From rec.arts.sf.reviews Wed Oct 11 13:46:25 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!liuida!news10.sunet.se!news00.sunet.se!sunic!psinntp!psinntp!psinntp!gatech!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!news.midplains.net!gw2.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: null@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (Christopher Null) Subject: REVIEW: STRANGE DAYS Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04106 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Null Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: null@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu (Christopher Null) Organization: Null Publishing Co. Date: Mon, 9 Oct 1995 19:22:35 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 66 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3415 rec.arts.sf.reviews:844 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Christopher Null Copyright 1995 Christopher Null I've never really given much thought to what the turn of the millennium is going to bring. Will it be a new beginning for society and the world? Or will it bring on the apocalypse foretold by Revelations? STRANGE DAYS continuously plays these two possibilities off of each other, and in L.A., on December 31, 1999, it seems either one is equally likely. Ralph Fiennes plays Lenny Nero, a bottom-feeder ex-cop who peddles "clips," full-sensory pieces of memory from real people's lives. These clips are played on "the wire," a device which delivers experiences directly into the brain. The very illegal wire is also the source of a whole slew of problems, including the murder of one Jeriko One, a very influential rap star, and the subsequent stalking of Faith (Juliette Lewis), Nero's ex-girlfriend, for whom he still pines. As it turns out, this Jeriko has been heralded as the next Messiah, and the circumstances of his murder stand to cause riots of unprecedented horror. When a clip containing the identity of Jeriko's killers falls into Nero's hands, it's anybody's guess who he can trust. The greatest part of STRANGE DAYS is easily the first-person photography that is used whenever a clip is played--so the audience gets to see everything as if they're part of the action. This is remarkably effective, and as it gets more and more gruesome later in the film, the technology's dangers are almost palpable. Fiennes is terrific, as is Angela Bassett, who plays his best friend, Mace. Nero's insecurity is truly refreshing in this day and age of indestructible action heroes, and although his frequent confessions to Mace wear thin after two or three of them, he still does plenty with the role to make the character real: he is selling bits of people's lives but doesn't have one of his own. Sadly, STRANGE DAYS is no bed of roses. Example: here's what I learned about the future. In 1999, playing really, really bad rap music is almost enough to earn you sainthood. In 1999, no one wears much in the way of clothes, especially female rock singers. In 1999, the music pretty much sucks, too. And everyone gets beat up. A lot. And no one seems to mind. While the film is intriguing all the way through, it never really gels together. Director Kathryn Bigelow does some admirable work, but the result is a BLADE RUNNER meets CLOCKWORK ORANGE meets Rodney King, and some strange hybrid results that makes STRANGE DAYS feel like two movies playing at once. It's a troubling problem that is fortunately balanced by the style of the feature, but the end result is an interesting little film that's just, well, "strange." RATING: *** \-------------------------------\ |* Unquestionably awful | |** Sub-par on many levels | |*** Average, hits and misses | |**** Good, memorable film | |***** Perfection | \-------------------------------\ -Christopher Null / null@utxvms.cc.utexas.edu -Contributing Editor, FEEDBACK / http://www.eden.com/~feedback -E-mail request to join the movie review mailing list From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:36:18 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Oct 17 11:08:58 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!zombie.ncsc.mil!simtel!news.sprintlink.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!chi-news.cic.net!news.midplains.net!gw2.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: bfrazer@panix.com (Bryant Frazer) Subject: REVIEW: STRANGE DAYS Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04127 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Frazer Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: bfrazer@panix.com (Bryant Frazer) Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and Unix, NYC Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 17:26:41 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 143 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3434 rec.arts.sf.reviews:849 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Bryant Frazer Copyright 1995 Bryant Frazer Directed by Kathryn Bigelow Written by James Cameron and Jay Cocks Starring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, and Juliette Lewis There's a lot of sex in STRANGE DAYS. A lot of sex, and a lot of violence. Director Kathryn Bigelow and her screenwriter cronies James Cameron and Jay Cocks understand well that the sleekest new technology is immediately turned to the seediest purposes. Their protagonist, L.A. ex-cop Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), understands it too, and he's the consummate salesperson for virtual sleaze, circa 1999. When Nero watches a potential client "jack in"--a contraband silver rig on top of the mark's head wires the contents of a mini CD recorded with the full sensory experience of another person directly into his brain--he sports the sharp grin of a guy who loves the junk he's dealing as much as the junkies do. After the client's spent a few quality moments feeling himself up through his business suit, Nero cuts off his feed. "You were just an 18-year-old girl taking a shower," he tells the client. And, of course, there's more where that came from. The filmmakers also understand that good help is hard to find. After he's just played back a pornographic disc of a half-hearted lesbian encounter--from the point of view of one of the women, naturally--Nero coaches one of the two performers from the clip. "You should move your eyes a lot slower," he explains. "Like you're making love with your eyes." The girl stares back at him silent and uncomprehending, her eyes a complete blank. Nero's a lost romantic in the age