Hacker Cinema
Ronin
1998 · Film · 122 min
Directed by John Frankenheimer
A briefcase with undisclosed contents – sought by Irish terrorists and the Russian mob – makes its way into criminals' hands. An Irish liaison assembles a squad of mercenaries, or 'ronin', and gives them the thorny task of recovering the case.
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26 comments on Hacker News
I'm a 35-year professional sys admin, so you'd think I'd have really strong opinions about how exactly it sets the system up. Or maybe I have enough experience that I can just eyeball what it's doing and feel comfortable? I'm not sure.
Kind of reminds me of the movie Ronin where the young guy is asking the seasoned CIA guy what gun he likes. "It doesn't matter, it's just a tool, I put it in my toolbox."
Heat, Ronin and the Ocean's series are the trinity of heist movies. "For me the sun rises and sets with her, man."
For any Heat fans reading this comment, Michael Mann co-wrote a novel, Heat 2, that focuses on his character, and the entire time I was reading it I imagined it being Val the entire time. It's very good - a worthy follow-up.
Mostly, I will watch a movie a second or third time if I am tired and it's on TV and cannot sleep. So there is only a small intersection of films that I have watched multiple times and would admit to watching even once.
So excluding those, from most to least (probably).
- elf
- the Bourne identity
- groundhog day
- ronin
- Willie Wonka (the original)
- the fifth element
- ghost dog (any Jim Jarmusch)
- the blues brothers
- singin' in the rain
- crouching tiger, hidden dragon
- my friend totoro
I am probably leaving out quite a few, but all these films I have seen enough times to reconstruct in my head, scene by scene.
Watch a movie car chase set in a city you know ! For example, the Ronin car chase in Paris jumps from street to street all over the region in an entirely nonsensical way - but a person who doesn't know Paris won't mind at all... And the rest of us has to suspend disbelief !
He didn't die in the _The Martian_ or _Ronin_, but he was fired from his job in both movies.
There was an era where CGI was used to simulate somewhat real or imagineable behavior.
If it’s a fantasy movie, I don’t care about bizarre effects. But something like Fast and Furious it’s just completely ridiculous to me. It’s just boring and lazy. Films like Grand Prix or Ronin have spectacular car scenes w/o being stupid.
I've worked in offices where everyone is super busy but seemingly little to no progress is made. It's really maddening.
One time I put together a strategy where the recommendation: "watch and wait". The idea was - there wasn't any work to do, what we had was "good enough" and flexible to be a good option no matter if the market shifts, and our job was to watch the market over the next quarter, observe, and collect insights. We were anticipating market changes, so any work done now might be worthless in 3 months.
People weren't comfortable with that at all. Clearly we should kick off some new product feature, or engage new start-ups on something innovative. We had to do something.
It reminds me of that scene from the movie Ronin when they are waiting for more information on the target:
Gregor: It would be nice to do something.
Sam: We are doing something. We're sitting here, waiting.
I enjoyed the movie Ronin, then made the mistake of watching the "making of". They showed how they added sound effects in the car chase, like shaking gravel in a coffee can, etc.
Then when I watch the movie, and hear the sound effects, in my mind I see the foley artist shaking the coffee can.
It ruined the movie for me :-)
P.S. I watched "Night Sky" yesterday. In one scene, the truck screeches to a halt on a dirt road. Sigh.
I watched "Ronin" and then made the mistake of watching the "Making of..." documentary.
The documentary showed how the foley artists made and added the sound effects for the car chases. It completely ruined the movie for me, as when I'd see the chases the picture in my mind was of the foley artists rattling things in coffee cans, etc.
It’s also impossible in the vast, vast majority of real-life situations.
As DeNiro said in the terrible Movie “Ronin” — “But the map…the map is not the territory.”
The 3D model will differ from the actual construction. From the very beginning and more and more over time. Documentation is hard enough for software projects. Why would we expect documentation quality of construction to be better?
I can see this being used for retrofit designing. Use a LiDAR point cloud to create a model of an existing open facility, all the exposed machinery and piping. Then suggest changes for future installation and have current staff walk through the plant checking the virtual future piping/etc.
We already do that without the 3D glasses though. Just 3D rendered to computer screen.
Not really. I watched "Star Trek II" and "Ronin" on HDTV and found it painful. The sets on STII looked cheap and the uniforms looked like costumes. "Ronin" looked like a soap opera. I found it hard to watch old movies on HD.
Some years ago, I was at my cousin's house watching some movies on his HDTV. The first movie was "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," which I recall seeing in movie theaters when it was released in 1982 (as I date myself here). I think STII is the best of the Star Trek movies and still holds up to this day, but watching on that HDTV was painful! I could see the costumes. I could see the cheapness of the set. It just looked cheap, and not at all like the incredible spectacle I remember from the movie theater (or on repeated rewatchings on TV).
The next movie was "Ronin" (1998). Great movie, but on HDTV, it looked like a cheap TV soap opera. Again, it was painful to watch. On the movie screen? Or a normal TV? Incredible. HDTV presents a level of fidelity that older movies can't properly deal with, which you may be picking up on (as someone who not only saw "Empire Strikes Back" in theaters, but still think the puppet looks much better than the CGI version).
