Hacker Cinema
Speed
1994 · Film · 116 min
Part of Speed Collection
Directed by Jan de Bont
Tensions run high when a crazed bomber rigs a Los Angeles bus with a device that will kill everyone on board if the vehicle's speed dips below fifty miles per hour.
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33 comments on Hacker News
How does that scenario work? Someone's under duress because presumably there's a terrorist on board. He lets the crew know there's a bomb onboard. The plane turns around, and the terrorist... lets the plane land safely?
OK maybe the bomb blows up when it crosses some longitude, because this is like the movie Speed, and turning around means the plane never cross that longitude..
If you mean another type of duress, naming your device "plshelp-[seat number]" would be a hell lot more effective..
It sounds like you're talking about the movie Speed with Elvis Presley and Aubrey Hepburn.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtxoM0l0Agg
Ok cool, so a plane merely needs to continue at highway speed, in the face of any difficulty, be it mechanical, electrical, software, weather... Like the movie Speed.
> If they download millions of books ...
... as a private individual, you are toast.
I think the more appropriate quote to paraphrase would be one from Dennis Hopper's character in the film Speed (1994): "Oh, no. Poor people are pirates, Jack. We are tech innovators!"
https://www.imdb.com/search/title/?title_type=feature&release_date=1994-01-01,1994-12-31
Pulp Fiction
Lion King
The Mask
Four Weddings and a Funeral
Dumb and Dumber
The Crow
Speed
True Lies
Interview with the Vampire
Natural Born Killers
Ace Ventura
Stargate
Clerks
The list goes on. Lot's of movies that turned out to be classics or cult classics, or the start of some great careers.
"This is why we can't have good things". Something that was created for the benefit, has been mis/ab-used and now is being removed.
I am also thinking (more and more lately) the movie The Congress (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1821641/) and how easy it will be very soon to make a company without human actors. The mega-big studios can train AI by feeding it all their movies, then feed it with the scenario (this is where we - the humans come in - the famous "prompt engineers"), and a movie will be created.
Now, to the above scenario there will be a lot of corrections (can't walk in the air/water/nails)(can't open with killing a dog unless "John Wick" or "Sacred Games")(Sandra Bullock can levitate in "Gravity" but not on "Speed")(etc.)
Eventually if you hire 1000 people to watch 2 iterations of the new movie per day and make corrections to each (100025 = ), the AI will learn and improve on these unrealistic outputs and eventually you can produce movies weekly.
Yo Netflix people, if you haven't started doing this already, START! :) (oh and make a follow-up series on Sacred Games while at it)
EDIT: that's quite a tangent, but I can imagine the day where I will be asking my Paramount-AI "hey, make an original Star Trek series based on this-and-that, I want to binge it next weekend!" (or show me the one you created for someone else)
Freeway "culture" is SoCal is something that absolutely fascinates me.
Prefacing each freeway number with "The"
Sigalerts
short cut culture - they are like secret snow skiing powder stashes
Hollywood definitely contributed to this with shows like CHIPS and movies like "Speed" - it's interesting how life in SoCal really does revolve around freeways more than anywhere else in the United States.
I’m not necessarily disagreeing with your list, even though some of those are mediocre at best, but yeah I did mean per year, and limited to Hollywood (Parasite for instance not counting). And no, ok, I will also straight up disagree with the second Knives out Movie which I thought was absolute trash. A perfect example of poor storytelling and the form over substance of modern cinema.
But just taking say 1992 you have Last of the Mohicans, The Unforgiven, My Cousin Vinny, Malcolm X, Bad Lieutenant, Scent of a Woman, Reservoir Dogs, Dracula, Chaplin.
And then a bunch of fun schlomp like Arizona Dream, Basic Instinct, Sister Act, Army of Darkness, Home Alone 2, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Mighty Ducks, Wayne’s World.
These are all undoubtedly great movies.
And then another huge bunch of watchable stuff easily comparable to some of your mentions like Watcher or High Life.
And 1992 is not an outlier.
In 1993 you have Jurrasic Park, Groundhog Day, Whats Eating Gilbert Grape, Scindlers List, Meanace 2 Society, Alive, Dazed and Confused, Falling Down, In The Name of The Father, True Romance, Demolition Man, Carlitos Way, The Secret Garden, Philadelphia, A Perfect Workd, Cool Runnings, Short Cuts.
In 1991 Silence of The Lambs, Ternimator 2, JFK, Point Break, Thelma and Louise, Boyz in the Hood, The Doors, My Own Private Idaho, Barton Fink, The Fisher King, Naked Lunch.
