Strange Days (1995)

James Cameron wrote the script for this not-so-futuristic science fiction tale about a former vice cop (Ralph Fiennes) who now sells addicting, virtual reality clips that allow a user to experience the recorded sensations of others. He becomes embroiled in a murder conspiracy, tries to save a former girlfriend (Juliette Lewis), and has a romance with his chauffeur and bodyguard (Angela Bassett). Cameron's ex-wife, director Kathryn Bigelow (Point Break), brought the whole, busy, violent enterprise to the screen, and while the film's socially relevant heart is in the right place, its excesses wear one out. Some of the casting doesn't quite click either: Fiennes isn't really right for his nervous role, and Lewis is annoying (and unbelievable as the hero's much-yearned-for former squeeze). Expect some ugly if daring moments with the virtual reality stuff. --Tom Keogh Amazon.com essential video

What other movies about Y2K were so much fun?

I loved this movie, if nothing else because it is one of the few times that Ralph Fiennes leaves behind the glacial, remote,untouchable persona of so many of his roles. Yeah,he's kind of greasy at first, but by the end, his eyes are so soft,his face so emotive with love for his friend and desperation to do the right thing.

Plus, this was- at the time, the only modern movie where a beautiful White man, realizes he loves a beautiful Black woman- a woman he respects and has always been his friend. No skanky sex shenanigans here (at least not between these two- Juliette takes care of that part!)!

There was so much hoopla about Y2K- people really thought there would be riots, and such. I stayed home, and they had the entire police force out on 6th street in Austin, for fear of trouble! So, it fit the time as pop entertainment.

Now, well, it's kind of tired, but Ralph is still so tender and tormented, a regular kind of screwed up guy- I watch it again, and again just to see him. September 24, 2008

Strange Sizzle N Sparks

Hadn't seen this film in forever. Saw it a couple times when it came out. Just watched it again today. Wow! I totally forgot how amazing it was.
It's still relevant and a work of art today. I haven't seen anything like it since it came out in '95.

The idea of virtual reality that you can plug into by use of a SQUID, an electronic cap with electrodes to electrically stimulate and manipulate your brain. The use of floppy disks, yeah, okay, it was '95. The use of a big ole box like the old cable boxes from yore? yah. Ok. The idea of people getting sucked into spending more time with electronic devices than living real life? Right on. Then and now. Yeah, there are internet/techno junkies. Near catatonia and zoned out. Subjective. The idea that electronics/games can get the best of you, and bring out the worst? Too much of anything's not good. People too game. Bound for perversion. Gamer is played out. Another consumer consumed? Yeah. Pushing limits to pushing daisies.

Some other movies popped into mind when watching this film again. Videodrome. 8MM. Blue Velvet. Sean Penn's The Game. And then there's the Vincent D'Onofrio The Cell (New Line Platinum Series). In 8mm, Joaquin Phoenix's character Max California warns Nick Cage's Tom Welles, 'When you dance with the devil, you don't change the devil, the devil changes you.'

All visually appealing films, often with more than 1 superstar. Strange Days, no doubt, a title ode to The Doors song, includes many superstars. Michael Wincott is Philo, who starred in the 1991 Val Kilmer, movie about 60's rock legends "The Doors".

In this regard, Strange Days opened many doors of mayhem. Pandora's Box, no less. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, techno, love, good, evil, etc.

People "just trying to survive. Making a run for it, if need be.

When Ms. Bassett got down to Earth running through the crowds reveling in NY's merriment, she kicked off her heels and got real practical, like any woman would. While there are elements of horror and the perverted, skidrow elements too, you also see fist fighting women, and women tag-teaming for their men. So it was no surprise when Mace hitched up her glam black gown all sequins and strapless, and shoved her pistol in her thigh garter; or when she flipped off those heels and sprinted like Wilma Rudolph. She was not about to get shot in the back a la android stripper Zhora (the whore-a?) (Joanna Cassidy) in Harrison Ford's 1982 Blade Runner - The Final Cut (Two-Disc Special Edition). A beautiful dead woman running and stumbling to her death, a pretty corpse replete with heels. Maybe chalk all this up to a woman director making heroic, capable, women of action. Can't imagine someone in law enforcement who couldn't at least kick off her heels and run to dodge bullets trailing her backside. (Last summer, Blade was re-released to millions of fans' delight, in major theatres so we could see it digital, big screen. The android getting shot in the back still resonates as one vicious scene, sex and violence in a slowmo death ballet.)