My point is, it’s almost unheard of that a good movie has a boring car chase. Or at the least the movie is a good action movie. If you’re watching Fast 5 or whatever, of course the chase is campy but the entire movie is campy. What are you watching the movie if not for the chase? The plot?
Even in the Bourne films with ostensibly better story lines, I’m struggling to understand how you’d be interested in watching those movies if you’re actually not interested in watching the chase scenes fully. I often just watch the chase scenes on YouTube to give where I’m coming from. I rented Bullit and Ronin and watched then just for the chase. So I suppose I’m the opposite.
The city feel is perfect though. It is just the interactions/movements of some of the characters.
Also the acceleration of people and cars feels still too artificial. It is not the looks, but the physics that are still full on the uncanny valley.
I think as graphics get more and more realistic looks wise, game designers need to slow down the game, and make it feel more real.
One of my favorite car chases is from the movie Ronin. It feels extremely real, like you are there, as they didn't use any outlandish effects, but kept it grounded on how a real car chase would feel.
https://youtu.be/2m-ofGDLNlM?t=61
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0_UqwsYoGY
It's referencing a scene from the movie Ronin.
"What's the color of the boathouse at Hereford?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm-g0NGE9W8
It all depends on the story. ATLA (Avatar: the last airbender) is a great example for something that needs a contract for multiple seasons from the start: they knew they'll have 3 seasons, and that was one big arc and storyline. Same for Trollhunters; it was unfortunate to only have 1 season for the third installation, Wizards: it was way to fast.
Other series, however... are dead slow. It was delightful to recently watch a 1998 film, `Ronin`: 2 hours, and more story happened, than in 2 seasons of most series.
There is no simple answer to this.
I remember wanting to buy an Audi during my entire 20s specifically because of the movie Ronin.
This kind of thing is nothing new. My first experience with it was when I visited (and stayed in...it turned into a hostel) Luke's uncle's house from the original Star Wars film. I'm not sure why, but I was very surprised that the exterior of the home was shot somewhere else and looked nothing like the real outside of the building (well...hole, since it's dug out of the ground).
Another favorite of mine...anyone familiar with Paris will laugh at the car chase scene from Ronin where they teleport around the city from shot to shot.
Heck, I saw Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in HD several years ago and man, it looked awful. Gone was the Star Ship Enterprise, Kirk and Spock. Instead, I got a half-baked set and some old actors in obvious costumes. It was painful to watch.
Ronin (the next film being shown) didn't fare much better, looking like a TV soap opera.
Ronin has good driving sequences, but the cars aren't cool. The two best movies for cars are Bullitt and Grand Prix. Everything else is way, way down. Too bad, actually. I don't understand why Hollywood simply cannot make good car movies.
Edit: I forgot to add in the original "Gone In 60 Seconds", not the pathetic remake.
Netflix recommendations have essentially never worked for me. It occasionally identifies a category I might be interested in, but essentially drops the ball on actual content. I think the best film I've seen recommended in a genre was Charlie Victor Romeo.
There are still some excellent movies (Primer, Metropolis, Ronin, Barton Fink, The Man Who Wasn't There, etc...), particularly classics. And the documentaries are probably under appreciated (Genius on Hold, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, both Cosmos, etc...). So, someone is probably paying attention. I have to randomly search for specific things from time to time though. Sometimes sites like https://reddit.com/r/bestofnetflix help.
One of the bigger problems I've noticed is that some movies tend to be cut short though. It's almost never a director's cut.
It needs more Michael Bay! Kidding aside, I do agree the Fastback and Charger are beautiful pieces of engineering. What I wouldn't do to own a Charger.
I'll have to (try and) watch the movie again.
Personal favourite is the car chase from Ronin: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVaNBrYLvFg#t=339
Link to Bullitt chase: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Lbs_nYW3-o
Unfortunately, I cannot find a clip of this from the movie Ronin. One of my favorites with Robert DeNiro as a criminal or spy, and not even his own gang of crooks are trusting of him. Among my many favorite quotes (I am reviewing all of them and laughing; the movie is a goldmine [0]):
Spence: You think too hard. Sam (DeNiro): Nobody ever told me that before.
[0] http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122690/quotes
Absolutely true. For example Ronin (1998) has much more awesome special effects than the average 201x CGI infested equivalent. I was surprised by the perceptiveness of a youngster who pointed this syndrome out to me, he recognises the superiority of movies half a generation older than the movies made for his generation.
Reminds me of that DeNiro movie "Ronin." In it a woman is saying to DeNiro's character, something like: You have to escape him every time, but he just has to catch you once.
Short answer: No, Long Answer: Maybe.
Select your graduate school and advisor very carefully. If you have an advisor of the entrepreneurial type, then go work for this person and get your PhD. E,g: Working for Robert Morris.
Some very interesting companies have come out of grad schools: Google, Yahoo, Akamai, Teoma, etc. It helps to go into grad school with an open mind, get your Masters and at that point in time, decide if you want to go ahead with a PhD.
As a general rule of thumb, this line from the movie Ronin, helps: "Whenever there is any doubt, there is no doubt."
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122690/quotes (4th quote from top)