In short: Hackers (1995)

Before YA-oriented cinema was all about the post-apocalypse, it was something like Hackers. That is to say, a well-meaning director approaches youth culture (and we could even argue if it should be about youth culture at all) with genuine interest but little clue of what anything of it actually means, particularly once it gets filtered through the needs of a big movie production meant to really cash in on some buzz words and a love of William Gibson novels, adds in some conspiracy thriller tropes and pretty funny techno babble, and a grab-bag of hot young thing actors (Jonny Lee Miller! Angelina Jolie! Matthew Lillard! Etc!) in improbable yet hot young fashion.

As an actual portray of a place and time this is pretty dubious is what I’m saying. However, if you approach it with a bit of openness (unless you have nostalgia for the film anyway, than that’s not needed), Hackers is actually a genuinely likeable film that does its damndest to create its somewhat improbable and slightly silly world with genuine care, putting actual effort into making its style and the world view of its characters coherent; while it is certainly highly interested in being marketable to its teen audience, it doesn’t want to do that by talking down to it.

Director Iain Softley is your typical mid-90s slick stylist, but unlike quite a few of his peers, he’s in full control of his style and not the other way round and mostly avoids your typical 90s mainstream filmmaking excess by virtue of focus. Commendably, he also trusts his audience to enjoy a bit of world building, so the actual plot of the film sets in slowly; which is all the better because the world of the film is quite a bit more interesting than its plot. The plot’s perfectly serviceable for what it is, mind you, it’s just that Softley has definitely put the emphasis on the script’s – and perhaps his own – strengths.


Seen in the right mood, this is a really fun movie even nearly twenty-five years later (I’m so very, very old), feeling genuine even in its goofiest moments. Additional bonus points for an organically diverse cast when that wasn’t as much of a thing as it is today, and a teen romance between hot young things that contains actual moments of awkwardness like a romance between actual teens would

In short: Cyborg 2: The Glass Shadow (1993)

In the future, two companies, one Japanese and one American, producing intelligent, feeling androids they call cyborgs for no good reason vie for world domination. Pinwheel, the American corp, decides to dominate their Japanese counterpart once and for all by blowing up the competition's executive level with a special cyborg explosive they have prepared their cyborg Casella "Cash" Reese (Angelina Jolie) with.

A quite independent cyborg (who actually is a cyborg and not an android like Cash) named Mercy (Jack Palance) who likes to communicate with the world via a negative image of his luscious lips on TVs lying around - and in this future, TVs are lying disused in the dust everywhere - has other plans for her, and pushes Cash and her martial arts instructor and owner of a big crush on his charge Colson "Colt" Ricks (Elias Koteas) into a daring escape attempt.

The bad guys send a crazy bounty killer (Billy Drago) and an equally crazy cyborg bounty killer (Karen Sheperd) after what will soon enough become the lovers, but as you know, love, kicks in the face and Cyborg-Palance conquer all.

Michael Schroeder's Cyborg 2 is a film that usually gets a bad rep as a horrible, horrible movie. I, however, somewhat emphatically disagree with that position, possibly because I just watched the film this isn't really a sequel of (even though there are a few seconds of random scenes from it inserted into this), and therefore know the difference between a boring low budget movie and one that is trying enthusiastically. Cyborg 2 is the kind of film Roger Corman could have produced in the late 70s if the late 70s had had a thing for somewhat cyberpunk-y futures. It's cheap, it's not as dumb as it pretends to be, and from time to time, it's even rather funny.

And really, what's not to like about a movie that contains: Jack Palance's lips chewing the scenery, and then Billy Drago and Karen Sheperd taking care of whatever he left of it, a young, pretty insecure and very cute Angelina Jolie (who does get naked, as does Koteas so there's nudity for everyone), copious amounts of blue, amber and red lighting, an arena fight below two ventilators, Jack Palance making things explode, cheap production and costume design that is either meant to suggest curious cultural crossovers in the future or a random grab into a wardrobe, and a story - such as it is - where love and an exploding Jack Palance cure all ills? Even better, all this stuff is told without too much boring filler and with a totally annoying synth soundtrack. If that doesn't make Cyborg 2 a winner in anyone's book, I don't want to read it.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,sf,angelina jolie,elias koteas,billy drago,jack palance,karen sheperd

Three Films Make A Post: Some Things Shouldn't Be Disturbed…

No Such Thing (2001): Hal Hartley's movies are always problematic. On one hand, the man has a fantastic, personal sense of visual poetry and the ability to let actors shine doing non-naturalistic, yet deeply human feeling acting (just look at how fantastic, glowing Sarah Polley is here and compare with her performance in Splice!). On the other hand, he is a purveyor of the sort of clichéd and hackneyed culture (and worse media) critique certain art house directors (see also the insufferable Wim Wenders) confuse with depth. In No Such Things both sides of Hartley collide with a vengeance, but the director's better nature wins out for long enough stretches that I don't regret having watched the film. Still, thinking about what Hartley could accomplish if he'd apply his talents to the exploration of more interesting ideas than he usually does makes me a little bit sad.

 

Salt (2010): This is an ultra slick, competent and theoretically extremely entertaining big costly Hollywood spy action movie that has a plot as ridiculously unbelievable as any Bond movie with Roger Moore (just more complicated), although it's trying its hardest to pretend it's as clever and down to earth as a Bourne movie (and what does it say about Hollywood spy movies that the Bourne movies are as down to earth as they come?).

So far, so fun. Unfortunately, Salt is also a morally bankrupt hymn to the idea that the end justifies the means (quite unlike the Bourne movies who have a moral backbone) as probably befits a film coming from a country with government sanctioned torture. Which sort of ruins the fun. Completely.

 

Shutter Island (2010): Following the line of mediocre films Martin Scorsese had churned out this century, I had mostly given up on the director. Turns out that I was like one of those guys hating on Bob Dylan during the 80s - not wrong, but way too pessimistic.

Shutter Island is quite brilliant - a film that takes a preposterous plot (especially once the final reveal comes around) and makes it work through a peculiar combination of a sense of history (public and personal) and Scorsese's own private brand of operatic artificiality. It should be ridiculous, and yet it's pretty damn great.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,hal hartley,phillip noyce,martin scorsese,spies,arthouse,thriller,sarah polley,angelina jolie,leonardo dicaprio,in short