Hacker Cinema
Finding Forrester
2000 · Film · 136 min
Directed by Gus Van Sant
Gus Van Sant tells the story of a young African American man named Jamal who confronts his talents while living on the streets of the Bronx. He accidentally runs into an old writer named Forrester who discovers his passion for writing. With help from his new mentor Jamal receives a scholarship to a private school.
3 positive2 neutralfrom 5 commenters
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5 comments on Hacker News
Movies I think I truly great I usually only watch once, sometimes twice. If a movie ends and I just sit there thinking to myself… “wow”… I will probably never watch it again.
Movies I watch over and over again are movies that I relate to in some way or find comforting. These are ones I’ve watched at least 5 times, and some I’d bet more than 30 times.
- Back to the Future
- Home Alone
- What About Bob?
- It Could Happen to You
- Matilda
- As Good as It Gets
- Office Space
- Cruel Intentions
- Boiler Room
- Finding Forrester
- Training Day
- Super Troopers
- 8 Mile
- The Transporter
- Elf
- Bad Santa
- Mean Girls
- Saved!
- Garden State
- V for Vendetta
- Thank You for Smoking
- Stick It
- Little Miss Sunshine
- Idiocracy
- Hot Rod
- Run Fatboy Run
- The Other Guys
- Wreck-It Ralph
To name a few.
There's something there, corroborated by two examples in cinema and litterature: Finding Forrester (https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zLBEFvMkQCo) and in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, with the rhetorics professor facing 'my students are stuck write even the simplest essay' problem.
Yes, write something, anything, then edit. These are two different states of mind, two completely different personality parts, and I wish we taught the first one better (and the second one too...). Shut down the critics part when writing. Should down the ego part when editing.
I like the diversity of non-Bond movies he did.
My favourites are probably Outland and Finding Forrester.
> In my experience, of the best ways to get started in design is to replicate other people's designs as perfectly as you can, just to get the hang of designing something good.
In the movie Finding Forrester and aspiring writer is unsure of what to write and has been sitting in front of a typewriter for what seems a few hours.. An experienced one gives him one of his works and tells him to type it. He says sometimes the simple rhythm of typing can get us from page 1 to page 2.
Emulation is wonderful.
The rule even got screen time in the movie Finding Forrester, when Sean Connery and Rob Brown have an entire conversation about it (and deliberately start their sentences with the offending words in order to make their points).
This was the first thing that came to mind when reading that particular section. It's so true, and the points they make in that scene are good points indeed.
I think that's an underrated movie.