ever made, IMHO, about the risks of technology and warfare. Once you get past the slow pacing, the black and white... it’s an incredible film. It’s based on the same book as Dr Strangelove — but just takes a completely different, dramatic take on the material. You also get a chance to see why Henry Fonda is considered such a legendary actor. Sidney Lumet, the director, is also a legend: “Dog Day Afternoon”, “12 Angry Men”, “Network”...
OT: John Cazale had the most astonishing career of any actor ever. Six years, five movies, five nominees for Best Picture (The Godfather, The Godfather Part II, The Conversation, Dog Day Afternoon, Deer Hunter), three winners. And then he died. Just a remarkable life.