

Ask HN: Movies that motivate you? - luminary

The title says it all. I finally watched Boiler Room and it motivated me in a weird way; specially the group interview scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zvICN8DNMpY
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patrickk
Lord of War.

An extremely cool and informative movie, and utterly underrated IMO. One of my
all-time favorite movies, I watch it once or twice a year.

From IMDB:

 _"In the 1980s in Little Odessa, the Ukrainian immigrant Yuri Orlov decides
to change his economical life and becomes an arm dealer with his brother
Vitaly Orlov. His business of gunrunner supplying illegal weapons in disturbed
areas of the planet increases with the end of the Cold War, and Yuri bribes a
Russian general to sell most of his arsenal. Meanwhile, he becomes a
millionaire and uses his money to seduce the beautiful Ava Fontaine and they
get married, having a son. The detective Jack Valentine chases Yuri trying to
put him in jail, but in the end he understands that Yuri is a necessary evil
for the interest of his nation."_

The movie portrays Yuri (Nick Cage, whom I normally dislike intensely) in
shades of grey rather than a black or white stereotypical Hollywood character.
He drags his mixed up brother (Jared Leto) into his arms smuggling business as
his business partner. Valentine (Ethan Hawke) is the straight-up Interpol
agent on his case that won't break the rules under any circumstances, even if
he can get away with it.

The movie deals with themes like family, love, politics, and business
extremely well. The ending isn't the typical sunshine and puppy dogs either,
but reflects what is most likely to happen in real life.

It has some great quotes also:

Without spoiling too much, there's one point where Yuri tries to get out of
the arms trade (diversifying away from core strengths) and into honest import-
export but it doesn't work out too well - "The margins are too thin".

When asked why do you continue to deal arms, even when wealthy - "Because I'm
good at it".

"I've sold guns to nearly ever army except the Salvation Army".

Movie Poster Quote: "There's a firearm for every 12th man, woman and child on
earth. The only question is...." (big puff on cigar) "...how do we arm the
other 11?"

Trivia: in one scene, Yuri is running guns into Africa on a cargo plane.
Literally _one week_ earlier, the exact same plane was running guns into the
Congo.

Great movie, can't recommend highly enough.

------
kschua
Apollo 13 - Great story on the following

1) Overcome obstacles - So many times people get discouraged after a setback
and never get back on their feet. When the astronauts knew that they could not
reach the moon, did they throw their hands up in the air in despair?

2) Communication - The team in Houston had to work together and communicate
amongst themselves to resolve the problems faced by the astronauts. The
ultimate demonstration of great communication was when Houston and Apollo 13
communicated well with each other to deliver the products. So many offshore
projects fail despite being on planet Earth shows how important good
communication is.

3) Ingenuity - Making do with what the astronauts brought to fix the carbon
dioxide poisoning shows ingenuity. So many times, people lament about not
being able to deliver because of lack of resources, lack of manpower etc etc.

4) Teamwork - The team in Houston brought together the finest mind to bring
solutions to the table. Not forgetting that they needed a great team on Apollo
13 to deliver it. How many companies fail because of a lack of good team

5) Working well under stress - What could be more stressful than working under
a tight deadline, where you know that when the deadline is over, people will
literally be dead

6) Inspiring leader - Someone was commenting something to the effect that this
is a tragedy for NASA, when the leader commented "On the contrary, this has
been our finest hour". How many companies have leaders who cannot inspire
their followers and failed?

7) Faith that it will ultimately work out - Ultimately, there is only so much
we can do and rely on faith. Most notably, the re-entry of the rocket

Faith in yourself and your team - To achieve the common objective, they have
to have faith in everyone in the team. This really helped them through the
periods when they kept having setbacks

8) Perseverance - They faced problems after problems, yet everyone peservered
on. How many people have that kind of perserverance?

9) Working towards a common goal - They all worked as a team towards the
common goal of bringing the astronauts back alive. How many projects fail
because people were more interested in their own agendas and have different
goals from the companies

10) Ability to change their "business plan" - Though the original plan was to
get to the moon, ultimately their business plan had to change to "saving the
lives of the astronauts". Though this wasn't really a choice for them, but to
businesses, it does demonstrate that you might need to change your business
plan if it is necessary for your survival.

11) No finger pointing - Not once during the crisis did anyone said "It wasn't
my fault, it was his". This is something which is common in corporate world.

