Hacker Cinema
Sleeper
1973 · Film · 87 min
Directed by Woody Allen
Miles Monroe, a clarinet-playing health food store proprietor, is revived out of cryostasis 200 years into a future world in order to help rebels fight an oppressive government regime.
3 positive15 neutralfrom 18 commenters
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20 comments on Hacker News
Link to the dissertation at Harvard:
http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:37925665
Thus verifying a theme in Woody Allen's futuristic movie "Sleeper":
https://www.nmpf.org/dietary-science-is-awakening-from-a-50-year-sleep/
Perhaps the example of Woody Allen at the top is more apt.
The departure in style, theme, visual approach, and structural vision between early works like Sleeper or Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex and later films such as Match Point is dramatic. Then again, three decades separate those movies. Anderson still has time.
A machine of IIRC the very same name was described in Woody Allen's 1973 film Sleeper.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_(1973_film)
You'll probably enjoy this clip from the Woody Allen movie Sleeper, where his character is revived 200 years in the future after being cryogenically frozen in 1973. Just watch the first minute or so.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fYguIX17Q
Yes, Carpenter made it to be about yuppies and unrestrained capitalism in 1988, however, art from the viewer's perspective 36 years later, can mean something different for that viewer or any other. Personally, I don't see the neo-Nazi and Jewish control of the world angle, but the way the media has sold the Palestine-Israel conflict, the passing of the redundant, free-speech-limiting, Antisemitism bill recently, and with thousands of Jews in the US and Israel protesting for a cease fire, and the thousands of police unleased on US college campus protestors, it can have a different interpretation. In 1985 Columbia students occupied the same hall for 3 weeks, and it led to Columbia's divestment from South Africa's apartheid regime, but most Americans under 35 or so, don't have historical depth. They sway in the wind of the media's hot air. For me, putting the glasses on or being red pilled, today makes the film applicable to a host of viewpoints, and not the cliche yuppy / capitalist trope even if that was sincerely John Carpenter's intention as an auteur. Sure, the acting is bad, and the late 80s coloring makes it seem a dinosaur to today's high-tech, SFX, CGI-addicted, chop-editing audience. I guess I am old. I love it. I also loved watching Wood Allen's 1973 film "Sleeper" for about the 7th time last month.
It's been a while since I seen Anne Hall but I remember to be more of romantic comedy with emphasis on the romance and characters than the jokes as opposed to a film like Sleeper that is almost a pure string of gags. Take a good look at the linked to list. Out of 250 movies, how many are anything close to pure comedies? Certainly exceptions exist but at 20 to 1, 30 to 1 I think my point stands, comedy gets the shaft...
Language divergence is kind of insane. I heard a person say in conversation "I didn't get a picture of it because I didn't have my phone with me." And thinking about how that would be interpreted, 10, 25, 50, and 100 years ago is pretty funny.
There is a funny comedy bit in the movie "Sleeper" where Woody Allen's character is explaining what things were for to scientists in the 23rd century. But today it is even wilder.
What really strikes me is that it isn't "slang" that we're dealing with here, it is actual kind of "things". I thought we had peaked with pet rocks but I was so, so very wrong.
Ignorance was/is bliss for the pleasure. I don't smoke (never did, really), gamble (parents were rabid horse bettors), or drink anymore, so let's say it is one of a few vices I am keeping for the pure pleasure of it. At least I am not huffing gas, and I always liked when my Dad pulled in and filled the car up.
I did paintings conservation for over 3 years, and I developed sensitivities to the benzene family like toluene and xylene; a whiff would give me an instant migraine, and I usually didn't get headaches much at all. All new construction, even the so-called 'green' techniques, has a lot more VOCs or other compounds that gas out, deteriorate, and otherwise create a by-product, which is why I liked my old drafty house. I lost some energy efficiency, but always had significant air exchange and all the glues had gassed off decades ago. New construction lead to Radon becoming more of an issue as a result of airtight basements and living spaces for the sake of energy efficiency. My old house was on top of glacial moraine, so Radon is something to be concerned about, but if it doesn't accumulate in concentration it is not as much an issue. That and simply caulking cracks and holes in your basement to keep it from entering in quantity is the other thing you can do. Also the drafty house ensured it never accumulated upstairs. The fix for newer homes was to put a vent to the outside the basement after caulking, sort of mini-chimney of stainless steel tube. And the fact is that it is the decay of uranium to radium to radon that releases alpha and beta particles, and gamma rays. Radon has a half-life of 3.8 days compared with uranium-238 of 4.5 billion years!
