Hacker Cinema
True Romance
1993 · Film · 119 min
Directed by Tony Scott
Clarence marries hooker Alabama, steals cocaine from her pimp, and tries to sell it in Hollywood, while the owners of the coke try to reclaim it.
4 positive1 negative6 neutralfrom 11 commenters
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11 comments on Hacker News
How come the full movie is available at https://archive.org/details/true-romance-1993_202312? Did someone smuggle a pirated version into Archive, or is it legit?
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.
So, I mean, I know that not everyone loves The Lord of the Rings movies. But I just need everyone to remember that Peter Jackson did them. And I mean, I thought Heavenly Creatures was really interesting, and I think I'm one of the dozens of people who really liked The Frighteners (yes, I'm a hipster Frighteners fan.) But if you'd asked me, "Viking, should we trust Peter Jackson to make 11 hours and 21 minutes of The Lord of the Rings (extended editions)?" I would have said, "No," and I would have, in my humble opinion, been totally completely wrong.
I mean, I just need to remind people that great movies exist. LA Confidential. The Matrix. Hell, even the Fugitive is a lot of fun (for what it is.) Mr. Robot is simultaneously amazing and also boring as shit for huge stretches - but man, they committed to that vision, and when the big moments hit, they hit hard. True Lies. True Romance. The Abyss. The Fisher King. Good Will Hunting. Inglourious Basterds. Hell, even Hackers. And Sneakers.
I think Daemon and Freedom could be done wonderfully.
Just imagine ending the series with a nice cackle...
"I do so enjoy my vork..."
Thanks for the links, I appreciate this. I disliked much of the article, even if it was fascinating. Here's why: I can think of no joint venture in contemporary American culture where Black and White people built together as equal partners. As such, I thought it had a whiff of wishful thinking and horseshit about it. This was the era of hardcore Jim Crow. Martin Luther King leads the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955, the same year(?) Emmett Till is lynched. For instance, the appropration of Doo Wop by Italian-Americans sounds improbable. It was created by Black kids in the 40s, but Italian-Americans were (are) not exactly known for their multi-cultural spirit. You can see it depicted in Spike Lee's film "Do The Right Thing". And that infamous scene in True Romance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZUJKXs6W-4
So how did this really happen? The mechanisms of cultural collaboration didn't really exist, but I would love to be corrected. I doubt it is different from hip-hop: it's built almost in it's entirety on the Black cultural underground, and some talented white people who skirt around the edges eventually learn enough to make a stab at the "mainstream".
My favorite story is about the actor (who else, to be honest?) Samuel L. Jackson, born in 1948, who was in his mid 40s when Pulp Fiction (1994) and Die Hard: With a Vengeance (1995) were released.
Some might argue that he had notable roles before that, but I think most people will argue that his career really kicked off after those two movies in particular.
EDIT: According to Wikipedia, "he rose to fame with films such as Coming to America (1988), Goodfellas (1990), Patriot Games (1992), Juice (1992), Menace II Society (1993), True Romance (1993), Jurassic Park (1993), and Fresh (1994)", which means that he was exactly-ish 40 years old when Coming to America (1988) was released.
After reading the comments here, I've started to wonder...
Does elitist mean "Doesn't like the same things I do?"
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While I wouldn't phrase it the way Scorcese did, I sort of share his opinion. Super hero movies bore me to death in most cases. As do most things created and A/B tested by a committee, i.e. most Disney movies. Despite having all the time in the world, I do not go to the movies any more. There's very little I want to see...
When will there be new movies in the same vein as Pulp Fiction, Tombstone, Donnie Brasco, True Romance, The Godfather, Goodfellas or hell, even the Rocky movies.
/Old man yells at clouds
Hollywood have a grand tradition for satirizing themselves mercilessly - from Sunset Boulevard to Tropic Thunder. They don't shy away from presenting powerful Hollywood producers as drug users, as in True Romance, and in The Player you have cameos of Hollywood personalities playing themselves in a movie which present the business as deeply corrupt and opportunistic. I dont' think anybody is as openly cynical about Hollywood as Hollywood itself.
Pulp Fiction and True Romance would be a harder sell these days.
For me (white, non-American) the racial slurs come across as self-indulgent and detract from the movies.
"Stem cells are the Gary Oldman of cell types."
Great analogy. I recall watching a film a few years ago with Gary Oldman in it, and not realising until the credits that it was him. Can't remember which one, unfortunately, probably because of my lack of stem cells.
EDIT: Might have been True Romance.
The best response to this article is a quote from the movie True Romance:
"Now, what we got here is a little game of show and tell. You don't wanna show me nothing but you're telling me everything."
I enjoy the plot where multiple groups converge on a single location to get their hands on some key object. It's the same structure as two of my favorite movies: The Fifth Element and True Romance. When the groups are stereotypes as in True Romance, I find it even more entertaining. Reamde had all of that: bikers, anti government mountain people who are armed to the teeth and gangsters from multiple foreign countries :-)
I'll see if I can check out Anathem at some point, but Baroque is really too much of a commitment for me. I'm a slow reader.
Edit: Anathem not Anathema (thanks __david__ and lmm)