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Sidney Poitier has died
- ColinWright 5y agoQuick link to his Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Poitier https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidney_Poitier
- gaogao 5y agoBother :( I had just edited it last week and was surprised at him being the last big Golden Age of Cinema star around.
- daniel-s 5y agoSad. I'm a big fan of Sneakers.
- nlh 5y agoMy wife and I just re-watched it the other night, on a whim. What a great movie! Totally holds up 30 years later and in retrospect was WAY ahead of its time for 1992: Hacker spaces in SF, for-profit pen-test teams, cryptography and the implications of quantum computing, etc. Go watch it if you haven’t had the pleasure of seeing it. And, of course, Sidney Poitier is excellent (“Mar-tin!”)
- ckozlowski 5y ago"You all would be chalk outlines by now if it wasn't for me." One of my favorites as well. The camaraderie in this movie was outstanding.
- pseudolus 5y agoA propos "Sneakers": https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/dec/20/sneakers-robert-redford-and-river-phoenix-nerd-out-in-1992s-prescient-high-tech-caper https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/dec/20/sneakers-rob...
- xhrpost 5y agoI found it crazy how for years, River Phoenix was the only person of the main cast to die even though he was early 20's. Is Sidney now the first death since then?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rumblestrut 5y agoHe was a great actor, and groundbreaking in this contribution to film. That said, why is this here?
- bsanr2 5y ago
- annadane 5y ago"This isn't relevant to me therefore it isn't relevant to the entire internet"
- hunterb123 5y ago
- annadane 5y agoNo, but HN is the center for articles on pretty much everything, including "notable celebrity dies". It's ridiculous to apply the usual (tired) trope of HN of "how is this relevant"
- hunterb123 5y agoYes, I was specifically replying to you, not him, that there are guidelines to a degree about what is on and off topic. How often they are followed is a grey area. Whether or not you're tired of hearing the trope is irrelevant to the guidelines. Those people repeating the trope are probably tired of perceived violations of the guidelines. Maybe those guidelines should be deleted since everyone is tired.
- bsanr2 5y ago>How often they are followed is a grey area. It's interesting to note the character of when and when not those guidelines are applied.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoGuess Who’s Coming to Dinner is my favorite: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_Who%27s_Coming_to_Dinner https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guess_Who%27s_Coming_to_Dinn... At the time, interracial marriage was still illegal in most of the south. It’s set in San Francisco as well, so you might recognize things!
- harrydehal 5y agoYou beat me to it – such an excellent film. Great dialogue, writing, and acting. I loved the rare peek at what San Francisco looked like back in the late 60s (very different from the current San Francisco Bay Area).
- WalterBright 5y agoI like watching old color movies just to see the cars and city streets of those times.
- mhh__ 5y agoYou might like Christiane F. Very very somber film but lots of good shots of Berlin at night in the 80s (set to Bowie songs)
- opo 5y ago>...At the time, interracial marriage was still illegal in most of the south. Not exactly - by the time the movie came out the anti-miscegenation laws had recently been overturned. The decision in Loving v. Virginia was announced on June 12, 1967 and "Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner" was released on December 11, 1967.
- jb1991 5y agoThen at the time the movie was made, it was illegal.
- mherdeg 5y agoThe scene at the end of "To Sir, With Love" - where he decides how he wants to have an impact in his career - is always really moving for me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXaEf4ktpPA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXaEf4ktpPA
- mwattsun 5y agoWhen I was growing up in the 60's, I was enormously impressed by Sidney Poitier. He was undeniably a man in a time when African-American men were called "boy" and gave lie to every negative stereotype I heard back then. He was important in the civil rights movement, if only for his commanding presence and piercing intelligence that helped turn attitudes about blacks around for the better.
- ColinWright 5y agoDiscussion of "Sneakers" happening over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29840802 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29840802
- stevesimmons 5y agoCoincidentally, the novel currently on my bedside table is "I am Not Sidney Poitier" [1] by Percival Everett. The main character is Not Sidney Poitier (first name: Not Sidney), who looks a bit like Sidney Poitier. I'm only half way through and don't know yet whether this is significant. Not Sidney's guardian in the novel is Ted Turner, of Turner Broadcasting, and he lives for a while with Ted and his wife Jane Fonda. It's quite strange, and good fun. Anyway, this is a good prompt for me to learn more about the real Sidney Poitier and his significance and impact. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Am-Not-Sidney-Poitier-Novel-ebook/dp/B005EXSNMA/ https://www.amazon.com/Am-Not-Sidney-Poitier-Novel-ebook/dp/...
- onecommentman 5y agoSo famous at the time, he had a syndrome named after him…”Sydney Poitier syndrome”. https://www.denverpost.com/2010/05/27/from-quiet-life-in-bahamas-a-star-was-born/ https://www.denverpost.com/2010/05/27/from-quiet-life-in-bah... His stage persona as the Black hero was so perfect, that White audiences ate it up, and Black culture thought it set an unrealistic expectation about what Black folks should aspire to achieve and White folks should expect. The Cosby Show was criticized for the same issue…a perfect Black couple, one doctor and one corporate lawyer, living in a huge brownstone in NYC with several charming children. A little too aspirational…