All of this reminds me of why I loved Wood Allen's movie Sleeper when I saw it with my Dad in 1973 (yeah, I know a 9-year-old shouldn't have seen such a movie, it was PG, and ratings had been less than a decade old). In short, a man is woken up 200 years later in 2173 in a dystopian future with a police state. In short, the scientists are perplexed by his request for wheat germ, tiger's milk, and something else. When they tell him all his friends are dead, he says, "But they ate organic rice!". We learn that steak, cream pies, and deep fat are good for you. Cigarettes have also been found to be very healthy! Hilarious movie! Now I have to see if I can find it!
EDIT: Found this link all about book smells. There's even a perfume for it! https://www.compoundchem.com/2014/06/01/newoldbooksmell/
PS: Don't tell California; they'll ban printed books or put labels all over the cover ;)
> Saw a movie back in I think the seventies that involved a time traveler coming back to present day America. He's happily eating what was regarded at the time as a very unhealthy diet and is horrified at all the people eating what we all thought was the healthy choice. It was a comedic punchline throughout the movie.
You are probably talking about Woody Allen's "Sleeper".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeper_(1973_film)
From Sleeper (1973), set in a future USA:
Dr. Melik: This morning for breakfast he requested something called "wheat germ, organic honey and tiger's milk."
Dr. Aragon: [chuckling] Oh, yes. Those are the charmed substances that some years ago were thought to contain life-preserving properties.
Dr. Melik: You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?
Dr. Aragon: Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true.
Dr. Melik: Incredible.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070707/quotes
Smoking cigarettes would do it. Nicotine + Oxygen right? Who knew the movie Sleeper had it right, keto diet and tabacco. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fYguIX17Q
First, thanks to Woody Allen for making the point that in the future fewer things will work well, not more; in the movie Sleeper. (I laughed, but I didn't believe him way back then, when it came out. I do now!)
The author is wrong about why. Now, we all get to deal constantly with infant technology, very early in it's technological cycle, low on the learning curve. Soon this tech too will be displaced by a new, new thing - before most of the wrinkles have been ironed out, before it becomes mature tech. Infant tech has always been ugly to deal with us, from the time of the Newcomen engine, to the first gas engines... there just hasn't been so much of it before. Now the changes come so quickly that almost no technology becomes polished and well-adapted to humans before at least some significant part of it is replaced by a new infant tech with its own teething problems.
There is economic benefit, but the costs of forcing humans to begin another learning curve are likely underestimated, along with other unintended consequences.
There is also the Genghis John effect; if too many things are changing at once the usual checks and balances can't possibly keep up.
But there were also a lot of technological inconveniences in the past that I wouldn't wish to experience again, thank you very much. Cameras that easily exposed film accidentally, TVs that would self-destruct when you tried to use the earphone plug to record from them, toasters that violently exploded the wall sockets they were plugged into because the paper tape insulation on wires had unwound over the years shorting them out internally, highly flammable children's pajamas, lead in paint and gasoline; and much, much more.
The big difference is that in the past there was an "age bonus." Yes the tech was terrible and dangerous but by a certain age you knew where and what all the problems were and were nearly at the top of almost every learning curve that mattered to you. You got to relax, and teach the youngsters. That bonus has been ripped away, of course; and we of a certain age do get cranky about it. I've given up on truly fixing my Android device, configuring Windows yet one more time, and many more things because unlike Sisyphus, I do get bored with the whole rolling the rock back up the hill thing. Nonetheless, I like what I can get to work, so I'm okay Jack.
to think Woody Allen had it right with Sleeper. (movie where some previously bad foods/habits were good for you, and no I am not serious)
A lot of past recommendations were likely co-opted by whatever the industry was starting to push. Plus there was a tendency to focus on one issue to the point of ignoring side effects of correcting it.
i have been a fan of natural fats for a long time and never have cooked with fats other than animal, butter, or olive/avocado oils. I find most distressing are store bought salad dressings and any mass market vegetable oil. Sure it has its place, shortening is an absolute for some baking but the prevalence of it in about everything else is uncalled for.
