Jan
28
The Death of 3D*
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2010 was the unofficial year of 3D. After “Avatar” shattered box office records, studios post-converted their big-budget stinkers into 3D, hoping to capitalize on the gimmick and make a quick cash grab. It worked. Films with some of the worst reviews of the year (“Alice in Wonderland,” “Clash of the Titans” and “The Last Airbender”) were all successful in spite of themselves. The overinflated ticket prices helped, as undemanding audiences shelled out a few extra dollars to see murky and generally underwhelming 3D effects. A backlash ensued, but like the similar hue and cry over LIEmax presentations in 2009, it didn’t seem to really cause a sea change in public perception towards 3D post-conversion.
Warner Bros. decided against post-converting the first half of the mind-numbingly boring “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows,” but the second part will be post-converted. The release of “The Green Hornet” was delayed several months to be post-converted. Marvel Comics’ “Thor” and “Captain America” are also going through the process as of this writing.
I doubt most people understand the different between a movie that’s shot stereoscopically (meaning the filmmakers used 3D cameras during production) and a movie that was 3D-ified in post-production. Some people might ask, “Well, what’s the difference?” Think of a movie that’s shot in color versus a movie that was colorized. The image has been tampered with in a way that was not originally intended, and it shows.
I almost got my “Piranha 3D” ticket refunded when I found out that the movie had been post-converted. The only saving grace was that the film had been shot in 2D with an eye for post-converting it in 3D. There are still a couple shots in the film that don’t look right. But for the most part, it takes advantage of 3D in a way that most post-converted films don’t.
Thing is, 3D is a dumb gimmick. It doesn’t make a movie more immersive. I didn’t go see “Saw 3D” because I wanted to be transported. I saw it because 3D is a format that best serves exploitation movies, not mainstream Hollywood blockbusters. A-pictures aren’t going to go out of their way to poke you in the eyes. So why bother? But that’s what 3D is supposed to do.
“Toy Story 3” is one of the best movies of 2010, and yet, it’s not enhanced in the least by virtue of the fact that it’s in 3D. Conversely, “Jackass 3D” is a brilliant piece of 3D filmmaking because it takes full advantage of the added dimension by throwing poop at the viewer.
Trying to legitimize 3D is a wasted effort. It’s fodder for low-art. In fact, 2010’s post-converted offerings were so uniformly dreadful, it’s probably set the format back. I can imagine another dozen or so shoddy 3D-upped movies might finally convince audiences to avoid go for the cheaper 2D presentations. I’ve made it a point to avoid any post-converted movie that comes down the pike.
3D has its place, but it’s not in major studio releases. I’m hoping that the trend is in its last throes and 3D fatigue will goad studios to move away from the format and find some new trend to follow instead. Hey, how about making movies that tell good stories?
-Brad Lohan
*Has been greatly exaggerated.
Jan
21
“Darkman” (Unaired Pilot) Review
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The Holy Grail of my Darkman fandom has been the unaired pilot for a proposed TV series. For several years after I’d learned of its existence, I combed dozens of comic book conventions, looking for a bootleg (ahem, “gray market”) copy of the half-hour episode. But I always came up with bupkiss.
Then last weekend, I was on YouTube, watching a playthrough of the Sega CD game, “Sewer Shark;” yep, that was how I spent my Saturday night, folks. It suddenly occurred to me that people upload all sorts of arcane clips on YouTube. Maybe, just maybe, that ever elusive “Darkman” pilot was just a few keystrokes away. Quicker than you can say, “Belisarius memorandum,” I had found the “Darkman” pilot.
So how is it? Uniformly terrible.
So what’s wrong with it? Wow, where do I start?
The pilot is sort of a compressed remake of the film, but with all the entertainment value cut out. Dr. Peyton Westlake is working on a synthetic skin for burn victims; the compound only lasts for 99 minutes before it destabilizes into a bubbly mess. Before he can perfect the skin, gangsters led by the sinister Robert G. Durant (Larry Drake) break into his lab, steal his formula and blow him up, leaving him horribly disfigured. Oh, and we’re told in one of the endless voiceovers that Westlake’s wife is also killed in the explosion.
Already, we’re off to a bad start. A superhero must always have some sort of undeserved misfortune befall him. I think being burned beyond recognition suffices. Bumping off Westlake’s wife is overkill. What’s more, we never see Westlake interact with his wife, so we feel no sense of loss. She only exists as a photograph to us. In the film, the love interest doesn’t die in the explosion, and Darkman struggles to keep their relationship alive while hiding behind an unstable mask. It’s more powerful if Darkman’s girl ain’t dead.
As I mentioned earlier, Durant stole Westlake’s formula. Why? Well, the episode doesn’t go into that; in the movie, Durant’s looking for an incriminating document. It’d have been interesting if Durant wanted the synthetic skin to impersonate his enemies, not unlike what Darkman does in the film. But we simply have a setup with no payoff.
Darkman’s apparently able to recreate the formula from memory, since he constructs a mask of his one face, pre-laboratory explosion. What he does after that is absolutely baffling. On top of the Westlake mask, he puts on a bandanna with eyeslits — sort of like what the Ninja Turtles wear. Posing as a magician (posing as a bank robber), Darkman goes to a nightclub where he finds Durant and his crew. He performs a magic trick for Durant, making a small coffin appear in his hand. Then he tries to give the coffin to Durant, but one of his underbosses snatches it away, opens it and get shot in the face with a poison dart. Derp!
Why did Darkman make a mask of his own face if he knew he was going to have to wear a mask on top of it? And why did he go to all the pains of creating a spring-loaded doll-sized coffin that shoots poison darts? And why does Darkman know magic? He’s a scientist!
At any rate, Darkman unmasks, beats up one of Durant’s thugs (the one who’s a martial arts expert), and escapes during a deadly shootout. Later, the cops show up, and we meet the incorruptible detective, uh, Jenny, who believes Darkman was somehow involved in this bullet festival. She tracks Darkman down to a public park, where Darkman’s burying one of Durant’s thugs; yes, it does feel like large portions of the story were chopped out. Jenny lets Darkman go for some reason, but then Durant, apropos of nothing, shoots Jenny in the back. Darkman finds her, fixes her up and pouts about his badly burned hands. After that, we get a sizzle reel of exciting footage of the helicopter battle from the movie, and finally, Darkman befriends a street urchin.
The pilot feels more like a collection of disparate scenes rather than a cohesive story. Why they didn’t just pick up after the events of the film with a brief flashback at the very beginning to set the table is beyond me. Devoting 22 minutes to the creation of an incomprehensible origin story that’s both too much and not enough seems like a missed opportunity to take the character further.
Christopher Bowen’s screeching, whiny and generally lousy performance as Darkman doesn’t do the material any favors, either. I thought it was a genetic impossibility for an Englishman to be a bad actor. But now I stand corrected. Bowen’s take on Darkman lacks Liam Neeson’s pathos. I didn’t like Darkman. I found him to be a hateful, self-pitying asshole rather than a tormented and broken soul. Neeson brought a lot to Westlake that’s completely absent from Bowen’s performance: sympathy, for one. If I’m not plugged into the hero’s suffering because he’s unlikeable, well, that’s a pity party I’d as just soon not attend.
I still would love for them to take another crack at a Darkman TV series. Superheroes are nothing if not viable, and with things like “The Cape,” it goes to show that people will pretty much watch anything these days with a comic book vibe. Yeah, the unaired pilot wasn’t going to be the ’90s version of “The Incredible Hulk.” It wasn’t even the ’90s version of “The Flash.” But were Sam Raimi to take another crack at it, I think the material would be a great fit for a net like FX.
Imagine Michael Chiklis as Durant. The mind reels.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
20
“Spawn” #200 lolwut??
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The 200th issue of Todd McFarlane’s “Spawn” dropped last week. In keeping with Image Comics’ sad devotion to ’90s gimmickry, there were eleventeen variant covers, depicting the titular character in some sort of emotional distress as only cover artists who don’t pencil regular books can capture. Also, in keeping with my sad devotion to gimmicky ’90s comics, I bought a copy, one with a Todd McFarlane cover, ‘natch. Last night, I carved out a half an hour to devote to reading this long-anticipated double-sized issue.
What a laughably incomprehensible, talky mess.
I haven’t read “Spawn” regularly in two years. I tried getting back into the book again with #185, which was supposed to take the character in a bold new direction by killing him off and replacing him with someone else. But I didn’t cotton to it. Everything in the book is still mired in continuity that doesn’t make a lick of sense. It never did.
“Spawn” is about the world’s most unheroic superhero, caught up in a never-ending war between the forces of good and evil in which he takes neither side. He’s an adolescent power fantasy who actually behaves like a perpetual adolescent. When it comes to feats of superheroics, Spawn’s like, “Grr, leave me alone!” So what you have are 200 consecutive issues of melancholy, self-pitying teenage angst in a green-blooded necroflesh chassis with chains and spikes and shit.
I ate it up when I was 14, and to a lesser extent when I was 28. Now, I’m mildly embarrassed to admit ever having picked up an issue. Oh, well, I can’t un-ring that bell. Let’s get on with my snarky review.
Anyway, Spawn (aka Al Simmons) killed himself fifteen issue back, but he didn’t die. In fact, he was already dead, thereby defeating the purpose of killing himself; but he blew his head off anyway just to see what would happen, I suppose. At any rate, Spawn’s botched suicide transformed him into…Omega Spawn, the most powerful Spawn of all! And because Spawn was dead (but not really), some dude named Jim was chosen to be the new Spawn.
Omega Spawn killed all the other Spawns in hell because of course he did. Then he came to Earth with designs on killing Jim/Spawn because of course he would. Meanwhile, Spawn’s mentor Clown — a demonic carny who can turn into a horned beastie called Violator — chats up a fanged freak named Freak and learns in one of the endless passages of pace-killing dialogue that Freak is really Maleboglia, the devil who’d made a pact with Al Simmons and was believed to have been vanquished way, way back in issue #100.
Oh, and Omega Spawn and Spawn punch each other every few pages. Then we keep cutting to some sort of empty void where Al and Jim are getting lost up their own asses in some sort of existential debate about their places in the world.
Sooo…in summary, I have no idea what went on in issue #200. Suffice it to say, stuff happened.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
19
Catwoman and Bane
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Those are the two villains in “The Dark Knight Rises.” Catwoman seemed inevitable, but Bane’s an odd choice. A bat-obsessed, muscle shirt-wearing escapee from a Cuban prison who mainlines steroids into the back of his skull, Bane is the product of 1990s grim-and-gritty comics. He even went so far as to break Batman’s back, paralyzing him temporarily, and thus opening the door for the ultraviolent Jean-Paul Valley to take up the mantle of the Dark Knight.
Bane also appeared in 1997’s “Batman & Robin” as Poison Ivy’s monosyllabic, green-skinned blunt instrument.
Though I would’ve preferred Nolan pair a relatively obscure villain (like, say, HUGO STRANGE!!!) with Catwoman, I’m dead certain his take on the character will be much more compelling than Schumacher’s version. The casting of Tom Hardy as Bane guarantees this. Rumor had it that Hardy was playing a cop on the GCPD. Will Hardy’s character moonlight as Bane, a roided-up vigilante with his sights set on usurping ol’ Bats?
Anne Hathaway’s been cast as Catwoman, and you couldn’t ask for a better choice. Well, maybe Mila Kunis. At any rate, I’m eager to see what’s done with Batman’s sometimes-girlfriend. There is a Rachel Dawes-sized void in his love life after the last film. Nolan seems to be a fan of the heist film genre, so it’ll be great if Catwoman’s skills as a master thief are put into play.
The film is due before the end of the world, so it’s also got that going for it.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
14
“The Green Hornet” Review
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I’ve been waiting something like 15 years to see this movie. I seem to remember reading in the mid-’90s that Greg Kinnear was attached to whatever incarnation of “The Green Hornet” was buzzing around Hollywood at the time. Then George Clooney circled the project; this was before the debacle that was “Batman & Robin.” Years passed. In the early-2000s, Kevin Smith signed on to write and direct the film for Dimension. I think he knocked out about half of the script before he decided to pass on the project. More recently, Seth Rogen was brought on board to co-write and star in the film. And that was the version that finally got made and (eventually) released. I remember seeing promotional materials that had June 25th, 2010 as its original release date.
When actor-director Stephen Chow passed departed from the project, art film wunderkind Michel Gondry came on board. With Rogen and Gondry involved, “The Green Hornet” promised to not be your father’s masked avenger. But what kind of movie were we in for, exactly?
The film got bumped to January, a toxic waste dump of a month for movies, and my heart sank. Sony had clearly no faith in the finished product. They post-converted it in 3D, too, which seems to be SOP when it comes to turd-polishing. Witness “Alice in Wonderland,” “Clash of the Titans” and “The Last Airbender.”
