Hey that is interesting - IMDB's name folder is an indexed list... ordered by.... ?
nm0000001: Fred Astaire
nm0000002: Lauren Bacall
nm0000003: Brigitte Bardot
nm0000004: John Belushi
nm0000005: Ingmar Bergman
nm0000006: Ingrid Bergman
...
It seems it is alphabetical, based on last name, but the first list must have been a very small select list, and then it rolls over around 9xx to start another list of people at A, etc etc....
I wonder how that database was populated / why that way.
Anyone wanting to watch this movie (which is great) just go into it cold. Be warned that there's a pretty extended sex scene, but otherwise just go in without expectations.
> Be warned that there's a pretty extended sex scene, but otherwise just go in without expectations.
I want to push back slightly against the idea that's an "extended sex scene", or even that it's a "sex scene" at all.
It's one of the most beautiful sequences in all of cinema -- a grieving couple rediscovering intimacy and joy. The way it is intercut with them dressing, getting ready for dinner, the way you can see it brought happiness and affirmation and some sense that life is not over and love survived a terrible loss. It's central to the entire film: to why they are in Venice in the first place, to their commitment to each other, to their determined love for each other.
> It's one of the most beautiful sequences in all of cinema -- a grieving couple rediscovering intimacy and joy. The way it is intercut with them dressing, getting ready for dinner, the way you can see it brought happiness and affirmation and some sense that life is not over and love survived a terrible loss. It's central to the entire film: to why they are in Venice in the first place, to their commitment to each other, to their determined love for each other.
Also known as a "sex scene." And at a full five minutes, it's a rather long scene :-)
It's also one of the most notorious sex scenes in cinema from that era, with persistent rumors that Sutherland and Christie actually were doing the deed.
But I think you wrongly inferred that the commenter was trying to dissuade people from watching the movie because of it. I interpreted it just as a fair warning, lest you think it might be a fun pick for family movie night with the kids and grandparents.
> Also known as a "sex scene." And at a full five minutes, it's a rather long scene :-)
It has almost nothing creatively in common with sex scenes in almost any other movie ever made, which are usually (lazily, and often misogynistically) used to cheaply bond the damsel to the hero.
It's not a sex scene; it is fully and completely a love scene.
I can think of so few like it.
> It's also one of the most notorious sex scenes in cinema from that era, with persistent rumors that Sutherland and Christie actually were doing the deed.
> Buddy, when two people are having sex in a movie, it's a "sex scene", however you choose to explain the nuance.
I'm not your buddy and I'm trying to draw what I think is a pretty important creative, cultural, artistic distinction. But if you don't see it, that's fine.
> What makes it "misogynistic"?
Have you ever considered how the balance of male and female nudity works in Hollywood? Who is always the most exposed?
As a result it's very nearly intrinsically misogynistic to suggest two actors really had heterosexual sex on a film set. The portrayal and the balance of power makes that clear.
(I mean consider how the distinction works if it is two men or two women... how do you decide what is portrayal and what is sex?)
> It's not a sex scene; it is fully and completely a love scene.
The love was expressed sexually. In a sex scene.
I understand that most sex in movies is poorly done, but that is a different discussion (and doesn't alter the plain-english meaning of the words sex or scene). No argument that sex is often a negative thing in films -- often causing the protagonist's downfall (an endless re-telling of the Garden of Evil parable). And of course, until very recently the woman was expected to be topless, though less so in the last few years since #metoo. There are exceptions, with sex-positivity and/or no female nudity.
Persistent, yes. But I'm confused why you think the rumors are infantile or misogynistic. At the time, people were shocked by the realism, and they reacted with "those two sure look like they're really fucking." How is that derogatory to Julie Christie??
Don't Look Now is one of those unforgettable 1970s movies so ahead of their time, along with The Marathon Man and very few others. And it's spooky indeed, hard to bear if you've got a child. RIP
I think it's how I learned of him, when my dad bought me a 486 with CD-ROM, and some games on CDs in the 90's. That game even had footage of the 1991 coup attempt: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUuiNcJKY4s
I'm younger, so my first introduction to him was Hunger Games, and that's where I started following him as an actor. A great career all around. Was happy to see him in Bass Reeves, but sad to know that was his last piece (if IMDB is accurate).