In 1990 Goodfellas, Hunt for Red October, Total Recall, Edward Scissorhands, Home Alone, Godfather 3, Dances with Wolves, Tremors, Back to the Future 3, Awakenings, The Witches, Wild at Heart, Jacobs Ladder, Nikita, Slacker, Millers Crossing.
And the quality difference is massive too, not just somewhat better. Like just Millers Crossing is miles better than anything that has been made in the last 5 years, and I’m picking at random.
In 1994 Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, The Lion King, Speed, Ace Ventura, Dumb and Dumber, Stargate, Natural Born Killers, The Crow, Clercs, Maverick, Ed Wood, In the Mouth of Madness, Interview With The Vampire.
I could go on.
And this is not even talking about how the 80s is a better decade for cinema, or how the 70s is the peak of the power of the author with far more experimental, artistic, and substantial productions.
Has quality declined? Yes. Massively. Humongously. Stupendously.
I liked his "I don’t remember exactly when the thought first snuck into my head," comment, because I know exactly when the thought snuck into my head.
The very first time I watched the movie "Speed." I've wanted one ever since. Keanu Reeves made it look so "tacticool" it hurt.
I have no problem to defend Drive against Fugitive, Fugitive aged really bad and it feels like cheap TV movie, Drive is obviously much newer, has great cinematography, great score, atmosphere, nice action and aged really good despite being 11 years already (but I am not really some big fan of Drive, just saying it's better than Fugitive). Btw. just because something is "stupid action flick" it doesn't mean it can't be good at it, you can have good stupid action flicks and you can have bad stupid action flicks. I don't usually watch stupid action flicks (I'm more (social) drama guy), but when I do I want to watch the good ones.
I'm recently rewatching movies starting from 90s and while The Rock was still enjoyable even in 2022 (8mm or Absolute power were meh, same as already back then), I remember Fugitive being pretty bad already many years ago. Movies like Die Hard, Speed, Con Air, Mission impossible, Enemy of the state, were all better than Harrison action movies, which always felt like cheap TV movies with low production value. Meanwhile we have 2 year newer Heat, which is still for sure in top 5 best action/crime movies ever and aged amazingly and could easily beat any day any new action/crime movie. The production value and director skills are on completely different level than Harrison action movies. I just checked the most famous Harrison action movies I remember from 90s - Fugitive, Clear and Present danger, The Devil's Own and Air Force one - all 4 have different director, 3 directors nobody remembers and 4th only thanks to Das Boot.
> they are (to me) surround sound as that was becoming a consumer product around when Twister came out.
No, DVD caused rapid consumer adoption specifically of Dolby Digital - which isn’t surprising since DVD was the first widely used digital movie medium in the West, but Dolby surround sound dates to 1976 in theaters and the 1982 as a consumer home video offering so nearly 20 years prior to DVDs. Most major movies throughout the 80s (thousands before Twister) were mixed in surround sound which was the mix available on the home video (ie both VHS and Laserdisc).
Here's a video tape from 1989 (look on the right side of the label): https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/G6MAAOSwgiZiWk2a/s-l1600.jpg
> In the 90s people weren’t hyping Dolby tape tech, it was already the standard.
As was Dolby surround. In fact if anything the 90s is when Dolby got some serious competition from DTS and SDDS.
So I'm still not sure what the significance of 1996 is other than a personal one. I assume if you were 2 years older you'd say 1994 (and maybe Speed)?
Another example.
I recently watched Knowing (2009) based on Ebert's review. One of the things he wrote in that review was: "The film has sensational special effects, which again I won't describe."
I found myself wondering if we watched the same movie. I thought the special effects were pretty awful. Comparing the scene the subway crash to say, the train crash in Silver Streak (1976)[1] or Speed subway crash (1994)[2], I thought Knowing[3] was inferior and just looks terribly fake to me.
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qPAOarQxaU
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=US2bcpW7KFU
3. https://vimeo.com/117341659
Then there's the insane French Connection (1971) chase scene which they could never film today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzEloJ5venk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_French_Connection_(film)#Car_chase
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/entertainment/videos/a24683/the-french-connection-chase-was-shot-on-uncleared-public-streets/
https://nypost.com/2021/10/04/secrets-of-the-french-connection-on-50th-anniversary/
Im thinking of that 90s movie Speed. Where the loop a 1 minute video signal to the bomber, while they escape. I guess its a reality now.