of sensory overload. The minidisc system is called SQUID, a charming acronym for Superconducting Quantum Interference Device. That's just another way to say The Movies, for which SQUID is sort of a doublespeak stand-in. Nero is the director, who lives vicariously through the exploits of criminals and neo-porn stars as his own life moves in ever contracting circles. Among the clips in highest demand are the ones recorded in the most extreme of circumstances, like the botched robbery sequence that opens the film. The scene is one long take from a criminal's p.o.v., and the event doesn't end happily, which pisses Nero off. Nero doesn't deal in "blackjack clips"--that's snuff clips, the ones where some poor sucker winds up dead before it's over. The clips that Nero loves best, the ones he keeps in a shoebox back at his house, are home movies, full-sensory snippets from his life with Faith (Juliette Lewis), the girl who used to love him but now sings in a nightclub for sleazy music mogul Philo Gant (Michael Wincott). This shady circle of friends also includes a flunky named Max (Tom Sizemore), a tough cab driver named Mace (Angela Bassett) and a prostitute named Iris (Brigitte Bako). When Iris comes running to Nero, begging frantically for help, he shrugs her off. But the next day, when a blackjack disc of a particularly traumatic murder is anonymously delivered to him, Nero starts to wonder what Iris had to tell him that was so important, and whether he might be next in line. What a kick--STRANGE DAYS is an action movie with real characters and uncommonly skillful actors. Ralph Fiennes as Nero is a real tragic hero, one who's fallen from grace with his former employer (the L.A.P.D.) and his former lover. Fiennes is s o damn likable in the role--he gives the scuzzball a fuzzy surface. Angela Bassett's ass-kicking turn as Mace, the only woman who's willing to stand by Nero through and through, is actually a secondary role, but she brings it straight to the fore and rein forces the star status she won in WHAT'S LOVE GOT TO DO WITH IT? Juliette Lewis gets to stretch out just a little, even though she's once again typecast as a sexpot for scumbags (can't she talk to her agent about this?). The supporting cast, which includes t he chameleon-like Vincent D'Onofrio as a rogue cop, is excellent as well. In very literal ways, STRANGE DAYS is a movie about sensory overload. If you see the movie in a house wired with digital sound and a big screen, it will undoubtedly get your blood flowing. Tellingly, in this age of bright lights and big sound, one character from the film is knocked into a coma when his SQUID unit is wired to overamp the signals to his brain. Moreover, the interaction of people wearing the devices and crossing their own experiences with the playback amounts to a conceptual tour de force, with one experience informing another, brutality overlapping terror, and pleasure licking the heels of sadism. The single most punishing moment of STRANGE DAYS owes a specific debt to Michael Powell's definitive treatment of voyeuristic pleasure, PEEPING TOM (1960), and I could see couples huddling closer together and others slouching lower in their seats as a true high-tech perversion played itself out on-screen. STRANGE DAYS isn't always an easy or pleasant film, and in the age of the easygoing bullet-laden blockbuster, it's sobering to see a movie where representations of violence are, well, violent. More to the point, Kathryn Bigelow cements her reputation as a stops-out action director who encourages audiences to keep their brains engaged as she steps on the pedal. I'm not a big fan of her ex-husband Cameron's movies (they include ALIENS and TRUE LIES), but it's hard to explain how his admittedly exhilarating approach to an action scene differs from Bigelow's similarly expert tactics, which also work wonders. Maybe it's her background as an artist that shapes these quick cuts into a montage that makes sense, or her intellectual fascination with the first-person point of view that shapes the SQUID sequences. You don't have to be intellectually aware of how good she is at all of this to appreciate the sheer rush of the fast action, but the experience is heightened by her sure control of thematic concerns. And at any rate, this is miles ahead of her previous POINT BREAK. The special effects are so well done that they're nearly unnoticeable, and aside from a couple of fireworks in the night sky over L.A., I can hardly remember what the digital effects shots were. The throbbing soundtrack, featuring the music of bands like Tricky and PJ Harvey (who might actually still be current in 1999), is a savvy, welcome switch from SF movies with pop soundtracks comprised exclusively of 70s retreads or bad techno. Despite a fairly contrived screenplay, STRANGE DAYS is altogether hip, slick, and wicked. What you get out of it it is probably proportionate to how much credence you're willing to give it, and it seems that most folks will love it or hate it. When the end credits started rolling, the crowd at STRANGE DAYS was fractured in a way I haven't seen in a long time. There was spontaneous applause--that much you expect--but then the clapping hands were overwhelmed by a loud chorus of hisses. Couples left the theater engaged in heated arguments, and larger groups stood in the lobby afterward, flashing back to the movie's most violent moments. One point of contention is the ending, and that's definitely a cop-out. Any $40 million production has to be mediated by the aesthetic needs of a mass audience, but the tidy 15-minute denouement here is so at odds with the controlled chaos that brews for the first couple of hours that it leaves a bad taste. All that having been said, what's up on-screen is still quite an experience. It is rare that a Hollywood blockbuster can encourage debate in a movie-going audience, and rarer still that there might be something truly disturbing lurking under a high-gloss surface, but there is substance in STRANGE DAYS. Nero is the vessel for the knowledge it imparts, which has to do with sorting out desire, regret, and nostalgia and learning to make the best of this world. Like Nero, who has to learn to give up his aluminum-coated memories of what once was to live in the here and now, STRANGE DAYS struggles to come to terms with the relationship of memory to reality, the future to the present, and what could be to what is. -- DEEP FOCUS: Archived Movie Reviews by Bryant Frazer http://www.panix.com/~bfrazer/flicker/ bfrazer@panix.com From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:36:21 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Oct 17 11:08:58 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!chi-news.cic.net!news.midplains.net!gw2.