To me the 2 movies that defined him was the remake of Invasion of The Body Snatchers (that scene on the end still hunts me) and The Eye OF the Needle, where he interprets a German Spy called Fabber that discovery about Operation Double Cross and tries to reach a german U-Boat with the info.
His voice is I think one of the most distinctive in movies. If you like being haunted by scenes from slow-burn horror movies then I can recommend The Broken (2008) with Lena Headey.
I finally watched this within the last year. Blew me away. Although the movie came out only a couple of years before I was born, it feels so much like a "modern" movie.
I think Invasion is an example of a big change in how movies were being made that started in at least the late 70's that became more or less how lots of movies were made since the 80's. Its right up there with Alien in my mind.
Honestly it reminded me of back in school when I first read something by Mark Twain. I could never get interested in any of the period books and such that were required reading, but the first time I read something by Twain it was immediately compelling. Even though his works were nearly 150 years old at the time, the way he wrote in much more simple and direct text is more or less how most fiction has become since then. It made it so much more accessible to a young person than the overly flowery language of the time period.
Kelly's Heroes is one of the best war movies in my opinion. He played Oddball very well. Oddball's line about how his commander was trying to get them killed since Normandy resonated with me.
My dad was an infantryman in World War 2 in the European Theater of Operations. His war book had a lot dead listed in it. He underlined the ones he knew. One was a lieutenant. I asked my dad about the lieutenant and my dad's response was, "He was a West Point asshole."
Being in a war doesn't make one a hero. Mostly you are fighting because you have to and your goal is for you and your buddies to survive.
I love you Oddball :) I think you had some kind of profound effect upon me when I was in single digit figures of age and watched this film with my dad.. You rock man }:-8)
Came here to post this. Here's more info about it:
From YouTube description: "The music video, directed by Julian Doyle, was conceived by Terry Gilliam and Kate Bush. The video features Canadian actor Donald Sutherland playing the role of Wilhelm Reich, and Bush playing the part of his young son, Peter."
From Wikipedia: "Reich's work on character contributed to the development of Anna Freud's The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), and his idea of muscular armour—the expression of the personality in the way the body moves—shaped innovations such as body psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy, bioenergetic analysis and primal therapy."
"Following two critical articles about him in The New Republic and Harper's in 1947, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction against the interstate shipment of orgone accumulators and associated literature, calling them "fraud of the first magnitude". Charged with contempt in 1956 for having violated the injunction, Reich was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and that summer over six tons of his publications were burned by order of the court"
I've got to resist the temptation to go on about Reich again but he's one of the more fascinating characters for sure: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que..., and his influence is greater than people realize. He hasn't been written out of history completely, but he's in limbo, probably because of the many taboos he broke. He was the only person whose books were burned by the Nazis, the Soviets, and the Americans (as you correctly point out).
It's fascinating stuff and way out of the mainstream, and yet his influences (e.g. bodywork, breathwork) have gotten more mainstream at the same time. Kind of a paradox.
The first movie I really remember seeing him in was Virus. By all accounts it is a pretty bad movie, but I liked it a lot as a kid and it scared the crap out of me.
_Wow_... I literally haven't thought of this movie in 25 years. I saw a bunch of trailers for it on TV as a kid and thought it looked cool but never got around to seeing it as I wasn't nearly old enough and forgot about it since. I might have to give this a watch tonight and close the file on it.
The first image I have of Donald Sutherland is his character in The Great Train Robbery, which I think is a mostly forgotten movie which, for some reason, I was obsessed with as a teenager. Later, MASH and Kelly's Heroes, of course. He'll be missed, but his enormous catalog is a testament to his versatility.
Second the recommendation. Excellent movie, and excellently played by Sutherland opposite Connery.
