I also stumbled onto Crime and Punishment at 18 and expected it to be difficult and was blown away with how Dostoyevsky wrote one of the greatest novels of all time, to be sure, but as the author here says, also how engaging he made it.
The scene where he commits the crime is an absolute stunner, edge-of-your-seat, thriller. Who does that? Who can pull that off? Dostoyevsky
I think we're past that point; they're absolutely useful already for a lot of tasks. I think it's about costs, convenience, and benefits of a frontier model for what you're doing.
I loved this when it came out. Lars von Trier was one of its creators and has a collection of amazing films. Check out Dancer in the Dark (2000) if you haven't already.
But it should be remembered as returning to an earlier technique. For example, one of the two or three greatest directors to ever live, Abbas Kiarostami, has a film called Where is the Friend's House (1987) which is pure -- and pure magic.
Thank you for taking the time to say that. I really appreciate it.
When YouTube was new, a guy named JT Helms made that top one (Once Upon a Time in the West cut to Arcade Fire) and when Bruce Springsteen was asked if he liked anything on YouTube, he said that. And it made me happy because it was my favorite too. And I thought we were on the cusp of something like a new art form.
I still think that. I'd like to see short films shot to music as well.
I'm a huge believer in this. It's something we need to do more, in our industry, and everywhere, honestly.
When I moved back to the Bay Area after having lived in the south of France for years, one of the first things I did was set up a sort of "salon" of people I found interesting in the space I liked -- and it worked like a charm. We met once a month for the entire time I was there, with eventually the coolest collection of people. All it took was setting the calendar date, inviting people, and prompting good questions to discuss. Recommended.
When I was in high school I was a reckless driver, and with each narrow escape, I became more confident and certain that I was in control and a bad outcome wouldn't happen, couldn't happen. Your comment was downvoted with the same hubris. Success is not a teacher.
I have to defer, you're a lot closer to these things than I am, but I remember since the 90's the "this-for-that" analogies were around and became hot at some point, so that you were even encouraged by some to put it into that form for a while.
Where I see a difference is that it used to be about creating unique combinations and now it's more about deployment. "What about the known tool for this market?" It's banal. I can honestly say, it's not that I don't remember -- I do -- it's that I'm waiting and hoping to get excited about a startup again.
HN is a mirror on the tech world -- which is dead. There is dearth of original ideas, generally. There are no cool startups, no investment, nothing happening.
You're definitely looking for something other than the writing and even the plot. For example, the novel "The Firm" had a ridiculous ending but they fixed it for the screenplay.
I dropped of a book to this guy that I had just finished called "The Hotel on the Roof of the World," and he later told me that they optioned the author. Unfortunately the film never got made, but if you read it you'll see it has the bones of a really nice film.
I think it was a combination of right place/right time, knowing everything about film-making (and you're right, what makes a good adaptation) and was just a naturally cool, interesting guy, so that everyone who met him just liked him.
It didn't last forever. The last time I saw him was one of those wild random coincidences. I was visiting Cannes during the festival (as a tourist) and ran into him on the Croisette. We went for coffee and he told me that he had become a television producer.
Exactly this. They're a necessary evil and they require constant vigilance to minimize the "make what you measure" effect.
The original author's point is interesting, seeing rules as the constraints that, in one sense, spur creativity, give life. The reason the trumpet is the instrument of jazz isn't in spite of it having merely three valves, but because of it.
The Spirit Level by Pickett and Wilkinson argues convincingly that the pursuit of equality and social safeguards makes life better for everyone, rich and poor.
San Francisco used to be my favorite big city in America; now it's a hellscape. The experiment, whatever experiment we're running, failed.
I remember in the couple years before the dot com crash in 2000, there was a lot of satire being written which was being taken very seriously. You couldn't tell what was serious and what was humor because both were absurd.