Characters skirt the cusp of interracial romance between actress Angela Bassett and Ralph Fiennes. You wonder about the romantic tension, but film studios being as they are, the chemistry pops just the same between 2 people so that others feel it too, whether it takes place or not. At the end, unrequited love lets go of the past memories and lives in the now.

Overlook the stereotypical 'tude/hard black woman Ms. Bassett had to play. She chills out over the course of the movie and viewers realize it's less the black woman 'tude than an under appreciated woman willing to do battle for the man she loves, and even help him win another woman if that's what it takes for his happiness. Oh, ...sacrificing women. Sign of true love when you're willing to give your all, a sign it's not love or even friendship if someone's willing to let you take a bullet, not have your back when it counts, and even throw you under the bus.

The movie drops in the historical temperament of the '90s toward what was going on and wrong with the LAPD at that time. The riots of '92 in LA and elsewhere when the Rodney King vid hit the air (imagine Youtube igniting a firestorm back then). Strange Days is set in '99, but drops in a provocative scene of citizens versus police brutality by the LAPD. It does give credit to the good men in uniform who rise beyond corruption and are willing to police their own in the name of justice. The footage of the New Year's countdown for 2000, according to the credits was likely footage from New York Times Square. There was mention of Madrid. In this supercharged scene, Vincent D'Onofrio's police character seems more like a flashback of horrific evil from his Full Metal Jacket Days. The crowd is awe struck and nearly speechless as the monster drags his crime in partner forward, marching towards unspeakable evil. LAPD rise to the challenge. Strange Days precedes and perhaps sets the typecast for D'Onofrio's future on Law & Order. The quirky, weird guy with a heart, who maybe is on the good guy's side, but understands the demons in all, can draw it out by drawing on his own. Ever intense, check him out in Feeling Minnesota with ex gf Cameron Diaz and Keanu Reeves, in which he play typecast, another odd man out. But no blood, not much anyway, this time. Men in Black? A scifi flick but not so dark and dreary for Vinny.

As refined as the Harvard alum is, her street cred didn't really pop with legit authenticity, but of course therein lies the distinguishing characteristic of someone with bigger plans than the circumstances under which they've found themselves anyway.

All of the main characters, including Juliette Lewis (of "Kalifornia," "Natural Born Killers - Oliver Stone Collection", "Cape Fear" fame), Tom Sizemore ("Pulp Fiction"), intense actors in any film, sizzle and spark here. (In looking at the imdb.com website to see who else of celeb status was in this film, discovered Dru Berrymore..not The Drew Barrymore...but turns out there's a porn star, also with an extensive body of work.)

Look for other stellar actors that appear in many subsequent films, including William Fichtner. According to imdb.com, William's an Air Force brat, so it's no wonder he appears in years to come in progressive, multiracial and patriotic pics, including Malcolm X, Crash, Pearl Harbor, Black Hawk Down, Armageddon, Virtuosity, Switchback; and action pics with other progressive stars like A. Jolie, including Go and Mr. & Mrs. Smith. Most recently, Fichtner is in The Dark Night.

Nicky Katt appears in the film. Long before "Boston Public", see Katt in cyber club punk blonde hair and leather pants. (MMmm)

Tom Sizemore was also like his Strange Days pal Fichtner, in Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down.

According to imdb.com, Ms. Bassett has 3 films in the works, including an historical film; a rap pic about the life of rap legend Notorious, B.I.G.; and a mainstream film:
1. Toussaint (2009) (pre-production) .... Suzanne Louverture
2. Notorious (2009) (post-production) .... Voletta Wallace
3. Nothing But the Truth (2008) (post-production) .... Bonnie Benjamin

Ralph Fiennes has four films in the works--a biopic about a wealthy philanthropist; a film about obsession of a younger man for an older woman in post-war Germany; a military pic set in Iraq; and an historical film:
# The Gifted (2008) (in production)
# The Reader (2008) (post-production)
# The Hurt Locker (2008) (post-production) .... Mercenary Team Leader
# The Duchess (2008) (completed) .... Duke of Devonshire

Director Kathryn Bigelow, former painter turned film director and writer by way of Columbia Film School (home to extreme talent), is the Director of the upcoming Fiennes movie The Hurt Locker. Viewers can see the visual sensability come to life on Bigelow's films. K-19 The Widowmaker (Harrison Ford); Blue Steel (J. Lee Curtis and Tom Sizemore); are among her other films.