Interestingly enough, I think The Great Train Robbery may have been one of the first Michael Crichton books adapted to film? https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0079240/ (check: nope, preceded by both Westworld and Andromeda Strain)
I went on a jog through historical heist films, and there's some amazing older stuff, e.g. Rififi (1955).
I find it odd that I don't recall ever watching a movie with Donald Sutherland. MASH is one of the few Robert Altman films I still need to watch, so here we go.
Idolised that film and his role since I first saw it in my early teens. The romance sequences between Liam and Molly Prior ( Donald Sutherland and Jenny Agutter ) affected me quite a bit. If you’ve read the book and the sequel, they’ve got the casting dead-on. Can’t imagine anybody else playing those two roles.
I think the first time I actually wept at a film was that last scene. He decides to head back to Ireland after the action, and she reads his last letter while walking on the same beach where they met. Just overall a very touching moment.
I loved the way they recruit him. He says he likes his slow professor life, and the general tells him - that’s like a race horse pulling a milk cart!
Donald then agrees to come on board - you have such a way with words!
I've seen him in a few movies, often as an extra. One of my favs has to be "Space Cowboys" ... will probably (re)watch MASH and Space Cowboys this weekend in remembrance.
They needed a major star, so John Landis got him to do it as a favor. He did all his scenes in one day. They offered him either $35,000 or two points (two percent of the film's gross). He took the $35K. The film made over $140 million.
That said, I think this is the signal that it's time to walk away from HN. It used to be a place for people to talk about technology, business, tech startups, and SV culture. Now it's celebrity news.
HN has always had a wider range of content than people tend to assume it has, and that's by design—when pg renamed it from "Startup News" to "Hacker News", that was the reason: https://news.ycombinator.com/hackernews.html.
This approach only works as long as no one class of story is over-represented to the point of being predictable, but that's ok because evading predictability is one of the core values of the site:
This is my 3rd account, my 1st was made like a month after yours.
Ahh yes, Donald Sutherland, never did a Startup but of course he was a notable Hacker. And of course his impact on world culture was right up there with Michael Jackson.
I find your attempt to defend the trajectory of the site very convincing and I withdrawal my criticism. Lets get more celebrity news up on the front page, like it used to be... The fact that there was one article about Michael Jackson within a few months of when I created my 3rd account is absolutely evidence of whatever point you are making.
I haven’t been around long, I am not someone you would look up to either but… I guess some “hackers” like movies and I’ve enjoyed picking up some recommendations here. I have no idea who David was, for example.
The point is that HN has always had a mix of things, and it's also always had these "how is this even on hacker news" and "I guess HN has turned into $Badness News now" comments. Most often the complaint is about too many political stories, but a certain number of those have also always been here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
The reason for this dynamic (the mixture of topics, and also complaints about the mixture of topics) is not hard to find: it was pg's vision for the site. If you want to argue about pre-2008 HN we could probably find more common ground, but that's getting pretty obscure. I think 16 years is enough to set a precedent.
Picked that date 100% at random, literally the only one I even clicked.
What is your point exactly? I think you would have trouble saying more words without saying anything falsifiable. I am not just being a jerk, I have no idea what your point is other than to try to put up a wall of text. If I was going to sum it up, "HN was always bad so it's still just as good as it was". This kind of defense works for 4chan because it openly brags about being bad, but I don't think this is what HN aspired to.
My point was that HN hasn't changed in the way you said it has.
On another note: your comments frequently do come across as being a jerk, and quite an unpleasant one. I don't usually address that so directly, and especially not after a personal interaction, but I think in this case it might be helpful (at least I hope so).
-- and I'm afraid it's still a problem (quite apart from this thread). I assume you don't mean to come across this way, because you frequently say things like "I am not just being a jerk", "I don't want to sound too critical" and so on, but that's not enough when you go on to say aggressive, insulting, and/or snarky things to the other person.
I'm not sure what to add beyond the same "would you please review the site guidelines and use HN in the intended spirit" that we've already been asking you for years. If you do intend to be a good contributor, I think the only way to do it is to double-check what you're posting and meticulously edit out the swipes. My guess is that your posts are coming across as far nastier than you believe they are, so it's necessary to adjust in the opposite direction, and not by a small amount.
