Hacker Cinema
Leaving Las Vegas
1995 · Film · 111 min
Directed by Mike Figgis
Ben Sanderson, an alcoholic Hollywood screenwriter who lost everything because of his drinking, arrives in Las Vegas to drink himself to death. There, he meets and forms an uneasy friendship and non-interference pact with prostitute Sera.
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13 comments on Hacker News
I never been to Las Vegas, but social media makes me feel like entering a casino in John O’Briens Leaving Las Vegas (the book, not the film). Despite of all the glitz and glamour, just a desolate desert for those who have lost all the hope… And the way all these applications make you hooked works exactly like the coin machines in a Casino. Jean Pormanove was just a one poor soul, there’s literally thousands of them, somebody (or themselves) live-streaming the destruction of their bodies and soul. This is suppose to be fun?
I left long time ago. I kicked many things back then and are a lot happier now. I hope the culture is changing and some band for kids (I believe Australia is only the beginning) will cause a shift in global culture and in future IG, TikTok and rest of them are seen in similar light to tobacco today.
I've seen some movies not knowing anything about them by avoiding trailer (this being much easier in the 1990s...) Movies seems to work better that way.
Though it can be jarring: Eg. Silence of the Lambs or Leaving Las Vegas.
The Onion had a good take on it:
https://theonion.com/wildly-popular-iron-man-trailer-to-be-adapted-into-full-1819594705/
I distinctly remember feeling like 1995 was absolutely amazing year for cinema.
Toy story, Braveheart, Apollo 13, Usual Suspects, Heat, Casino, Seven, Clueless, 12 Monkeys, Babe, Get Shorty, Leaving Las Vegas, etc.
A great time to be going to the Cinema.
It ebbs and flows with what is happening. Escapist fantasies are popular when times are hard. I feel times are hard now. Philidelphia and Leaving Las Vegas are two of my favorite movies, but I saw them when times were pretty good. However, I would enjoy an interesting movie about social issues being debated these days, just not with a Matrix backdrop and theme.
I knew about the story of Phil Katz having read this article before and was also a user back in the day, but just recently watched the movie 'Leaving Las Vegas'. Reading the PK article again in the link reminded me so much about the movie. If you haven't seen the movie it's worth watching and maybe an insight into the problems he was going through.
Yes, it's confounding that movies like "Leaving Las Vegas" and "Raising Arizona" coexist with a ton of hot garbage he's been involved with.
No judgement for him, a guy has to make a living. I imagine he finds the situation amusing. His 2013 movie "Joe" is really good if you need something new to watch: https://m.imdb.com/title/tt2382396/
Bukowski's books glorify drinking like the movie Leaving Las Vegas glorifies drinking: the trailer may give you the impression they're about getting drunk and having fun, but sit through the whole actual thing, and having a drink is the last thing on your mind.
I was thinking exactly the same thing. Yet there's a whole subthread debating the wisdom of gun ownership because that's a popular axe to grind. Getting at the root of the issue is trickier. Clearly depression and suicide are popular topics on HN. We know that there's some kind of social problems that lead to depression and suicide, but the best some people can come up with is to talk about gun ownership.
Looking at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate, the US is in a tie for 50th place for suicide rates. So in spite of the fact that the US has a high gun ownership rate, we're not anywhere close to being the top of the suicide rates.
Also, recall the articles around middle aged death rates in the US: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10499434 One of the takeaways is that people may be committing de-facto suicide by following a pattern of life choices (addiction for example). The "Leaving Las Vegas" effect (if you saw the movie, recall Nicholas Cage's character tried to drink himself to death) is really hard to measure.
Side note: suicide is illegal in Nepal and "attempted suicide is illegal in Nepal and people who attempt suicide when caught are subject to imprisonment, fines or both", yet Nepal is ranked 7th on the list. One might be led to conclude that this law is ineffective, if not counter-productive.
My favorite movies, but for no particuliar reason:
Platoon
Wall street
Three days of the condor
Chinatown
Sunset Boulevard
The Stranger(actually all of Orson Wells movies)
Any Andy Griffith episode
Bicycle thieves 1948
Niagara
Double indemnity (actually most billy wilder films)
The Misfits (last film for Marilyn and Rhett Butler--forgot his name.)