Yet at the end of the day I always wonder, how do our genetics affect us? Smoking is bad yet lung cancer does not require it and there are smokers living to ripe old ages. Same for some old standard foods that current dieticians bemoan but I remember as staple of grandparents.
Maybe the movie Sleeper wasn't just a comedy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2fYguIX17Q&t=208
Put simply, films like Blazing Saddles made fun of racism without necessarily making fun of racists. They showed the institution as silly and absurd without having to look down and mock the people beyond an initial "Well, yeah, they're bumpkins". A modern film would likely lampoon them mercilessly and dehumanize them.
Additionally, the comic talent those films drew from comes from a very different lineage. Folks like Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor and Mel Brooks have a very different frame of reference for how to do comedy, how to pace it, how to deliver it. I find that modern comedians, having come up with the increasing HBOfication and Comedy-Central-style shows, tend towards very similar schticks: generally progressive-leaning (though the non-progressive stuff is awful redneck pandering as well!) inclusionistic near nihilist little screeds on stage. These tend not to lend themselves to being cast as anything other than a reflection of their own brand in a movie.
I won't really make the "Movies are all PC" argument, because that's silly and overused, but I will say that from a pure marketing standpoint it's difficult to sell a movie as thoroughly dirty as say Sleeper or cleverly offensive as Blazing Saddles: audiences are not interested in that sort of comedy anymore in a world of Soul Plane and Larry the Cable Guy and so forth.
Or Sleeper? The only film mentioned to get 100% on Rotten Tomatoes.
My major point is that there are counter-examples, so the biases you point out are likely not the primary motivators for the organizations.
I am not competent to judge the ongoing discussions on diet. Personally, I agree with your last paragraph.
I did try to read the article but it depends on a large amount of background that I don't have.
I note that Feinman references an observational study, so probably does not consider that methodology as shit as you do.
I note also the declaration of interests section, where we learn that "Richard Feinman writes reviews for Fleishman-Hillard, whose client is the Corn Refiners Association and he has received grant support from the Veronica and Robert C. Atkins Foundation." The others work as consultants, are funded by, or in a consulting capacity for Atkins, for companies like Jenny Craig and McDonald's, for the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, and for a company which produces a low-carbohydrate meal replacement
If the argument "If your paycheck depends on researching how drugs impact diabetes ..." has merit then surely the argument "If your paycheck depends on researching how refined corn oil and low carbs impact diabetes" also has merit.
Why do you believe Feinman's work is any less biased by money than that of someone funded by the ADA?
For some levity, this topic easily brings to mind Woody Allen's "Sleeper": "You mean there was no deep fat? No steak or cream pies or... hot fudge?" / "Those were thought to be unhealthy... precisely the opposite of what we now know to be true."
As well as a scene in the 1951 film "The Day the Earth Stood still": when one doctor talks to the other: "[He] Says their medicine's much more advanced." / "He was very nice about it, but he made me feel like a third-class witch doctor." ... while handing the other doctor a cigarette. (This caused the audience to crack up when I saw it about 15 years ago.)
I am beginning to wonder if Woody Allen wasn't prescient with his movie Sleeper. /s
On a side note there is much of food and dietary research from the 50s onward that needs to be reviewed if not done over. I am still fascinated by the fight over salt, something as a cook I never believed as I cannot imagine cooking without it. Having the majority of relatives on similar diets who lived into their 90s its either genetic or just, well its anecdotal at best.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070707/quotes?qt=qt0231370 When Sleeper was released 39 years ago, I thought this was a cheap joke. But every few years I think about it when there is yet another reversal in what we think we know about nutrition.
Woody Allen might have been on to something. Sleeper: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070707/quotes?qt0231370