Donald Sutherland as "Hawkeye Pierce" in M.A.S.H. made such an impression on when I saw this movie on its release as a very young teenager. I've pretty much never got along with authority since.
I watched the entire M.A.S.H series when I was young and it made a similar impression. I watched it before the film though, so my brain couldn't fathom anyone other than Alan Alda as Hawkeye.
Sutherland with Jane Fonda helped bring the anti-militarist anti-authoritarianism to actual soldiers in 1971....
> F.T.A. is a 1972 American documentary film starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland and directed by Francine Parker, which follows a 1971 anti-Vietnam War road show for G.I.s, the FTA Show, as it stops in Hawaii, The Philippines, Okinawa, and Japan.[1][2]: p.143 It includes highlights from the show, behind the scenes footage, local performers from the countries visited, and interviews and conversations with GIs "as they discuss what they saw in battle, their anger with the military bureaucracy, and their opposition to America's presence in Indochina."[3] Called by Fonda "a spit and a prayer production" it was far from a big budget Hollywood movie, or even a well-funded documentary. While the movie "is raw," it "underscores how infectious the movement of the 60s and 70s was", and chronicles both the Tour itself as well as the soldiers who came to see it and "the local talent of organizers, labor unions and artist/activists" in the countries visited
144 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 162 ms ] threadhttps://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000661/
nm0000001: Fred Astaire
nm0000002: Lauren Bacall
nm0000003: Brigitte Bardot
nm0000004: John Belushi
nm0000005: Ingmar Bergman
nm0000006: Ingrid Bergman
... It seems it is alphabetical, based on last name, but the first list must have been a very small select list, and then it rolls over around 9xx to start another list of people at A, etc etc....
I wonder how that database was populated / why that way.
Edit: originally had written the year as 1873!
/s sorry, think you have a typo!
We're actually partial to 1971's Klute but that's because of an inside family story!
Must be a fun story for sure. One of those movies that come to mind when one thinks of NYC in the 70s/post Moses-era
I want to push back slightly against the idea that's an "extended sex scene", or even that it's a "sex scene" at all.
It's one of the most beautiful sequences in all of cinema -- a grieving couple rediscovering intimacy and joy. The way it is intercut with them dressing, getting ready for dinner, the way you can see it brought happiness and affirmation and some sense that life is not over and love survived a terrible loss. It's central to the entire film: to why they are in Venice in the first place, to their commitment to each other, to their determined love for each other.
Also known as a "sex scene." And at a full five minutes, it's a rather long scene :-)
It's also one of the most notorious sex scenes in cinema from that era, with persistent rumors that Sutherland and Christie actually were doing the deed.
But I think you wrongly inferred that the commenter was trying to dissuade people from watching the movie because of it. I interpreted it just as a fair warning, lest you think it might be a fun pick for family movie night with the kids and grandparents.
It has almost nothing creatively in common with sex scenes in almost any other movie ever made, which are usually (lazily, and often misogynistically) used to cheaply bond the damsel to the hero.
It's not a sex scene; it is fully and completely a love scene.
I can think of so few like it.
> It's also one of the most notorious sex scenes in cinema from that era, with persistent rumors that Sutherland and Christie actually were doing the deed.
Persistent, infantile, somewhat misogynistic rumours.
>Persistent, infantile, somewhat misogynistic rumours.
What makes it "misogynistic"?
I'm not your buddy and I'm trying to draw what I think is a pretty important creative, cultural, artistic distinction. But if you don't see it, that's fine.
> What makes it "misogynistic"?
Have you ever considered how the balance of male and female nudity works in Hollywood? Who is always the most exposed?
As a result it's very nearly intrinsically misogynistic to suggest two actors really had heterosexual sex on a film set. The portrayal and the balance of power makes that clear.
(I mean consider how the distinction works if it is two men or two women... how do you decide what is portrayal and what is sex?)