Giant
Rebal without a cause
Leaving Las Vegas
Blow out (all three)
Saturday night fever
Yes, even Urban Cowboy
One flew over the cocos nest
Deliverance
Hanna and her sisters
East of Eden
Dr. Strange love
Back to the future
Jaws
In cold blood(with Robert Blake)
In cold blood (with Eric Roberts, and forget his name)
The asphalt jungle 1948?
All about eve
The hot rock
Little Haus Big Halsey (Redford said it was his worst movie. Yes, it's masagonistic. Yes, he plays a jerk. But the movie captures the 70's I recall as a kid. The filming is great. His side kick in the movie did a great job playing a sweet, innocent, country teen.)
A lot of foreign films I have yet to see.
I can tell you how I do it, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend my path to anyone else. I'm not even 100% sure I'd recommend it to a younger version of myself, although I'm also not sure I'd recommend against it either.
Basically, I'm single and childless, and darn close to my every free minute goes into the startup project. When I was working full-time, that meant "after work" M-F and the majority of my Sat and Sun. hours. I make an exception during football season to watch the Dolphins game on Sunday (yeah, yeah, go ahead, say it... I'm a glutton for punishment).
I force myself to take a break every once in a while and read a novel or watch a movie or something... but truth be told, lately, even when I watch movies or something, there's an angle related to the startup. For example, I've been reading and studying a lot about sales lately, and I've seen more than one sales book mention "be like Columbo".
I had kinda wanted to rewatch some old Columbo episodes anyway (yeah, I'm old, deal with it) so I've been watching Columbo and thinking about "how do you apply his attitude / approach to this 'diagnostic business development' thing"? And the movies I make time for tend to be ones that I find inspirational (Rocky, The Karate Kid, Rad, etc.) that help keep me motivated.
About 6 months ago, I dropped down from full-time status to part-time status at my regular job to free up more time for the startup. I had a little bit of money saved, but not enough to quit outright... luckily the owner of the company was willing to be flexible and let me do that. I've pretty much burned through my savings though, and we aren't profitable yet, so I'm going back to working full-time next month.
These days I forgo most social activities like dating, parties, and most non-technical social events. I rarely mountain bike anymore, and almost never set foot in the gym. I bailed on going home to see my parents for Christmas so I could use those few days of "down time" as recovery time. I stay amped up on more caffeine than could possibly be healthy, and do everything I can to the tune of heavy-metal[1] or hard-rock of some sort. My mantra right now is "Caffeine, heavy-metal and adrenaline". \m/
I know, I know... you're thinking "dude, you must be miserable". Nah... I enjoy this in a certain sense, and since I'm 40 now, and haven't achieved anything yet, my mindset now is to say "fuck it" and go for broke. It's now or never, ya know? My mindset is to achieve the biggest and most ambitious of my dreams, or - when life finally breaks me - pull a Leaving Las Vegas deal and go to Vegas and try to drink myself to death.
Do not try this at home...
[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQQcOQsCFnw
How do I motivate myself? That's kinda hard to explain. It involves a lot of inner demons and mindsets that date to my childhood growing up dirt-poor in rural southeastern NC. But what it boils down to lately it this: I'm 40. I'm not getting any younger. I haven't yet accomplished my most outlandish dreams. And I have never been crazy about accepting mediocrity. I don't want to live an average, boring, moderately successful life. "Go big or go home", whatever.
So, for the past two years or so, my mindset has been "I'm basically out of 'at bats'. I don't get any more chances to make my dreams come true. I do this now, or I load my car with booze, drive to Vegas, and pull a 'Leaving Las Vegas' routine."
I just hope I can find a girl who looks like Elisabeth Shue. I <3 Elisabeth Shue.
I also draw a lot of inspiration from music. Since Suster started the Eminem references, here's one of my favorites:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1xXYeNrW9k ('Till I Collapse - Eminem & Nate Dogg)
Along with stuff like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQQcOQsCFnw (Keep Your Eye on the Money - Motley Crue)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0gnJ-fQ1uwA (Stick To Your Guns - Bon Jovi)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=liZKm86wW88 (Never Say Die - Jon Bon Jovi)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3MXiTeH_Pg (Here I Go Again - Whitesnake)
Of course, you have to realize, I grew up in the 80's, in the era of the "80's feel good movie" where the underdog hero has his back to the wall, all the odds against him, and through hard work, dedication, (and a training montage, of course) ultimately perseveres and triumphs over evil. Those are the kind of metaphors that are pretty deeply lodged into my psyche.