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: leeper@mtgbcs.att.com (Mark R. Leeper) Subject: REVIEW: STRANGE DAYS Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04129 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Leeper Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: leeper@mtgbcs.att.com Organization: AT&T, Middletown NJ Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 17:28:57 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 82 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3425 rec.arts.sf.reviews:847 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Mark R. Leeper Copyright 1995 Mark R. Leeper Capsule: Never have I had a film drop in rating so far so fast. This is a movie with an enthralling first half hour. It offers a fascinating look at society falling apart and technological change that would really transform humanity. But this is a lead-in for a gawd-awful, predictable, cliched murder mystery that almost never uses the premise. Rating: -1 (-4 to +4). The best science fiction film of the 1980s was the first 2/3 of the film BRAINSTORM. This was an excellent look at how one invention could transform humanity. The invention was the means to record a person's thoughts and sensory input and to play it back for someone else so the second person has exactly the same experience. The last third of BRAINSTORM shows the signs of rapid rewriting of the script after one of the major actors died. In the world of the film resulting transformation of society could have been the subject of twenty excellent sequels without ever covering the same topic twice. For a while watching STRANGE DAYS I thought I was seeing the first of those sequels and it was great. But the feeling just did not last. Lenny Nero (played by Ralph Fiennes) traffics in contraband experience, recorded on little CD-ROMs and capable of being played back. If you want the experience of making love to a beautiful woman or of committing a violent crime, you can buy it from Lenny and play it back as often as you like, repeating it over and over. If you have no legs and miss the experience of running on the beach, as long as some human can have the experience, you can also. As Lenny says, "This isn't 'television, only better'" This is the real thing. The only problem is the technology and materials are illegal. People record their experiences and sell them to Lenny who sells them to other people. Lenny has a bag full of contraband experiences (not unlike the handkerchief full of souls in "The Devil and Daniel Webster"). He plies his trade in the netherworld of a disintegrating Los Angeles. So what do writers James Cameron and Jay Cocks do with the idea? One of these little experience CD-ROMs has a recording of an experience that some people would like hushed up and others would want to make public. Full stop on the ideas. Now we have high-energy chases, sex scenes, martial arts fights, gunplay, shocking revelations, rock music performances, smashing windshields, graphic rapes, betrayals, murders, cover-ups, and a totally daffy ending with several progressively sillier climaxes. Not surprisingly Los Angeles is much like today, only worse, in the last days of the second-to-last year of this century. (Yes, the second-to-last. Cameron and Cox seem to think that in spite of the fact that the first millennium started with the year 1 and the second one started with the year 1001, for some reason we will start the third one in the year 2000. We won't.) Ralph Fiennes and Tom Sizemore are fairly good as low-life heroes, and what is cyberpunk without its low-life heroes? Angela Bassett is not quite up to a role that calls for her to have both the natural wisdom of a Solomon and the martial arts skills of a Chuck Norris. It isn't her fault, but the script falls just short of implying she can walk on water. Juliette Lewis show more flesh than acting talent as an old girlfriend of Lenny's. The style of the film is fast-paced and will certainly be hard for some audiences to follow, at least in the earlier, more interesting parts of the film. The editing is fast, but not always skillful. Occasionally it borders on the confusing, but this is supposed to be a bewildering future. Katheryn Bigelow directs it with some of the same style she used in TV's WILD PALMS. That film was three hours and seemed longer; this one is nearly two-and-a-half hours and seems just as long. This is a film that builds something intriguing and interesting and then spoils it all in the last hour and fifty minutes. The real problem is that STRANGE DAYS tries to be an action film, a martial arts film, a film about race, and a science fiction film while using a plot that with minor substitutions would be a cable-bait mystery. I wonder if the nearness of the time-setting of this film will get 20th Century Fox thinking about the fact they soon need a new name for their studio. Then again, with disappointments like this one, maybe they won't. In spite of a great start, this one gets a high -1 on the -4 to +4 scale. At one point I thought it might get a +3. Mark R. Leeper mark.leeper@att.com From ../rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Nov 14 14:36:24 1995 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Oct 17 11:08:58 1995 Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Path: news.ifm.liu.se!fizban.solace.mh.se!paladin.american.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!uwm.edu!chi-news.cic.net!news.midplains.net!gw2.att.com!nntpa!not-for-mail From: ram@mbisgi.umd.edu (Ram Samudrala) Subject: REVIEW: STRANGE DAYS Message-ID: Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Summary: r.a.m.r. #04130 Originator: ecl@mtgp003 Keywords: author=Samudrala Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Nntp-Posting-Host: mtgp003.mt.att.com Reply-To: ram@mbisgi.umd.edu (Ram Samudrala) Organization: The Centre for Advanced Research in Biotechnology Date: Mon, 16 Oct 1995 17:30:00 GMT Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Lines: 57 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:3426 rec.arts.sf.reviews:848 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Ram Samudrala Copyright 1995 Ram Samudrala STRANGE DAYS, like most other thrillers in the cyberpunk genre, depicts a dystopian future. The year is 1999 going on to 2000. Crime is rampant, and the city of LA has turned into a police state. In this universe, Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) is a fast-talking ex-cop salesman who peddles in people's memories. These memories are recorded and played by a device called the Wire, which is available only on the black market. It offers a virtual reality, one that is based on other people's experiences and emotions. The Wire is an interesting device. Contrary to traditional ideas of "jacking in" to a virtual reality, there's no implant required---anyone can use it by placing the device on their heads. However, in this movie, where Nero spends a lot of time peddling the virtues of this device using phrases like "Santa Claus of the Subconscious" (which the ads for this movie have drilled into my head), the technological aspect isn't explored very much. Most of the time is spent on the plots which involve Lenny possessing a memory clip that two police officers are desperate to obtain, and chasing after his old love Faith (Juliette Lewis), who is a singer for a punk rock/noisecore band. How this is done is what makes watching this movie on the big screen worthwhile for the most part. Director Kathryn Bigelow uses in your face point-of-view camera shots to translate the virtual reality that the users of the Wire are experiencing to the audience. Interestingly enough, I found the virtually violent scenes lacking urgency and shock value whereas I thought the "simpler" experiences (such as Nero and Faith rollerblading and his crippled friend running on the beach with the waves splashing) more effective. In fact the violence from the point-of-view of the person committing it gets really boring after a while, and Bigelow's ideas of transmitting the emotions of the attacker to the victim doesn't come across well. The other thing that makes this movie worthwhile is Angela Bassett's presence. Here, she plays a Limo driver Mace, who doesn't approve of Nero's actions. It is she that manages to invoke empathy from the audience by her actions, all the way to the end. If Bigelow's theme is to suggest that there's hope even in the darkest despair, it is the character of Mace that manages to get this across. In the end, STRANGE DAYS isn't commentary about the future, but the present. The current state of police oppression (LAPD) in this country are epitomised well: the killing of a popular black rapper, and the beating up of Mace. The plot involving the killing of the rapper is similar to the Rodney King beating and I don't think the movie helps LAPD's reputation much. Generally, I think the importance of recording devices when it comes to confrontation with the law is the best lesson one can take home from this movie. The music is quite decent, but unlike the technology in the movie and like the plot itself, it is very rooted in the present. -- me@ram.org || http://www.ram.org || http://www.twisted-helices.com/th From rec.arts.sf.reviews Sat Mar 16 23:56:25 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net!news.jos.net!dos.canit.se!seunet!mn7.swip.net!mn6.swip.net!news00.sunet.se!sunic!news.sprintlink.net!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!news.msfc.nasa.gov!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!lll-winken.llnl.gov!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntphub.cb.att.com!not-for-mail From: bt18@cityscape.co.uk (Allan Toombs) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: STRANGE DAYS Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 13 Mar 1996 16:43:05 GMT Organization: ? Lines: 105 Sender: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: ecl@mtgpfs2.att.com Message-ID: <4i6tup$2k4@nntpb.cb.att.com> Reply-To: bt18@cityscape.co.uk (Allan Toombs) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtcts2.mt.att.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #04854 Keywords: author=Toombs Originator: ecl@mtcts2 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:4072 rec.arts.sf.reviews:910 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Allan Toombs Copyright 1996 Allan Toombs THE TIME: It's the end of 1999, just under 4 years in the future and a few days before the end of the century. Producer James Cameron really has produced a realistic projection of the millenial celebrations and the fevered craziness that goes along with it. From the opening sequence with a radio call-in christian squawking about 'the last days' to the climactic '2K' party, the atmosphere is right. This movie makes you feel the weird buzz of the century passing into a new millenium. The only feeling that'll come close will be the real thing, which gets nearer every day. THE PLACE: Los Angeles, the wrong side of the tracks; now coming from Britain I don't know what it's like in the sleazier districts of LA but that's where this film is based, there isn't much of the suburbs and mall-culture on display, I guess you'd call it the street. Prostitutes, bar-flies, pushers; society's flotsam clinging onto that one last dream, none more so than the film's protagonist - Lenny Nero. THE HARDWARE: It's called Playback or doing The Wire, officially the acronym is SQUID, sub-quantum something but all you really need to know is it can record human experience. No attempt is made to truly provide a technical explanation for the Playback devices, it's deus-ex-machina take it or leave it, indeed whatever leap in current research is posited it can fit 20 minutes of 'being there' onto an ordinary Sony Mini-Disc. Stronger than Crack. An electronic drug made real. THE CRIMES: Somebody has murdered Jeriko One, controversial rapper and firebrand activist for the black community. Glen Plummer plays this character cross between Snoop Doggy Dog and Louis Farrakhan with conviction. The rap and the rhetoric are just right. Unrelated to this, there is a brutal rape where the Playback technology is employed with sick inventiness. I'm tempted to condemn Cameron's sadistic narrative here but I can't, the scene is filmed with terrifying clarity by Director Kathryn Bigelow, I have to trust her judgement that the footage included is necessary to establish the prescence of a sick-killer in the plot. Certainly I felt repulsed and disgusted by the act and it's voyeurism; nuff said. THE MAN: Ralph Fiennes is absolutely convincing as Lenny Nero, Playback dealer, a shameless pimp for little silver discs of people's lives. He's strung out, making an easy living with a hot, contraband product but unable to get his life together. He's still in love with his ex-girlfriend Faith, but she now despises him, a love made no easier by his shoe-box full of recordings of their moments together. He is pitiably addicted to a Playback past. You may remember that in my review of JOHNNY MNEMONIC (http://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/bt18/johnnym.htm) I criticised the reversal of the classic Gibson 'screwed-up man/strong woman' formula. Well here it is executed perfectly by James Cameron's skillfull storyline. Making this film more Cyberpunk than the definate article itself. Which brings me round to Lornette 'Mace' Mason. THE WOMAN: Angela Bassett is as beautiful and hard as ebony in the role of Mace. She's a black woman holding down a job driving businessmen round LA 1999's wreck-strewn streets. Lenny is supposed to be a friend; he was good to her kids the day the LAPD arrested their father. Where Nero is effusive and spontaneous, she's a woman of reality, a mother and a survivor. Maybe once he got her set up in the security car line but now he's a leech bumming one too many free-rides. Angela Bassett is a wonderful new talent in a great part. She's stunningly cool under pressure yet pulls off all the fight scenes with a sharp grace and calculating intelligence. With her hair in thin braids she's as sassy as a younger Whoopi Goldberg, as physical as Grace Jones but with warmth and humanity. A pity Ms.Bassett had to wear a dumb 'hooker' dress as a subertuge for the film's climax because she looks truly amazing in a cleancut 'designer chauffeur suit' that is totally in-character. A star. THE ISSUES: At this movies heart are concerns about emotional truth, delusion and race. Cameron has obviously been thinking long and hard about the Rodney King beating and LA's riots. The key question is 'What have we to celebrate if armed police are necessary for a public celebration?'. Certainly it's hard to imagine how the millenium parties will take place without incident in an America which is 'browning' rapidly yet clinging to a white 'apple-pie' vision of life. Lenny Nero is that rare thing a white-guy who's at home in the racial mix of the inner-city. Yet he's blind to Macey's unselfish devotion. Instead of seeing her love he sits in a squalid pad fast-forwarding a tape of Faith making love to him in a beach hut. Fiennes plays a fool dazzled by the smoke and mirrors of a new technology. Like the men in SEX, LIES & VIDEOTAPE or FLATLINERS he's getting off on a recording and not confronting the truth that it's just a more-detailed, personalised form of pornography. THE VERDICT: This is a James Cameron hollywood blockbuster first and foremost. High on action, adventure and adrenaline. Cameron knows just how to work a storyline chock full of twists and surprises. Added to this Kathryn Bigelow brings a sharp focus, quick-cut sophisticated direction that avoids cliche then uses it to just the right effect. I was left exhausted by the sheer pace and relentless punch of STRANGE DAYS. It's just a hairs-breadth on the right side of OTT but then this is a *BIG* movie dealing with the big issues of today. It takes the personal, the political, the sexual, the spiritual and makes them all hang on one split-second bullet. Maybe this is the last big action movie; I can't see how more is possible without lapsing into the tongue-in-cheek of TRUE LIES or Bond. However it deserves support for it's bravery in tackling drugs and race head on. Movie of the year, so far. "Tonight we're going to party like it's 1999" mailto:toombs@cityscape.co.uk http://www.cityscape.co.uk/users/bt18/atoombs.html Allan Toombs From rec.arts.sf.reviews Mon Apr 22 16:04:02 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed.tip.net.!newsfeed.tip.net!www.cybercity.dk!news.sol.net!news.inc.net!imci5!imci4!newsfeed.internetmci.com!uwm.edu!fnnews.fnal.gov!gw1.att.com!nntphub.cb.att.com!not-for-mail From: h.soh@newsserver.trl.OZ.AU (Soh Kam Hung) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: STRANGE DAYS (1995) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 19 Apr 1996 20:14:06 GMT Organization: Telecom Research Laboratories, Melbourne, Australia. Lines: 28 Sender: ecl@mtcts1.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: ecl@mtcts1.att.com Message-ID: <4l8s6e$lkt@nntpb.cb.att.com> Reply-To: h.soh@newsserver.trl.OZ.AU (Soh Kam Hung) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtcts2.mt.att.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #05063 Keywords: author=Hung Originator: ecl@mtcts2 Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:4299 rec.arts.sf.reviews:929 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Soh Kam Hung Copyright 1996 Soh Kam Hung `Strange Days' chronicles the last two days of 1999 in Los Angeles. As the locals gear up for the new millenium, Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) goes about his business of peddling erotic memory clips. He pines for his ex-girlfriend, Faith (Juliette Lewis), not noticing that another friend, Mace (Angela Bassett) really cares for him. This film features good performances, impressive film-making technique and breath-taking crowd scenes. Director Kathryn Bigelow knows her stuff and does not hesitate to use it. But as a whole, this is an unsatisfying movie. The problem is that the writers, James Cameron and Jay Cocks, were too ambitious, aiming for a film with social relevance, thrills, and drama. Not that ambitious film-making should be discouraged; just that when it fails to achieve its goals, it fails badly and obviously. The film just ends up preachy, unexciting and uninvolving. Expectation: 4 out of 5. Enjoyment : 2 out of 5. -- Soh Kam Hung +61 3 9253-6467 h.soh@trl.telstra.com.au Network Analysis Section, Telstra Research Laboratories Box 249 Rosebank MDC, Clayton, Victoria 3169, Australia From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Dec 10 11:01:30 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!solace!eru.mt.luth.se!newsfeed.luth.se!news.luth.se!erix.ericsson.se!eua.ericsson.se!news.algonet.se!news.uoregon.edu!news.acsu.buffalo.edu!dsinc!spool.mu.edu!howland.erols.net!feed1.news.erols.com!worldnet.att.net!cbgw2.lucent.com!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!not-for-mail From: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (Paul-Michael Agapow) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: STRANGE DAYS (1995) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 4 Dec 1996 16:27:09 GMT Organization: Calvin Coolidge Home for Dead Biologists Lines: 92 Sender: eleeper@lucent.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: eleeper@lucent.com Message-ID: <5848ot$73p@nntpb.cb.lucent.com> Reply-To: agapow@latcs1.cs.latrobe.edu.au (Paul-Michael Agapow) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtvoyager.mt.lucent.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #06450 Keywords: author=Agapow Originator: ecl@mtvoyager Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:5843 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1145 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Paul-Michael Agapow Copyright 1996 Paul-Michael Agapow It is the last day of 1999 in a Los Angeles teetering on the brink of civil war. Lenny (Fiennes) is a ex-cop gone to seed and pedalling "clips" --- full sensory experiences recorded on and played back from disk. As the year 2000 approaches and Lenny hustles, he finds himself threatened by unknown forces somehow connected with his ex-girlfriend, musician Faith (Lewis). Aided by bodyguard/driver Mace (Bassett) and scuzzy plainclothes cop Max (Sizemore), he trys to solve the mystery. The vilification that "Strange Days" was subjected to by critics is difficult to explain. It is not a film without problems, but it still packs a mighty punch and its recent release of video gives hope that this tough and dense film might find its audience. Possibly critics were primed by names on the production staff. Although Bigelow is widely regarded as a very talented director, she has produced some astoundingly bad movies. (Examples : the silly "Blue Steel" and the even sillier "Point Break".) SF-movie guru Cameron as producer and writer raises other problems. As a science-fiction film-maker, he makes good action films. "Aliens" and "Terminator 2" are, at their heart, action films with SF elements being largely replaceable or extraneous to the plot. Strangely enough both Bigelow and Cameron emerge out with flying colours. Although some motifs are purloined from other films (notably "Bladerunner", "T2" and "City of Lost Children"), Bigelow's direction is inventive and deft, capturing a millennial LA in a bright staccato stream of images. Even on video this wall of images and sound is overwhelming, like the city careering towards a new age. Cameron's script is intermittently clever. It is perhaps arguable whether the SF elements are irreplaceable but the story itself is comfortable with them and exploits them, confirming its SF nature. Thankfully it also avoids being the stream of wisecracks and stunts that passes for many scripts nowadays. Acting is generally of a high standard. Bassett is fabulous as the hardened Mace, and Fiennes is great as the charming but decaying Lenny. If anyone was looking to cast a William Gibson's "Neuromancer", these two _are_ Molly Millions and Case. There are also some painful issues dealt with in "Strange Days", not all immediately apparent. Is a race or class war necessary to solve inequality? Do lives have to be sacrificed to save the living? (There are two answers to that, one which we would want to be true and one we fear is true.) Images and the media are pervasive and untrustworthy. Lenny's flashbacks look like movies. He treats clips of Faith as memories rather than symbols of memories. Images are constantly seen in reflections and mirrors, pictures that look the same but are reversed. Conversely, there are some problems. The film suffers from "Cameron bloat": the inability to tell a film in a reasonable amount of time. (See "Abyss" et al.) The first hour of the film is busy rather than complex, failing to really start the story until halfway. The subplot concerning Faith (Juliette Lewis playing the same characters she does in everything these days) is fairly tenuously connected to the rest of the movie. The eventual logic of the plot and character motivation is fairly suspect too, although to be fair this is apparent largely in hindsight. Also puzzling is the film's ambivalent attitude to the LAPD, perhaps a reflection of everyone's ambivalence to law enforcement. This can be seen in a central event in the film, a re-enactment of the Rodney King beating, and how it differs from its realworld analog in circumstance and eventual resolution. Also a few small cliches and stupidities show up in the climax literally in the last ten minutes, but this and the previous point cannot be discussed further without spoilers. Nonetheless, "Strange Days" is recommended strongly as a ambitious and successful SF piece. Hopefully in years to come it will achieve greater recognition. For those concerned by such things, it contains significant amounts of sex, nudity and disturbing (but not graphic) violence. [****/mustsee] and dive bombing on the Sid and Nancy scale. "Strange Days" Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Produced by James Cameron et al. Story by James Cameron and Jay Cocks. Starring Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore. Released 1995. ------ paul-michael agapow (agapow@latcs1.oz.au), La Trobe Uni, Infocalypse [archived at http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~agapow/Postviews/] From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Dec 10 11:02:10 1996 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!solace!news.stealth.net!vixen.cso.uiuc.edu!howland.erols.net!dciteleport.com!worldnet.att.net!cbgw2.lucent.com!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!not-for-mail From: will@drainogenome.wi.mit.edu (Will FitzHugh) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: REVIEW: STRANGE DAYS (1995) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.current-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 9 Dec 1996 20:54:17 GMT Organization: Whitehead Institute for Biological Research Lines: 47 Sender: eleeper@lucent.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: eleeper@lucent.com Message-ID: <58hu9p$3cr@nntpb.cb.lucent.com> Reply-To: will@drainogenome.wi.mit.edu (Will FitzHugh) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtvoyager.mt.lucent.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #06461 Keywords: author=FitzHugh Originator: ecl@mtvoyager Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:5863 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1153 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Will FitzHugh Copyright 1996 Will FitzHugh Strange Days (1995) Squid Alert! Squid Alert! Kathryn Bigelow's new one comes out of the box like countless science fiction novels. Experiences can be recorded 'right from the cerebral cortex' and then played back to give the viewer the more or less complete experience (unless you open your eyes and get 'double vision'). Ralph Fiennes plays Lenny, a dealer in these taped lives. Hey, that was pretty good. I should write copy for promos, 'He's Lenny, a dealer in taped lives'. Brrrr. What I meant to say is that I've following Kathryn Bigelow's career since the beginning. I was beginning to think she peaked with 'Near Dark', a movie about a Winnebago full of vampires. Things started to look grim after that. 