Using balance and Hollywood in the same sentence looks strange to me.
I find most of Hollywood movies unbalanced.
The love was expressed sexually. In a sex scene.
I understand that most sex in movies is poorly done, but that is a different discussion (and doesn't alter the plain-english meaning of the words sex or scene). No argument that sex is often a negative thing in films -- often causing the protagonist's downfall (an endless re-telling of the Garden of Evil parable). And of course, until very recently the woman was expected to be topless, though less so in the last few years since #metoo. There are exceptions, with sex-positivity and/or no female nudity.
> Persistent, infantile, somewhat misogynistic rumours.
Persistent, yes. But I'm confused why you think the rumors are infantile or misogynistic. At the time, people were shocked by the realism, and they reacted with "those two sure look like they're really fucking." How is that derogatory to Julie Christie??
This got me curious about who had the longest career in Hollywood. Mickey Rooney came in near the top at 90 years. [0]
[0] https://www.imdb.com/list/ls058627770/
> lived 1920-2014 • acted 1926-2016
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/kgb-conspiracy-starring-don...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KGB_(video_game)
I think Invasion is an example of a big change in how movies were being made that started in at least the late 70's that became more or less how lots of movies were made since the 80's. Its right up there with Alien in my mind.
Honestly it reminded me of back in school when I first read something by Mark Twain. I could never get interested in any of the period books and such that were required reading, but the first time I read something by Twain it was immediately compelling. Even though his works were nearly 150 years old at the time, the way he wrote in much more simple and direct text is more or less how most fiction has become since then. It made it so much more accessible to a young person than the overly flowery language of the time period.
It was a joy to see him in so many movies throughout the years. He always elevated everything he was in. Great actor.
I also loved him in Kelly's Heroes, which sadly isn't mentioned in the obits I've seen so far.
My dad was an infantryman in World War 2 in the European Theater of Operations. His war book had a lot dead listed in it. He underlined the ones he knew. One was a lieutenant. I asked my dad about the lieutenant and my dad's response was, "He was a West Point asshole."
Being in a war doesn't make one a hero. Mostly you are fighting because you have to and your goal is for you and your buddies to survive.
You bond them to their workmates, and then you put them in a place where the other side is trying to kill all of them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pllRW9wETzw
Edit: btw, that youtube page has great comments from people who worked on the video.
Edit 2: this is a surprisingly good article about it: https://people.com/how-donald-sutherland-ended-up-in-kate-bu...
Edit 3: and apparently he did it for free - https://twitter.com/DeusExCinema/status/1803855249741934709
From YouTube description: "The music video, directed by Julian Doyle, was conceived by Terry Gilliam and Kate Bush. The video features Canadian actor Donald Sutherland playing the role of Wilhelm Reich, and Bush playing the part of his young son, Peter."
From Wikipedia: "Reich's work on character contributed to the development of Anna Freud's The Ego and the Mechanisms of Defence (1936), and his idea of muscular armour—the expression of the personality in the way the body moves—shaped innovations such as body psychotherapy, Gestalt therapy, bioenergetic analysis and primal therapy."
"Following two critical articles about him in The New Republic and Harper's in 1947, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration obtained an injunction against the interstate shipment of orgone accumulators and associated literature, calling them "fraud of the first magnitude". Charged with contempt in 1956 for having violated the injunction, Reich was sentenced to two years imprisonment, and that summer over six tons of his publications were burned by order of the court"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Reich
Wow, that's got to be a record. I'm going to take a deeper look. I've done breathwork, but didn't know it came from Reich.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120458/
Interestingly enough, I think The Great Train Robbery may have been one of the first Michael Crichton books adapted to film? https://m.imdb.com/title/tt0079240/ (check: nope, preceded by both Westworld and Andromeda Strain)
I went on a jog through historical heist films, and there's some amazing older stuff, e.g. Rififi (1955).
Don't know who Donald Sutherland is.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Eagle_Has_Landed_(film)
Amazing, amazing film.