> This stuff really was straight out of a cartoon:
> ...
> ...motion detector squealed. When the officers opened the box, they found a gaping hole...
That line immediately had me thinking of the movie "Speed", but funny enough, this story actually pre-dates the movie by roughly 2 years. But it does make me wonder if they had the same source of inspiration.
What if there was a bomb in the car that exploded if the car dropped below a certain speed (ala Speed, the movie)?
If it was unclear, the point I'm making is that you are awfully quick to judge someone's guilt based on a web page you read.
Also, you don't get to decide sentences as a juror, so your statement doesn't really make sense.
I also think that the everyday super hero, for all purposes is not available in movies any more.
What happened to movies like Volcano or Speed?
Exactly. Bad commercial movies designed by a committee aren’t a new thing, I remember the likes of Independence Day and Speed from the 1990s. What is new is the rarefaction of the sort of movies you mention.
I recommend Bret Easton Ellis’ podcast. What he says is that it is the combination of two things.
First people don’t go to the theatre anymore, they stream, so the economics have become really hard for smaller independent movies.
He also argues that Marvel movies are so plain that they don’t really produce new movie stars with a strong personality, it’s all CGI, most of the audience probably doesn’t even know the names of the lead actors. And the model for smaller movies was for the a producer to secure a movie star (popularised by big blockbusters), then get the financing on the back of that star, then the movie could be made. And that model is now dead.
This is like when Keanu Reeves accelerates the train in order to derail it at the end of Speed.
Though I'm bearish on applying movie logic to social change.
This neutron star would probably collapse into a black hole, but its fast rotations prevents it from doing so. It's like the movie "Speed", just with higher stakes...
My 3 minutes in Hardcore mode:
ok lets do ths. I have no idea what is happening or how long i can go without typing before all that i ahve typed before will be lost: I feel like im making way more mistakes than i usually do, which is weird because I usually dont have to look at what Im typing as much either. I dont know. I have basically nothing left to say. And i am scarted to lose this challenge. It seems only one minute is over so far. So we have some ways to go. Quite a while actually. Closing in on half, but not really if i look at it properly. This bprogress bar at the top is really stressing me out. I feel llike Keanu Reeves in Speed. Or Sandra Bullock. Or ... What this guys name again. The one from dumb and dumber... ah commonm you know this! Dennis Hopper is the bad guy. Ah... I cant believe I'm blanking on the name. He was in Newsroom, which was not quite as good as it was supposed to be. Actually quite a lot less -... goood? I guess. Well, anywaya. Araron Sorkin is kind of hit or miss if you think about it. For example Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip was ver y entertaining but the "high-stakes" scenarios they went for near the end of the season just didn't really work for a TV show setting. But overall I enjoyed it quite a lot I guess. Almost done!
I think, you may have mistaken his quote on the sequel of the movie "Speed". He said in an interview, that despite having a good working relationship(& chemistry) with Sandra Bullock, he declined the sequel because the movie plot didn't interest him.
> The program claimed that hair length can affect human intelligence
This was, and (maybe) still is, a wisdom in Thailand, but for different reasons.
I was in high school in ~2002. My knowledge could be outdated. I hope they have changed this dogma.
Thailand enforced certain hairstyles on students until the end of highschool. For male, it looked similar what is shown in the post. Probably even uglier.
(Not all schools enforced it strictly. Some, especially private schools, let their students to have a better hairstyle.)
Anyway, we believed that these superficial decorations would make students being distracted from studying. Students would focus purely on look and etc. It's a "tradition".
Obviously, self-esteem was not a thing to consider back then.
This hairstyle rule turned good teachers into hair polices. Teachers were obsessed with whether your hair was too long. Long hair became the sign of disrespect.
When the movie, Speed, came out, Keanu Reeves had the buzzcut hairstyle which was shorter than what Thailand enforced. Many students thought "well, it's shorter and looks cooler. It should be fine". It turned out that cutting your hair shorter than what was enforced was also wrong.
One funny tidbit: I've learned a valuable lesson that Buzzcut in US is called Skinhead in Thailand. I told several people at work that I would get a skinhead. People looked freaked out a bit because skinhead was associated with something really really bad; I don't remember what. Then, one friend kindly pointed out that what I wanted was a buzzcut.
Edit: This article (https://www.wsj.com/articles/shear-follicle-thai-students-rebel-against-mandatory-haircuts-1466711841) captures the situation pretty well. And there's a photo inside which is accurate
I don't know about you, but my application is tested on a single platform/stack with a specific set of operations. When the operation of the thing I'm running on changes, my application has changed. It just can't be expected to run the same way. Upgrade means your app is going to work differently.
