Hacker Cinema
The Joker
Le Farceur
1961 · Film · 88 min
Directed by Philippe de Broca
A young man who lives on women meets his match in the young wife of a rich industrialist. Their affair is doomed by her taste for luxury and his dislike of her coolness.
3 positive3 negative4 neutralfrom 10 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
I enjoyed Upstream Color a lot as well, but yeah it's certainly not for everyone.
And agreed on not being spoon fed.
A prime example to the contrary was when in the Joker, spoiler alert, they had a recap showing his delusion. The movie would have been so much better if they had cut that entire segment, and just have the neighbor female act all surprised and weirded out like she did when he entered the apartment.
You're right, I explicitly went out of my way to find movies that are widely considered to be classics, but were not loved by critics. It's not an "analysis" of any kind, as I made clear in my post.
I think the critics are wrong about Joker. The fact that it's an homage to Taxi Driver and King of Comedy is completely intentional, to the point of casting Robert De Niro as the talk show host. I don't consider that a detraction from the film at all. Many critics also interpreted it as some kind of political document, which is totally off the mark. One of the big problems with criticism in the 21st century is that people have lost the ability to tell the difference between portraying something and endorsing it.
You went for very old movies which skews your analysis.
A lot of the old movies you picked are famous and popular in movie pop culture. Audience scoring this in RT probably went out of their way to watch these films, they are not as organic as recent scores as you have a larger number audience scores created by movie lovers.
If you find examples post 2015 when RT became a mainstream scoring system that would be great.
Only movie that's current in your list is "The Joker" which among critics is considered to be a copycat of other critically acclaimed films (taxi driver, the comedian). This is a film that tried hard to look artsy fartsy but was not.
Some people are suicidal.
And the opposite of suicidal, the “carpe diem” idea, rather hedonist, is equivalent in that they believe in “no tomorrow”.
A lot of people suffer dissociation since Trump, which was crystallized in The Joker movie. Or perhaps it was due to social media. In any case, wanting to “see the world burn” is a recurrent idea, I’d like a study on how many people seriously adopt this attitude.
I have ideas for a "Hackers 2" better than that. All these "30 years later" sequels are dripped in nostalgia too much imo. The Hacking scene is a lot more wilder now. It's hard to imagine either of the leads not having their own family or being divorced with kids or something. They can still be cool to an older audience I guess but you need to let the under 40 crowd relate with them.
My idea is something like "Summer Wars" (anime movie, highly recommend) meets the character building and realism of "The Joker" with the humor,fun and style of the original "Hackers". I'll use layman friendly but still technical stories of actual hacks from various threat intel reports I've read over the years that make anything you seen in movies sound boring. Most of you in tech also read these reports but what most of you don't read is the personal details of the actors behind them. APTs and their organization as part of different governemnt units (china for example have MSS and different units in the PLA) but also those guys don't always work strictly for the state. I have seen first hand guys doing whitehat security work but I also had extensive intel on APTs in their region using those very specific techniques lol, but don't take my word for it either directly or via informal association (russia amd criminal groups for example) many of the APT attacks you hear about involve regular people which always made me think of how easy it would be to weave them into a movie plot. I would also like to add a blue teamer's perspective: the shock, the awe, the excitement, the chaos, the friendly fire! Of what happens when blueteams outside of security vendor companies go toe-to-toe with APT actors.
Honestly, I am really keen on inspiring younger people because the talent shortage is real (and you do get paid well in our industry).90%+ of people I interact with these days work in infosec but I'm hard pressed to find anyone who's even heard of "the manifesto".
> Yeah but this is 2022 are there even movie theaters anymore?
My uninformed and probably stupid thoughts:
Hollywood was doing some amazing movies in the 90ish (think Seven, The Matrix, Requiem for a Dream etc). It was a mix of new and established players that were allowed to innovate and be creative. Then Hollywood became more risk averse, I assume because sales were unpredictable and production companies wanted guarantees similar to other industries' large investments. So they started recycling ideas, produce sequels and trading IP rights for dudes in specifically colored spandex suits, which came with a guaranteed fanbase that would watch anything with the brand. This eventually became the MCU-type of crap where everything is a 4th wall joke packed with references to current events, leading to a shelf life less than a year and plots became an afterthought. The sales mindset went as far as putting stuff in the movie for the sake of producing a compelling trailer. At the same time TV was taking the Hollywood's lunch money, but for some reason they doubled down on the approach and blamed streaming for their failures.
The issue isn't the format though, or that everyone has Netflix on their microwave display now. There are still great movies today, and if you get a chance to watch one in a good theatre it's a mesmerizing experience. Me and my partner watched The Joker, 1917 and Dune in Alamo Drafthouse (a theater that has zero-tolerance to texting/talking and serves food & drinks). It's an experience that trumps even great TV shows, when done right. It's just sad that it's so rare.
I'm more cynical and believe that the amount of risk involved means a serious degree of risk aversion towards 'proven models' - which means boring or at best 'fun and chipper' but not 'great cinema' - like Avengers.
