Strange Days (1995)

Lenny Nero

Cossack
Premium Supporter
Oct 1, 2013
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5.00 star(s) Rating: 5.00/5 2 Votes
Title: Strange Days (1995)

Tagline: You know you want it.

Genre: Crime, Drama, Science Fiction, Thriller

Director: Kathryn Bigelow

Cast: Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Tom Sizemore, Juliette Lewis, Kelly Hu, Vincent D'Onofrio, William Fichtner, Michael Wincott, Glenn Plummer, Brigitte Bako, Richard Edson, Josef Sommer, Joe Urla, Michael Jace, Brandon Hammond, James Acheson, Louise LeCavalier, David Carrera, Jim Ishida, Todd Graff, Ted Haler, Rio Hackford, Brook Susan Parker, Dex Elliott Sanders, David Packer, Paulo Tocha, Art Chudabala, Ray Chang, Chris Douridas, Lisa Picotte, Kylie Ireland, Dru Berrymore, Stefan Arngrim, Agustin Rodriguez, Honey Labrador

Release: 1995-10-13

Runtime: 145

Plot: Set in the year 1999 during the last days of the old millennium, the movie tells the story of Lenny Nero, an ex-cop who now deals with data-discs containing recorded memories and emotions. One day he receives a disc which contains the memories of a murderer killing a prostitute. Lenny investigates and is pulled deeper and deeper in a whirl of blackmail, murder and rape. Will he survive and solve the case?

 
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'Strange' there's no topic for this awesome movie, that was ahead of its time!

Another trailer:



I watch it every New Years night since 1999, discovered it a bit late. Since then I assumed the name of the character, not just everywhere online, but in real life too. Unlike my sister's name, Linda, which is easily pronounceable in any language or country, my latin/greek name was too long and cumbersome, so everyone had agreed to call me that too.
I've stopped cutting my hair (up to current Reeves level), watched every other movie with everyone involved in this one, listened to all the music by the featured bands, and was already using MiniDiscs, so just doubled down on it (added a deck at home, a 6-disc changer in the truck, AND and MD camcorder that used special 650mb MDview discs). Even used some sort of first virtual screen glasses at the time to watch POV porn, because... like in the movie. :wtf:
You gotta understand, that there's no sequel, spinoff, novels, comics, t-shirts or action figures for this title, so all the love and fanaticism overflowed into other related things, like music and conspiracies. "Paranoia is reality on a finer scale."

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Anyway, this film was written by James Cameron, directed by his wife at the time, Bigelow, has industry leading long POV scenes, and predicted many things in our lives and society, even though was initially inspired by LAPD corruption and 1992 LA riots.
I'm not going to retell the general plot here so as not to spoil, but I really recommend everyone checks it out during these holidays.

There was a real 1999 New Years street party near Bonaventure Hotel in Downtown LA, that I attended, but it wasn't nearly as big, as one created for the filming of the movie, with Skunk Anansie performing there live and for free, so as to attract a crowd.

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I missed its theatrical run, as I only first moved to US in 1996, but I saw a whole wall of VHS at a local Blockbuster, like they used to do with new releases. It lingered on front shelves for almost a year, acquiring cult status and finding its viewers on home video, sadly failing in theaters. Still, my dumb ass was more interested in Scream, Con Air, The Fifth Element and the like, so I wouldn't watch it until DVD released in 1999.
Pre-millenium tension (coincidentally the name of the second album by Tricky, one of whose best songs, "Overcome", is featured in the movie), all the apocalyptic Y2K craze, upcoming End of Days Schwarzenegger film, drove me to seek out similar content, and I finally rented Strange Days. Needless to say, with my mind blown, and crazy bulging eyes, watched it the same evening again, with a friend that came over, and each bought a copy the very next day. At crazy retail price of $25-30, don't really remember, from Lazer Blazer on Pico - those from LA must know that store, I think they're still open. :D

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Can't stress enough how important music, and licensed songs, are in movies, as most directors forget or forgo them entirely.
First of all, the score here is done by Graeme Revell, and partially with Deep Forest.
Then Glenn Plummer sings his own track, as the in-movie rapper, and Juliette Lewis does two songs herself, and although they're covers of PJ Harvey's, she did an amazing job, and later had/has a whole music career, as Juliette and the Licks, and on her own.



Plus featured songs by aforementioned Tricky, Deep Forest, Peter Gabriel, Marilyn Manson, among others, but most importantly, 2 songs by Skunk Anansie and 2 songs by Lords of Acid, one of which, "The Real Thing", is permanently in my Top 10 of All Time. Basically everything cool you hear in all the trailers and important scenes, are those 4.




The cast is also excellent, I mean, look who we got here!

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I like the character of Lenny Nero, because he's not your typical leading man, he's not a 'macho', not cool, is basically a hustler, a liar, and a loser, with unrequited love and understanding that he won't be able to do anything important or change anything in this life. He often irritates his only couple of friends with his shenanigans, but they tolerate him. The only runner-ups for fav characters would be Rick Deckard, and Andy Osnard from The Tailor of Panama.
Love the following bits from the movie:
Police blockades and check points everywhere, overall destruction and chaos;
How Lenny longingly looks at Faith singing in the club, goes around places till 4am, then sleeps till 2pm, like me;
Gifts an amputee a disc with a POV recording experience of a guy, running on the beach, how it makes him happy at first, and how his face changes, once he opens his eyes back to his reality;
How a killer plugs his victim into his output as he rapes her, for her to feel his pleasure (all in POV to boot);
How Lenny returns to kick a guy, that is down;
How a kid starts a chain reaction of crowd kicking police's ass;
How Mace throws Lenny out of her limo, to which he replies "on foot, in LA, are you crazy?";

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There was an official movie tie-in music video released for Selling Jesus, it's on the DVD and BD, but couldn't find it on YouTube. Fan edit is OK too:





German Blu-ray and other releases
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Movie information in first post provided by The Movie Database