Not only is the app now different, but the upgrade itself is going to be dangerous. The idea that you can just "upgrade a running cluster" is a bit like saying you can "perform maintenance on a rolling car". It is physically possible. It is also a terrible idea.
You can do some maintenance while the car is running. Mainly things that are inside the car that don't affect its operation or safety. But if you want to make significant changes, you should probably stop the thing in order to make the change. If you're in the 1994 film Speed and you literally can't stop the vehicle, you do the next best thing: get another bus running alongside the first bus and move people over. Just, uh, be careful of flat tires. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxQI2vBCDHo)
Look at the line "shoot the hostage" in the first scene of this movie:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_(1994_film)
basically you have to find some cheat to cover one of the sides. Almost all of the successful community sites that I know of involved some kind of aggressive promotion at the beginning, enough that some people would have ethical concerns.
Tez means Fast or Speed in hindi.
Fun Fact: In the 1994 Keanu Reeves movie the number plate for his car is 646 TEZ.
Yeah, you can search for remarkably vague things these days. Like literally "that movie with the bus that couldn't slow down" - the first two results are for the Simpsons reference and the third is the IMDB page for Speed.
Where is this data? Are you talking about the hilarious statistic that 94% of subscribers are happy with the service?
I tried to watch a film last night and searched for all of these very popular films.
* Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels
* 28 Days Later
* Go
* Gladiator
* American Beauty
* Speed
Then I gave up. When you try 6 very well known films and none of them are on there it changes how you think of the service from "most stuff is on there" (like Spotify for example) to "I have to search Netflix to find something I like" (like a normal TV channel). It's very different.
It would be very difficult to ransom a bus. Speed is not a realistic movie.
I lived a few blocks from there for a couple of years. it's an awesome area to have an office.
Trivia: just a few hundred meters down the street is the clown building where the bus blows up at the beginning of the film Speed.
Woo. Let's chill out a bit.
1. I actually do like Facebook, and am very impressed by what they are pulling off.
2. I learned about Ponzi schemes a while back in macro theory class, before they were mainstream and irremediably tainted by the vileness of Bernie Madoff. The story of Ponzi himself -- as I remember our macro professor telling it five years ago -- is pretty 'funny', or at least provided welcome distraction between two utility maximization derivations in econ class; he's supposed to have been a 16th century Venitian who ended up in the Venice lagoon once the bankers he was pulling his cash from realized what happened. I didn't think of it as a crime. All this to say that I never implied nor intended to imply that Facebook was committing any sort of fraud, immoral behavior or else.
3. What I mean by this derivative thing is quite simple -- imagine the movie Speed with a bomb that explodes, not when the speed goes under X mph, but when the bus's acceleration goes below X mph/h, forcing the bus to keep on accelerating, driving faster and faster and faster. Eventually you'll hit the physical speed limit of the bus, acceleration will converge to zero, and the bus will explode. That's a very silly metaphor for what I was trying to explain - being that, if indeed FB had to rely on an ever growing in-flow of first time ad buyers to keep the lights up, they are would be in as desperate a situation as was Mr Ponzi in 16th century Venice.
Just to cool everyone's mind -- I really don't think this will happen. The team is least extremely smart to have gotten where they are, and I trust Facebook to eventually find as ridiculously profitable a business model as AdSense, with high probability. As a user I do hope it will respect my privacy, and as an entrepreneur I do hope it will allow some cool new distribution models.
You laugh, but I thought Speed was a pretty good movie for as long as the bus was running. It was oddly compelling. There is something to be said for momentum in storytelling. You can bridge amazingly large gaps of logic if you just keep the plot moving.
Before the bus is running the movie is completely unmemorable, and after the bus stops running the movie falls apart and starts to suck. Which is pretty ironic.
Movie Exec: So, I didn't have time to read the script, what's the plot of this "Speed" movie you're looking to make.
Producer: If the bus stops, it blows up.
Movie Exec: That's it? The "Hey Verne Guy" movies had better plots than that! What the he...
Producer: We've got Keanu all set to star if we get sign off.
Movie Exec: OH! Why didn't you say so. I bet we can get 50mil for production.
Producer: Make it 60 and you're on.
"Buses are getting the same capability [kill switches], in case terrorists want to re-enact the movie Speed."
I may be wrong here put didn't the bus in speed blow up when it stopped?