That said, I think this is the signal that it's time to walk away from HN. It used to be a place for people to talk about technology, business, tech startups, and SV culture. Now it's celebrity news.
Bye!
For example, we had this thread 3 weeks after your account was created: RIP Michael Jackson - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674438 - June 2009 (158 comments)
And of course the "How is this even remotely hacker news?" question was already in full swing back then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=674461
In other words, twere ever thus!
This approach only works as long as no one class of story is over-represented to the point of being predictable, but that's ok because evading predictability is one of the core values of the site:
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...
https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor...
Ahh yes, Donald Sutherland, never did a Startup but of course he was a notable Hacker. And of course his impact on world culture was right up there with Michael Jackson.
I find your attempt to defend the trajectory of the site very convincing and I withdrawal my criticism. Lets get more celebrity news up on the front page, like it used to be... The fact that there was one article about Michael Jackson within a few months of when I created my 3rd account is absolutely evidence of whatever point you are making.
I mean just look at all the articles about celebrities and politics and social policy: https://web.archive.org/web/20091207051053/http://news.ycomb...
VS the frontpage RIGHT NOW, which does not have even one single article about programming, and very few about technology even in the broadest sense.
Also, no doubt you know this but this is my landing page: https://news.ycombinator.com/best
I guess if this site truly devolves into Silicon Valley-TMZ+ I’ll eat these words but there’s still science and computers here.
The point is that HN has always had a mix of things, and it's also always had these "how is this even on hacker news" and "I guess HN has turned into $Badness News now" comments. Most often the complaint is about too many political stories, but a certain number of those have also always been here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17014869.
The reason for this dynamic (the mixture of topics, and also complaints about the mixture of topics) is not hard to find: it was pg's vision for the site. If you want to argue about pre-2008 HN we could probably find more common ground, but that's getting pretty obscure. I think 16 years is enough to set a precedent.
What is your point exactly? I think you would have trouble saying more words without saying anything falsifiable. I am not just being a jerk, I have no idea what your point is other than to try to put up a wall of text. If I was going to sum it up, "HN was always bad so it's still just as good as it was". This kind of defense works for 4chan because it openly brags about being bad, but I don't think this is what HN aspired to.
On another note: your comments frequently do come across as being a jerk, and quite an unpleasant one. I don't usually address that so directly, and especially not after a personal interaction, but I think in this case it might be helpful (at least I hope so).
This has been a problem on HN for a long time:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39610617 (March 2024)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20067503 (June 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19237577 (Feb 2019)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13003328 (Nov 2016)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10933740 (Jan 2016)
-- and I'm afraid it's still a problem (quite apart from this thread). I assume you don't mean to come across this way, because you frequently say things like "I am not just being a jerk", "I don't want to sound too critical" and so on, but that's not enough when you go on to say aggressive, insulting, and/or snarky things to the other person.
I'm not sure what to add beyond the same "would you please review the site guidelines and use HN in the intended spirit" that we've already been asking you for years. If you do intend to be a good contributor, I think the only way to do it is to double-check what you're posting and meticulously edit out the swipes. My guess is that your posts are coming across as far nastier than you believe they are, so it's necessary to adjust in the opposite direction, and not by a small amount.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
RIP Donald Sutherland.
> F.T.A. is a 1972 American documentary film starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland and directed by Francine Parker, which follows a 1971 anti-Vietnam War road show for G.I.s, the FTA Show, as it stops in Hawaii, The Philippines, Okinawa, and Japan.[1][2]: p.143 It includes highlights from the show, behind the scenes footage, local performers from the countries visited, and interviews and conversations with GIs "as they discuss what they saw in battle, their anger with the military bureaucracy, and their opposition to America's presence in Indochina."[3] Called by Fonda "a spit and a prayer production" it was far from a big budget Hollywood movie, or even a well-funded documentary. While the movie "is raw," it "underscores how infectious the movement of the 60s and 70s was", and chronicles both the Tour itself as well as the soldiers who came to see it and "the local talent of organizers, labor unions and artist/activists" in the countries visited
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F.T.A.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWAbhonmCOg