Strange Days (1995)

Prowling through the dangerous streets of Los Angeles in the dead of night, sidewalks vibrating with people, partying, violence, confetti and smoke, Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes) changes the radio station of his BMW, bouncing across music styles and radio chatter – everything is played out and already been done. An ex-cop turned drug dealer, Nero’s […]

Hackers (1995)

I never saw Hackers (1995) when it came out in cinemas. The first time I properly watched it was with friends to make fun of it, a studio picture that tried to market one sub culture (internet hackers) to another (teens). To represent hacking as cool and punk seemed naff and silly, particularly with attractive […]

A Scanner Darkly (2006)

Sad Keanu before the meme. Robert Downey Jnr in prime bursque rant mode pre-MCU. Woody Harrelson as hippy-dippy paranoid (naturally). Winona Ryder as subtle and caring from afar. Rory Cochrane taking his Slater character from Dazed And Confused to another deeper, darker, depressing level of Too Far Gone. A Scanner Darkly (2006), an adaptation of […]

Arcade (1993)

“I’m telling you, man, Virtual Reality is the way of the future!” Going further down the wormhole of science-fiction movies, specifically anything related to VR and cyberpunk, and I’m in the direct-to-video land of Full Moon Entertainment once again. Arcade (1993) is based on an original idea by Charles Band, as the opening credits inform […]

Alphaville (1965)

My enduring memory of Alphaville (1965) was the shot near the end of a Parisian freeway at night, the collection of lights in the darkness, a simple and low budget way of implying a future space. To travel to another galaxy as mundane as driving down a highway, yet still otherworldly in the grainy black […]