The 'lowest common denominator' on planet earth is actually significantly lower than merely just a US audience.
Stories have to be simple and stupid (think Transformers) in order to make a run in theaters.
They have to work across cultures.
Something like 'The Joker' can work - but that was relatively low budget - and still risky.
Avengers are basically the perfect format for today because they are fun characters, a big fanbase, and with some 'smart writing' all they need then is 'good production'. That's it. It doesn't have to be great.
Star Wars and Star Trek should fit this model but they screwed it up.
Dune and many other stories are just 'out of bounds' given the risk involved.
A lot of actors are lamenting this, and it's why we are only seeing 'remakes'. Comedies, RomComs - dying.
I think the only hope is Netflix, Disney+ etc..
Unless the theatre model changes.
When it comes to picking things you are spending your free time on, movies, dining out, video games, books, etc. you are more likely to immediately not even consider stuff you strongly dislike. Its really frustrating to see things in lists you wouldn't even consider. You lose any hope in that system being able to help you find something to escape reality for a while.
What is needed is a movie pick service and that starts with asking what genres you hate. Then get into specific movies you hate to further refine the list of things I don't want to see but at the same time clarifying questions to narrow down the like/dislikes because there are movies that combine elements from different genres. For example, The Joker could be considered in the #superhero, #sad, #mind-fuck categories and if you like #superhero movies but strongly dislike #sad and #mind-fuck then those should be weighted higher and the system shouldn't show The Joker on any personal lists.
The service should have an unfiltered search so people can just find stuff too.
The 'slope' has been 'slipping' for at least 10 years, and here is no indication that it's going to let up.
The opposite of 'fallacy' - it's literally happening all around you:
1) We now have major corporate support for 'social claims' with brands backing (and cashing in) on celebrities for their politics, not their skill at 'whatever', and supporting some causes surrounding a lot of public disruption. These have led to some groups trying to 'ban' others.
2) The attempted influencing of electoral outcomes via 'bad information' from outside agents, agitators, along with a plethora of information - with no guidance other than the whims of CEOs. There's all sorts of 'banning' on FB and YouTube and it's all pretty grey, often it can have major consequences.
3) CEO's brought to congressional hearings for these issues - this is a sign that 'ban' culture is now a top concern.
4) Weekly national 'pop culture wars' over which brand has transgressed which group, promoted widely in the press, resulting in calls for bans of some products or services.
5) 'Social concern' as the primary legitimacy for populism, even among those who are supposed to be popular for their acting, music, or athletics. In the last 10 years - ever 'celeb' has embarked upon a 'personal branding campaign' to imbue themselves with moral authority. There was always a little bit of this - but now it's 'the thing'. Go and have a look at social media, try 'Kristen Bell'. Every few posts are about some kind of moral concern. Otherwise: they could get the ban. A host of globally respected individuals had to sign an piece in Harper's. This is basically 'shocking' to anyone of a certain age, because intellectuals and their ilk used to be the one's fighting for freedom of expression against the authorities - now, 'ban' culture has infiltrated their organisations and become a populist issue.
6) There are disruptions and protests around what would be normal, common, mundane events: 'The Joker' review by the Daily Beast was entitled: "Everything About the Joker was Absolutely Infuriating". The 'infuriating' parts had nothing to do with the film, but rather the supposed politics of the film. The DB and others wanted the film to not be released is it were. There are weekly arguments over who can play who in film, supposed issues of representation, wars over the composition of selection committees - often resulting in the 'cancelling' of individuals.
Twitter and social media have created the ability for agitators to move giant waves of people in an emotional, populist direction, resulting in quite a lot of effort to ban, cancel, disassociate.
It's far worse than ever before, and it's going to be worse before it gets better.
I see no pathway for it 'getting better' anytime soon, because the pathways to outrage have formed, hardened and are now part of our culture.
Individually - yes - most of us are getting sick of it - but that won't change the fact of the activity in the news, on Twitter, and journalists 'calling for the resignation' of so and so for this and that with the basic moral impetus of 'someone on Twitter said it, therefore, that's how America feels'.
CloudFlare, Facebook - your startup - does not want to deal with this, there needs to be some kind of collective clarity.
[1] https://www.thedailybeast.com/everything-about-joker-is-absolutely-infuriating
Watching a movie like The Joker on psychedelics seems a bad idea to me. The movie is already emotionally disturbing and I wouldn't want that disturbed world to get amplified and burned into my brain. Unless you are super experienced and know what you are getting into I would use psychedelics only for positive and supportive experiences.
>everybody who knew him found him to be a genuinely nice and caring person...
Whilst that may be true, I've not read about a lot of tragic deaths where everyone who knew the person thought they were a prick.
The point being raised is "Do we really think his theories had unusual insight/value or is his work being viewed through the lens of his death being tragic?". It seems like an entirely valid question to ask.
In terms of "the joker being a rational actor who achieved his goals". Well personally I think he's misinterpreted the film/characters, but I know i'm not an expert on such things so the most I can say is that I'll take his view with a pretty chunky pinch of salt.