Writer James Cameron wrote the screenplays for Terminator (film series); Rambo; True Lies; Aliens; Titanic; and The Abyss, among other films. For Strange Days, Cameron was nominated by the Acad. of SciFi, Fantasy and Horror Films of USA, for their Saturn award; Cameron has won the Saturn awards for writing, and for directing Aliens. His screenplay The Terminator won the Saturn. July 13, 2008

Good "Drug" movie

I enjoyed this film a lot.. although not many fans of "Drug" movies will tag it as such.. but it's a very good thriller with lots of twists and turns.

=) June 3, 2008

Brilliant and Fatally Flawed

A brilliant, ambitious failure.

Looking back at this movie from the perspective of 13 years in the future, you can see what the writers and the director were trying to achieve, and, simulataneously, how far they fell short.

The contradictions make it interesting.

The LA of this 1999 looks like a kindler, gentler American occupied Baghdad. It seems to be occupied by a foreign army, and yet nobody seems to get killed. The city is in a constant state of riot, and yet it's supposed to be an earth shattering moment when some people (after watching for almost a minute) finally attack some riot cops who are beating up a black woman in front of their eyes. There's a powerful sense of the apocalyptic and yet in the end all it turns out to be is a few rogue cops (a few bad apples) trying to cover up a police murder.

The concept of experiencing someone else's brainwaves could have been a cheesy gimmick and yet it's the strongest part of the movie, especially the scene where the prositute is murdered and forced to watch her own death from the point of view of the murderer. That in a way sums up the brainwashed, cable news saturated, Rush Limbaugh and Fox News dominated American people of today. The government in the process of murdering American civil society brainwashed the American people out of their own point of view and into the point of view of their oppressers. The constant bombardment of triviality in the media erases the individual and the ability of the individual to see things through his/her own eyes.

And then there's the tape. We're told it's a "lightening bolt from god" but is it? Jeriko One seems more like an obnoxious jerk than a messiah. Would a character of that kind of influence really have been dumb enough to mouth off to the cops while he's on his knees in a back ally and while the cops had their guns trained on him?

Anyway, I could go on, but I'd recommend this movie, in spite of it's flaws, simply because it tries so much and forces you to regret how much it fails to achieve what it promises. April 21, 2008

The Cameron Bigalow film they don't want you to remember

Back in the mid 1990s there was talk about how Katherine Bigelow (ex of James Cameroon and director of popular shows like Near Dark and Point Break) was doing a new movie with state of the art POV (point of view) content that used new camera techniques to put the viewer inside someone's head. The reason for this was to film James Cameron's vision of a world where people are able to record others people's lives via a neural net interface for playback... a sort of hippy drug for the turn of the Millennium. There was a lot of hype about this film.

Unfortunately Strange Days never lived up to its expectations. The film contained a lot of music sequences (such as bands playing) with lyrics that are frankly, bad. Just listening to the rap video makes you ask why they didn't even attempt to rhyme? It was dreadful then... and it's horrible today.

Ralph Fiennes' American accent was as inept as the script's one-liners with a delivery that didn't pay off. Jennifer Lewis did lots of nudity for what seems like the sake of nudity and quite frankly most of us would prefer her with her clothes back on. Talented actors, such as Vincent D'Onofrio cop running around chasing people, are completely wasted.

While there is an interesting twist involving the sudden appearance of a serial killer the film gets boring and overlong with action sequences and back stories that never once stir our imagination or make a hair stand on end. To top it off the coolness expected of Bigelow's production is lost somewhere between bad hairdos and bad karma. Given that James Cameron is supposed to be a major part of it, Strange Days is a horrible let down. In the end the bad guy even reveals everything. The editing during this sequence is some of the worst ever committed. Strange Days had a lot of potential with big names and a considerable budget. The end result is an incoherent mess and defines the word disappointment. March 4, 2008

More reviews at Amazon.com ...