12) It is based on real life. Nuff said

~~~
trafficlight
What was your 13th bullet point?

~~~
kschua
Actually this part "Faith in yourself and your team - To achieve the common
objective, they have to have faith in everyone in the team. This really helped
them through the periods when they kept having setbacks" was to be a bullet
point in itself, making it the 13th :)

HN, we have a problem

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okiejonwilliams
Primer.

It's about some engineers who burn the midnight oil on their side-project, a
start-up, and sort of accidentally discover something amazing.

"If you ditch work this afternoon, and promise to do the few small things I
ask you; I will in return show you the most important thing that any living
organism has ever witnessed."

~~~
jokermatt999
That movie is also motivating for how it was made. It had a budget of 7000,
and they managed to make a great film out of such a tiny allowance.

~~~
rdtsc
Good point. It shows you have a good sci-fi movie without astronomical special
effects budgets. That's a lesson for lean startups.

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plinkplonk
Office Space.

Motivates me never to work at that kind of company again. I've had good luck
with companies in general, but a couple had strong resonances with Initech.

~~~
patrickk
Mmmmmmm, yeeeeeaaaaah

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pavelludiq
Apollo 13, mainly because of scenes like this:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTGiLVj9r2g>

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chriseidhof
La vita è bella (or in English: Life is beautiful). The main character and his
son are taken to a concentration camp and still manage to have fun. It shows
how we can use our mind to make even the worst situations a little less worse,
very inspiring.

------
pbhjpbhj
In what way does Boiler Room motivate you? It seems to me like it say make
money the only thing in your life, destroy all your relationships and screw
over those who have loved and cared for you, do everything to get money. Is
that it?

~~~
kenshi
If anything Boiler Room is a morality tale saying you shouldn't let the
pursuit of material wealth destroy your relationships and that their are no
shortcuts to success. That's what I got out of it anyway.

------
rabidgnat
A friend of mine gave up drugs completely after watching "Requiem for a Dream"

~~~
rdtsc
That was one of the saddest movies I have seen. A great film, very well shot,
good sound track, good actors. However, I don't have a desire to see it very
often, because it just depresses the hell out of me.

Darren Aronofsky's other movie -- Pi is also great. Highly recommended.

------
kenshi
Wondering why some peoples choice of movie is being downvoted. Someone asked a
question, other people answered it. Just because you don't like the choice of
movie, doesn't mean you should bury their opinion.

~~~
SingAlong
Well, I upvoted them back to normal :)

Anyway here's my list:

Even if you don't watch this movie called Any Given Sunday, you can find Al
Pacino's 5-min inch-by-inch speech. That's the best I've seen. You can look it
up on youtube. Worthy 5min :) It sort of dopes you with inspiration.

My favourites (may mostly include lesser known movies):

"The World's Fastest Indian" (<http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412080/>) It's
based on the real story of Burt Munro, an old hobby biker, from New Zealand
who sets the world's fastest land speed record on his Indian motorcycle
beating all odds like an unfit, aging body (with prostrate and a ticking
heart) and very little money to spare. It's not known that much. But Anthony
Hopkins is good in that movie.

This movie is a bit different, there are no bad guys and it's really awesome
to watch. Gives you a very different perspective of the world ("everybody is
good" sorta thing). It left me in tears after he breaks the world record in
the end.

Others: Dead Poet's Society ("Carpe Diem - seize the day"), Walk The Line and
a 1990 movie called Chaplin (for which Robert Downey won an Oscar for playing
Charlie Chaplin) and ofcourse Forrest Gump ("life is like a box of chocolates
you'll never know what you get")

Also Mongol (Story of the rise of Gengiz Khan told from a different
perspective). Some other language. But you'll get sub-titles.

And if you like Bollywood (Hindi) movies, try "Lagaan" and "3 Idiots" (this is
a must watch).

After reading a lot abt Chariots of Fire, I'm going to watch it this weekend.

EDIT: if you like watching action cartoons, you should try watching
Transformers - Cybertron series. Although gets a bit repetitive after a few
episodes (loop: "beat villian. he returns again"), the "we are a team" quote
echoes thru-out.