Though it was assailed by the movie geek intelligentsia, the trailer gave me a glimmer of hope. Rogen’s patented man-child sensibilities meshed with Gondry’s (dialed-down) visual flourishes. Maybe this wasn’t going to be a disaster after all.
Reviews have been mixed-negative, and I went in with lowered expectations. I also made sure to see the sucker in 2D because I’m just about done with 3D, thank you. So how did I like it?
Quite a bit, actually. “The Green Hornet” ain’t “Iron Man,” but it ain’t “Iron Man 2,” either.
Rogen plays Britt Reid, a hard-partying socialite and the son of hard-hitting newspaper publisher, James Reid (Tom Wilkinson). After his father dies suddenly of a bee sting, Reid inherits the empire and decides to become a crimefighter with the help of Kato (Jay Chou), his father’s mechanic and a martial arts expert. They infiltrate the underworld by posing as criminals themselves, which brings them to the attention of Chudnofsky (Christoph Waltz), a gangster going through a mid-life crisis.
Everything that critics seem to not like about the film, I found myself enjoying. Rogen’s got the perpetual adolescent act down cold. Chou’s terrific as the blunt instrument who sees himself as Green Hornet’s equal, not his sidekick. Waltz needs more to do, and I was surprised that he didn’t hold the city hostage with a doomsday weapon. But his first scene with a local hood played by James Franco is simply fantastic. Cameron Diaz sort of goes to waste as a potential love interest for both Reid and Kato. And yet, does anyone go to see “The Green Hornet” because Cameron Diaz is in it? Minor quibble.
I had fun with “The Green Hornet.” It’s a semi-successful fusion of wildly different sensibilities. I only hope they’re given the chance to go further in a sequel.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
12
I didn’t play “Dungeons & Dragons” as a kid. It felt like homework. A game where you have to break out a pencil and paper seems antithetical to fun. I preferred bashing my action figures together in pitched battles over rolling 64-sided dice to determine the outcome of some imaginary fight with a necromancer.
But, I was listening to the Retroist podcast about “Dungeons & Dragons” today and learned of a made-for-TV movie starring two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks and one-time “Meatballs” actor Chris Makepeace called “Mazes and Monsters.” Based on a Rona Jaffe novel written in a matter of days, the film addresses the of-the-moment issue of RPG players losing their grip on reality. 26-year-old Hanks plays Robbie Wheeling, a college student who takes up with a group of “Mazes and Monsters” enthusiasts. The constant gaming ebbs away at his sanity, and soon he can’t tell fantasy from reality, which ultimately drives him to suicidal ideation!
For years, “Dungeons & Dragons” was criticized by the fun police (i.e. parents’ groups) because it had demonic characters and was viewed as a gateway into satanism. If only it were that interesting. Still, haters gotta hate. As such, “Dungeons & Dragons” was a prime target in the early-1980s for a message-movie, and this one seems so cornball, I think I have to see it.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
7
Nerdrage | “The Empire Strikes Back” Isn’t As Good As You Think It Is
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After watching Red Letter Media’s feature-length shellacking of “Episode III,” it got me thinking about the Original Trilogy, primarily the one untouchable chapter in the “Star Wars” saga, “Empire Strikes Back.” The film is widely regarded as the best installment in the series and the standard by which all movie sequels are measured. It’s also become the template for the middle sections of movie trilogies. The film’s open ending is not only an anti-climax, but a downer, leaving the door open for an inevitable third movie that will resolve all the unanswered questions. George Lucas took a bold approach with “ESB,” but is the movie as great as its reputation would suggest? Let’s give it an unflinching look.
Three Years Is a Long Time
Within the official “Star Wars” canon, “Empire Strikes Back” takes place three years after the original film. It might seem inconsequential, but think about this: Why does Obi-Wan Kenobi wait a full three years before materializing in spectral form to Luke — half-frozen and near death on the ice planet Hoth — and telling him to abandon the Rebellion to train as a Jedi under Yoda? Shouldn’t Obi-Wan have popped in shortly after the destruction of the first Death Star? What’s Obi-Wan been doing all this time? Surely Force Ghosts don’t have packed schedules. Obi-Wan’s timing just sucks.
The Hero Sits Out Most of Act II
After the battle of Hoth, Luke takes his leave of the Rebellion to train on Dagobah with Yoda. But Yoda’s not immediately sold on the idea; at first, Yoda insists Luke is “too old,” which makes Obi-Wan’s three-year wait to reach out to Luke all the more baffling. And then, Luke goes through the ropes of becoming a Jedi master, which involves running around the swamps, swinging from vines and lifting rocks with telekinesis. He could’ve done with some lessons in basic swordfighting, but whatever.