It also helps that I simply enjoy the act of creating things, and right now, my goal is to create this company that I have in my head. I see what we're capable of building and where this can go, and I want to make that happen.
Even more difficult. You have an offer to sell your company. Should you? You might net $1 million and that would change your life. But everybody is telling you not to sell and instead to “go for it” and you don’t know whom to listen to. One. Million. Dollars. I know it’s not what it used to be, but news flash – it’s still a million dollars! How can you wake up every day and process that decision. Five million? Ten?
This reminds me of the (in)famous "An acquistion is always a failure" discussion[1]. I said what I have to say[2] about this, in that thread.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5483582
[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5483765
This is a large category.
There are tricky cases of defensible portrayals of sex involving children, e.g. Schlöndorff's adaptation of The Tin Drum (which was banned in Canada as child pornography), and narratives that document the child sex industry, but they are rare by comparison. With artistically and morally defensible portrayals of rape, the range is huge. sspiff mentions A Clockwork Orange; even Jeffrey Archer (former senior Tory politician) wrote a novel with a rape scene. I also recall that when Virginia Bottomley (another former senior Tory politician) was asked to name her favourite film, she named Hitchcock's Rear Window, which is quite voyeuristic, and Hitchcock has filmed what I would class as morally indefensible rape scenes. The idea that moral guardians go about forbidding various classes of transgressive art forms that they themselves admit to enjoying is quite ironic.
For the sake of having some sort of a list: Bandit Queen, Deliverance, and Leaving Las Vegas all have hard-to-watch, defensible, and narratively necessary rape scenes. The victim in Bandit Queen I think was supposed to be prepubescent. And didn't Slumdog Millionaire have a child rape scene?
Maybe we're just very different people, but I find anxiety crippling and a huge drain on my ability to do creative work in particular.
Heh, yeah, it's hard to explain. I certainly have "stuff" that it would be nice to get off my chest, things that I don't want to talk to my best friend about, even things I don't want to talk about with my co-founder. But don't get me wrong... I'm not suffering from crushing, debilitating depression or anxiety here. And the feelings I feel are - to me - largely motivational.
I guess the biggest thing is, I don't know how to tell anybody exactly how scared of failure I am in this context, or how to explain why I am so driven to make this work. And now that I'm getting older and getting more of that "this is my last shot" mentality, the pressure is even stronger.
Anyway, I don't want this to sound too morbid. I'm not in a bathtub full of hot water with a straight razor or anything. Yeah, I sometimes worry that my story ends like Leaving Las Vegas, but that's just a background thread that activates from time to time. Most of the time, I'm just slogging away, working hard and dealing with the day to day stuff that comes along. :-)
For me, knowing that even if I fail at starting my company, it will be much easier to get a good job afterwards being able to demonstrate that I've got the drive and interest to help a company's core mission is very, very helpful. This is the best advice I was given by my friends. Yeah, my company might fail, but every other company will be more likely to hire me to a management or other high level role knowing that I tried, even if I failed.
Yeah, part of my problem is, I feel like I'm too old for that stuff to matter. Plus, the entrepreneurial route is the only way I think I can ever be really happy. It's not about making a lot of money, mind you. It's about the fact that I don't want a "job" in the traditional sense, for any company. As long as I have a "boss", in the sense of one person who can order me around and fire me for non-compliance, I will always chafe at that and be unhappy.
(Yeah, I know that when you run a company you still have a "boss" in a sort of metaphorical sense. That isn't quite the same thing though.)
Edit:
Also, just to illustrate something... I'm just old enough to have grown up on a steady dose of 80's "feel good" movies. That brand of narrative pervades my thinking... the determined underdog, through hard work, grit and determination battles his way to victory against all odds, etc. I watch Rocky for inspiration once every couple of months or so. So I think that I actually need to be in this "do or die" situation to feel at balance with the world. That's my reality, being the underdog, having the deck stacked against me, and having to test myself to see if I can overcome. Sounds weird, I guess, but it's just something that's become part of my fabric over the years.