'Blue Steel' was pathetic with Jamie Lee Curtis horribly miscast as a tough cop. 'Point Break' livened things up a bit and was actually pretty good for a movie starring Patrick 'Duh' Swayze and Keanu 'Huh' Reeves. She did a part of 'Wild Palms' and the Oliver Stone influence seems to have worn off a bit. The recorded experiences, like the disastrous robbery that opens the movie, are jerky, kinetic and scary on the big screen (if you get real close, 19" diagonal is pretty big). Especially the one with Juliette Lewis rollerblading and coming on to me, I mean Lenny. It's the near future, see, and New Years Eve, 1999, finds the streets of L.A. full of gangstas, whores and big fat cars. More people than you'd expect wear wigs because that's how you hide the recording headgear (or 'squids'). Never trust anyone with fucked-up hair in this movie. Oh, right, the plot. Actually, never mind. Suffice it to say that it gets a bit confusing but it looks good. Angela Bassett saves Lenny's scrawny ass more than once. Most of the action takes place in crowds at clubs, warehouses and parties. The world threatens to go down the tubes at the end and there's a handful of twisted psychopaths to pick from as Lenny tries to save his beloved Faith (symbolism, I guess). For this movie to come true the Rams have to move back to L.A., the LAPD have to remain violent and unstable, and black and white people have to refuse to live in peace and harmony for another five years. Um, 1 out of 3, is my guess. Would have been if 2 out of 3 if Bob Dole had become president. will fitzhugh From /home/matoh/tmp/sf-rev Fri Aug 22 16:23:43 1997 From rec.arts.sf.reviews Tue Jul 15 23:07:03 1997 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lejonet.se!newsfeed1.telia.com!masternews.telia.net!newssrv.ita.tip.net!ubnnews.unisource.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!in2p3.fr!univ-lyon1.fr!unice.fr!news.ceram.fr!cnusc.fr!eerie.fr!news.maxwell.syr.edu!howland.erols.net!europa.clark.net!mis1!worldnet.att.net!cbgw2.lucent.com!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!not-for-mail From: stirling@netlink.com.au (Tim Voon) Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: RETROSPECTIVE: STRANGE DAYS (1995) Followup-To: rec.arts.movies.past-films,rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 26 Jun 1997 16:34:45 GMT Organization: Mariah Lines: 37 Sender: evelynleeper@geocities.com (Evelyn C. Leeper) Approved: evelynleeper@geocities.com Message-ID: <5ou5n5$e3d@nntpa.cb.lucent.com> ~Reply-To: stirling@netlink.com.au (Tim Voon) NNTP-Posting-Host: mtvoyager.mt.lucent.com Summary: r.a.m.r. #08018 Keywords: author=Voon Originator: ecl@mtvoyager Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:7417 rec.arts.sf.reviews:1391 STRANGE DAYS A film review by Tim Voon Copyright 1997 Tim Voon Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Director: Kathryn Bigelow Screenplay: James Cameron and Jay Cocks based on a story by James Cameron Strange Days is a strange movie. It is the eve of the coming century, the 31st December 1999. Humans have developed the technology to record memories (I know, take it with a grain of salt). Lenny (Fiennes) an ex-cop, now street hustler, supplies these 'stolen dreams' in the black market. He becomes involved in the schemes of a psychopathic rapist who is recording 'black jacks' (death experiences) of his victim, and needs to stay alive to see the New Year. This movie only gets from weird to worse, with nothing to slow it's descent into utter ridiculousness. The plot promises unexpected twists and turns, but produces only a convoluted mess. Whenever Lenny is in a jam he tries to trade his rouleaux watch to the villains to save himself a beating. What a wimpy ex-cop? He constantly relies on his best friend (Basset), ex-housewife turned body guard, to come and save his arse. I was so annoyed at Fienne's anti-hero, wimpiness, that I thought that perhaps he should have played the housewife, and let Basset play the lead. This is an uneven offering from Cameron, who is normally very precise with his characters and plot. Perhaps he should have directed the movie himself, after all it was his idea to begin with. Comment: This bad dream is over. Timothy Voon e-mail: stirling@netlink.com.au From rec.arts.sf.reviews Thu Feb 11 16:34:33 1999 Path: news.ifm.liu.se!news.lth.se!feed1.news.luth.se!luth.se!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!news.u.washington.edu!grahams From: GL Schmitt Newsgroups: rec.arts.movies.reviews,rec.arts.sf.reviews Subject: Review: Strange Days (1995) Followup-To: rec.arts.sf.movies Date: 9 Jan 1999 06:04:36 GMT Organization: GLS CyberServer (a Division of RED Inc. Unlimited) Lines: 177 Approved: graham@ee.washington.edu Message-ID: <776rhk$1i8q$1@nntp3.u.washington.edu> Reply-To: gschmitt@golden.SPAMICIDE.net NNTP-Posting-Host: homer03.u.washington.edu X-Trace: nntp3.u.washington.edu 915861876 51482 (None) 140.142.17.40 X-Complaints-To: help@cac.washington.edu NNTP-Posting-User: grahams Summary: r.a.m.r. #16073 Keywords: author=schmitt X-Questions-to: movie-rev-mod@www.ee.washington.edu X-Submissions-to: movie-reviews@www.ee.washington.edu Originator: grahams@homer03.u.washington.edu Xref: news.ifm.liu.se rec.arts.movies.reviews:15286 rec.arts.sf.reviews:2240 STRANGE DAYS: Not A New Flavour Chewing Gum! 1999 by GL Schmitt According to Max Peltier (Tom Sizemore) an ex-cop unable to live on his disability pension; by the end of the millennium there is nothing new left. Everything has been tried, at least once--even new flavours for chewing gum! When released, in 1995, "Strange Days" was not a new flavour gum, but it is still chewable. Any opinion more forceful than that must involve personal taste. "Strange Days" is, however, a piece of chewing gum with an interesting history. One might suggest that stories involved with gaining entrance to an alternate reality go back at least as far as Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland"--if not Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" or "The Tempest". The technology for creating alternate realities