Strange Days

This was either my third or fourth time watching Strange Days. It might just be because I first saw it when I was young and unjaded, or because I love William Gibson’s stuff and it’s cool seeing it come to life, but it’s still one of my favorite movies. The dystopian cyberpunk atmosphere is great; there’s romance and action; all of the characters are compelling; and Ralph Fiennes’ performance totally steals the show.

This was either my third or fourth time seeing Strange Days, and I still love it, even if it does look dated as hell these days. I wonder if someone who hadn’t read William Gibson’s stuff would have the same affinity for it, though. There’s just something cool about seeing something you read about being brought to life. The whole cyberpunk dystopian atmosphere is great.

It’s interesting that a large part of the plot hinges on a black guy being shot by police on (what amounts to) video, and how they say there would be mass riots if the video got out, because now that’s happened multiple times and...yeah, not so much. Although it might be different if someone like Kanye West had been killed, which is more like who it was in Strange Days.

Juliette Lewis’ performance seemed really off to me this time. I guess Faith was lying a lot of the time, so maybe that was part of it, or maybe Juliette’s just a terrible actress. I still like the character of Faith, anyway. She’s a good singer (and Juliette actually did sing in a band), and I loved the pink hair.

Ralph is an amazing actor, though. You feel for Lenny so much. The entire time I just kept saying “poor Lenny.” Although he is a total sleazeball and he’s just using Mace, which isn’t right at all. But then they get back together at the end, so maybe it all works out. The end party scene is great, with Mace getting beat up and then the crowd saves her and the chief comes in and Vincent D’Onfrio has all that blood on his face – speaking of which, I knew that was somebody I should know, but I had no idea it was Vincent.

I love that they got William Fichtner in. And Tom Sizemore’s a perfect villain. People usually don’t realize it’s him, but I guess there are clues. Plus, if you really think about it, the killer is going to be somebody we know; you’d be missing out on a huge emotional payload if it was just some new person. So out of the available people, it basically either has to be Tom or Philo.

Mace is a cool character. She’s strong, she kicks ass, she helps out, she always looks great. Angela Bassett should’ve gotten more work. The irony of Lenny asking Mace if she’s ever been in love with someone who didn’t return the feeling was insane. I can totally relate to Lenny being stuck in that “past love” world, though. It’s interesting how you can see movies differently after you’ve experienced more stuff.

I didn’t really recognize Iris when she got killed, which is weird, because I thought I had a handle on what her face looked like despite all the wigs. But at least they cleared up fairly quickly that that was, in fact, Iris.
It seems like jacking in would be super dangerous if all the person next to you has to do is turn up the juice and your brain’s fried. But I guess people who went around doing that would start to get a reputation.

I didn’t remember Lenny’s rolling gag with the Rolex, but that was funny. I liked the muscle chick with the blond dreads. She reminded me of the guys from The Matrix. It’s crazy that the movie is 2.5 hours long. It goes by super fast. I don’t remember how long ago I saw it last, but I basically didn’t remember it at all. I thought it opened with Faith skating, not the robbery scene. I don’t even remember there being a robbery scene.

It was cool that I had practically completely forgotten everything, though. It was almost like getting to see it for the first time again.