Runtime: 145 minutes
Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow
Starring: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore (w/ hilarious hair), Michael Wincott
From: 20th Century Fox
This is the first of two reviews for today. The second will be more fiery than this:
What better time than (the night of New Year's Eve) to finally revisit this picture? As always I did nothing of note on New Year's Eve so might as well check out a fictional world that's a hellhole on NYE and is fraught w/ such issues as dirty cops, racial tension, and people being addicted to a certain type of technology-as that is far different from real life... indeed, parts of this seem prescient. The prediction of MiniDisc becoming popular in the United States was a swing and a miss, admittedly.
This is set in the far-flung future of the last few days, 1999. As the dawn of the new millennium is about to come, technology exists which allows a device known as SQUID to record physical sensations and memories of a user and they are recorded onto MiniDiscs to be experienced by anyone with a player. Former cop Ralph Fiennes peddles these memories and gets wrapped up in controversy revolving around his ex Juliette Lewis, the manager of a slain political rapper, the LAPD, and more. There's also his limo driver pal Angela Bassett, who plays a badass w/ a hard exterior but is actually not such a harsh lady in general.
Back when James Cameron and Kathryn Bigelow still were friendly with each other, they created a film which bombed at time of release but has been reappraised with the passage of time. It was an interesting world that was created here that had colorful characters (including Tom Sizemore and his incredible wig) and addresses serious themes that unfortunately are still relevant a quarter of a century later. It also has quite the eclectic soundtrack-featuring everyone from Bob Marley and Lords of Acid to Prong, Tricky and Peter Gabriel. While it has some harsh moments as it covers such topics as racism, voyeurism and sexual assault, it was never a brutal watch hard to get through.
A shame that in the United States, this is hard to track down via streaming and it is not available on Blu-ray. I should not have had to jump through various hoops to watch a nice copy of it and it should have been easier for others to see this last night if they wanted to celebrate the end of a miserable year in this fashion.
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