became more accessible to the masses in the 1500's with Johann Gutenberg's printing press, and even more so in the late nineteenth century with Alexander Graham Bell's telephone, as well as Thomas Edison's phonograph and motion picture camera. So, the concept of gaining entrance to an alternate virtual reality is not exactly novel. There are two distinct branches of this idea. Using an alternate virtual reality to manipulate some one else to do your bidding, is one. The disciplines of advertising, propaganda, and brainwashing fall into this category, with "The Manchurian Candidate" a classic example. Also, the recent film, "Wag the Dog" spoofed Washington spin doctors. The largely unnoticed film version of the 1951 Robert A. Heinlein Sci-Fi novel "The Puppet Masters" (though originally an expression of 1950's anti-Communistic paranoia) showed a mirror version. In it, extra terrestrial parasites overrode their human host's nervous system to gain control of the body, rather than manipulating the host's mind. The other branch of this idea involves the conscious choice to self inflict an alternate virtual reality; such as answering the telephone, turning on the television, or going to the movies. Personally, my first encounter with this whole concept, was in the Sci-Fi novel "The Big Ball of Wax" [1954] by (Edward) Shepherd Mead who is best known for the novel [1952] which formed the basis of the Tony Winning Musical "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying", filmed in 1967. In "The Big Ball of Wax" an advertising executive investigates why a certain 'religious' cult does not consume a conspicuous amount of his clients' products, only to discover that they have developed an alternate virtual reality projector which allows the cult's adherents to gobble up sufficient tasteless, minimum requirement nutrients, then sit back and vicariously enjoy a twelve course meal appreciated by the ersatz taste buds of a gourmet's trained palate. The satire is derived from the advertising executive's attempts to secure a profit from this device. Philip K. Dick used this theme several times in his writings, especially in "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" [1966] filmed in 1981 as "Blade Runner". The experimental android 'Rachel' is _given_ artificial memories to cushion her from the harshness of her proscribed life expectancy. [A fact left as obvious in Ridley Scott's director's cut, but obliterated in the Hollywoodized ending of the original theatrical release--the one with Harrison Ford's almost continuous voice-over.] In Dick's "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale" [1966] filmed in 1990 as "Total Recall", an artificially implanted memory of a trip to Mars 'accidentally' reactivates suppressed memories of a real Martian excursion. This film--excessive violence and flaws aside--demonstrates how a person is the accumulation of his memories; one who will be true to himself, only if his memories are true. Both as a curiosity, and as a flawed film, "Brainstorm" filmed in 1983 joined with "Strange Days" in recognizing the voyeurism inherent in this concept. But, writer Bruce Joel Rubin's predilection for examining the phenomena of after-life experience [See: Ghost, 1990; Jacob's Ladder, 1991] sent this film, quite literally, along a dead end. Also, film star, Natalie Wood's drowning death, before principal photography ended, caused extensive rewriting, which in turn contributed to the somewhat choppy continuity of "Brainstorm". "Strange Days" is the first film, of which I am aware, to use this self-inflicted full sensory, virtual reality concept, while consciously acknowledging the addictiveness of indulging in it. As a consequence, this technology necessarily becomes the product of an underground. A 'drug' for sleazy 'pushers'. Previously, "The Puppet Masters" showed hosts, reclaimed from their parasitic masters, suffering from withdrawal symptoms. Also, "Strange Days" identifies the person recording the virtual reality 'clip' as sharing all their responses and emotions, even to suffering from the recorder-person's own physical limitations. In this case, colour blindness. Another film, "Dreamscape", not only connected the technologically enhanced watcher with the one watched that closely, but even allowed them to interact 'physically' with real world consequences. "Dreamscape" was filmed in 1984 with Dennis Quaid, Max von Sydrow and Kate Capshaw. Of course, the ultimate _extreme_ of using technological enhancement to reshape reality must go to 1956's "Forbidden Planet" with Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. Seen, ranked with these other films and novels, "Strange Days" is not only a atmospheric crime mystery, set in the near future. "Strange Days" is both another step along a developing Sci-Fi theme, as well as one which is coming more uncomfortably close to reality than any of its originators could ever have imagined. "Strange days" may be a previously used flavour of chewing gum, but it represents one of the tastier morsels employing this Sci-Fi theme. RELATED FILM AND NOVEL SUGGESTIONS: *********************************** "Strange Days" Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett (Atmospheric, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Action) "Total Recall" Arnold Swartzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, and Sharon Stone SFX, Sci-Fi, Action) (Novel}-'We Can Remember It For You Wholesale'-Philip K. Dick "Brainstorm" Natalie Wood and Christopher Walken (Sci-Fi Drama) "Blade Runner" Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young (SFX, Sci-Fi, Action, Drama) (Novel}-'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'-Philip K. Dick "Forbidden Planet" Walter Pidgeon, Anne Francis, and Leslie Nielsen. (SFX-for 1956, Sci-Fi, Mystery, Drama) (Novel}-Novelization of film, author unknown. Film based on William Shakespeare's 'The Tempest' (Novel}-'The Big Ball of Wax'-(Edward) Shepherd Mead (Not Filmed) "The Manchurian Candidate" Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Janet Leigh, and Angela Landsbury (Sci-Fi, Political, Action, Drama, Thriller) (Novel}-'The Manchurian Candidate'-Richard Condon "Wag the Dog" Dustin Hoffman, Robert DeNiro and Anne Heche (Comedy and Satire--which unfortunately-- several highly visible Washingtonites are ill-equipped to recognise.) ---------------------------------------------------------------- GL Schmitt To respond, remove the 'SPAMICIDE'. ----------------------------------------------------------------