P.S: If you notice closely in Forrest Gump, when Tom Hanks is narrating that
his friend put his money in a fruit company and it seems like he's looking at
a letter for shareholders, you'll notice that the letter contains Apple's old
'colorful apple' logo :D

~~~
wvl
I think it's a rule in Hollywood that sports movies must be inspirational. In
addition to Any Given Sunday, you've got:

    
    
      * Invictus
      * The Blind Side
      * Rudy
      * Remember the Titans
      * Miracle
      * Rocky
      * Karate Kid
    

And that's just a few of the genre.

------
braindead_in
Shawshank Redemption. Never give up.

~~~
Ascendancy
Agreed. Either get busy livin', or get busy dyin

~~~
mhartl
That's goddamn right.

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speek
Pirates of Silicon Valley, Iron Man, and I, Robot (I'm a robotocist).

~~~
rradu
Ditto on Pirates

------
rdtsc
Fight Club : A bit over the top, but works for me.

Cidade de Deus (City of God) : Overcoming adversity, based on real life story.

Le fabuleux destin d'Amelie Poulain (Amelie) : Beautiful movie about seeing
the world in a different way. Love is worth fighting for. Don't be afraid to
be eccentric.

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives Of Others) : Even the harshest repressive
regimes cannot re-educate and brainwash all the humanity out of people.

Das Boot : How I feel when I need to finish a project while the management
throws "depth charges" (feature requests ;-) ) at me.

Hotel Rwanda : People are capable of both extreme violence and extreme
kindness.

Zerkalo (The Mirror) by Tarkovksy : Nostalgia. Reminds me to keep connected to
my parents and family. Eventually they'll be gone, with only dreams and memory
fragments of them left.

------
smallhands
The 13th Warrior.it is all about being strong and having a will that is
stronger than steel. "hurry up and meet dead before your place is taken"

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ig1
The West Wing. It's not a movie but it has the same motivational impact on me
now that Star Trek had on me when I was a kid.

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coryl
Is it wrong to say Blow? Makes me want to be a big time drug dealer.

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Artifex
300 - just something so aggressive about that movie. It's like cinematic Sun
Tzu or something...

------
car
Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0079944/>

~~~
rdtsc
Upvote, I like the movie.

I am wondering though, how does it inspire you?

------
scorchin
Glory <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097441/>

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blizkreeg
Touching the Void - I love this legendary true story of two mountaineers'
first ascent of a peak in the Andes for the survival aspect of it. Grit,
determination, and patience are three qualities I truly admire. It is a must
watch even if mountaineering/climbing doesn't interest you.

Apollo 13 - for how ingenuity, teamwork, and a calm head can help you overcome
the most challenging of problems. I wish I was born in that era and had the
opportunity of working among _that_ group of people. The pursuit of a cause
greater than oneself.

Shawshank Redemption - much has been said about this movie.

Forrest Gump - odd choice I know, but it's a remarkable story of serendipity.
We often fail to realize just how much of life is purely a matter of chance.

------
kksm19820117
The Thomas Crown Affair

Spy Game

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enterneo
A Beautiful Mind

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themullet
Hackers every time. It just makes me want to go code something

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wazoox
"Sen no Rikyu" ( <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0098287/> )

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Mankhool
Casablanca, Lawrence of Arabia, Dr. Zhivago, Contact. Do unto others, start
something BIG, persevere no matter what life throws at you, and never, ever
give up.

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wherespaul
The Pursuit of Happyness Trailer: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xcZTtlGweQ>

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ivenkys
Glengarry Glen Ross - the original template for Boiler Room.

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FreeRadical
Smokey and the bandit

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cjbprime
Real Genius

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matth
Pirates of Silicon Valley

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awk
Gattaca.

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kimfuh
rudy and august rush.

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eljufr
π

~~~
jimmyjim
He's referring to the movie Pi, <http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0138704/> The HN
crowd would certainly find it to be interesting.

~~~
rdtsc
I also recommend it. I love that movie.

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dnsworks
Hostel part 2. Because the heroine of that movie is incredibly goal-oriented.
By the end of the movie she becomes the shrewd, decisive, powerful woman she
was meant to be.

Oh and also that movie about the clash, Rudeboy. But that's mainly because we
do a drinking game, and take a shot every time Ray Ganges acts like a victim,
or slurs his speech. This helps with downtime. Or maybe it helps create
downtime?

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J3L2404
Metropolitan. I can't really say why, but it gives me a feeling of hope in
it's quiet way. Also Ghost Dog and Garden State.