Meanwhile, Darth Vader chases the Millennium Falcon around the galaxy on a space adventure that includes a zippy flight through an asteroid belt, escaping from the gullet of a giant space worm and some interstellar romance between Han Solo and Princess Leia. At any rate, the action aboard the Millennium Falcon is much more interesting than Luke squishing around in the mud, trying to learn the ways of the Force.
The Twist Doesn’t Work
Here’s the biggie, the most jaw-dropping revelation in the history of modern cinema. At the end of Act II, Luke has been dismembered by a lightsaber and cornered on an antenna tower within the bowels of a floating city on Bespin. His only hope for rescue is to join up with the galaxy’s most nefarious nogoodnik, Darth Vader. He’s not hip to the idea at first, so Vader tries another angle, confessing that he is none other than Luke’s biological father. Ho-lee shit!
Wait, what?
Let’s take a step back and think about this for a moment. In the original film, Obi-Wan Kenobi speaks of Luke’s then-unnamed father and Darth Vader as two different people. Vader allegedly even “betrayed and murdered [Luke's] father.” Now Obi-Wan could’ve been obfuscating and in “Return of the Jedi,” he does a bit of back-pedaling when he talks about how he wasn’t being totally dishonest “from a certain point of view.” But it still doesn’t wash.
No, Darth Vader isn’t Luke’s father because Obi-Wan Kenobi says very specifically that Darth Vader “was a pupil of mine before he turned to evil” (emphasis mine). In the Prequel Trilogy, Anakin Skywalker didn’t become Darth Vader until after he turned to evil. If he was Darth Vader before he turned to evil, then he couldn’t have been Anakin Skywalker ever…because Darth Vader and Luke’s father were originally two different people.
There’s No Climax
So after all this senses-shattered retroactive continuity, Luke Skywalker throws himself off the antenna tower to what should be his doom. But he somehow survives the fall, telepathically contacts Princess Leia and escapes capture aboard the Millennium Falcon, now piloted by the dashing Lando Calrissian. The movie ends with the hero running away with his tail between his legs. That’s the [anti-]climax of “Empire Strikes Back.”
An argument can be made that the movie is the second act of a trilogy and blah, blah, blah, but that’s nonsense. All movies should have a beginning, middle and end. They can’t just stop and say, “To Be Continued.” The film feels incomplete.
So what are your thoughts on “ESB?” Am I completely off-base, or is the film overly praised. Comment below!
/nerdrage.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
5
The Worst Movies of 2010
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Contrary to popular belief, I don’t see everything. I used to, but I’ve peeled back quite a bit. If the reviews on Rotten Tomatoes are dire, I typically stay away. That’s why I never saw “Robin Hood,” “Shrek: The Final Chapter,” “The Last Airbender,” “Jonah Hex” or “Tron Legacy.” That being said, I’ll grant a little flexibility to the horror genre. Critics tend to be rather harsh on fright flicks, and I’m pretty loose in my definition of quality relative to those types of movies. Even so, the three crapola movies that made my “Worst of” list this year are all horror pictures. Eek!
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
After 2009’s “Friday the 13th” regurgitated Jason’s greatest hits from the first four films — and nonetheless managed to be even worse than the one where he goes to NYC — I had low, low expectations for Platinum Dunes’ NOES remake. And yet, they still weren’t low enough. The film essentially is a beat-for-beat reenactment of the original Wes Craven flick and adds precious little to the proceedings. Boring and uglier than Freddy’s new look, the movie serves as the umpteeth reminder that they simply don’t make ‘em like they used to. And that’s why they re-make ‘em.
I should’ve known better here. However, I’m irrationally attracted to Milla Jovovich, and I’ve seen the three previous installments in this shambling corpse of a franchise. Missing the latest chapter would make all that suffering meaningless. What’s more, this chapter is in 3D, allowing for director Paul W.S. Anderson’s dazzling visuals that he borrowed directly from “The Matrix Reloaded” to underwhelm you in another dimension.
Saw 3D
While we’re on the subject of 3D fatigue, the final(?) film in the endless “Saw” franchise gains a dimension and loses my interest entirely. I used to be an apologist for this series. This movie, though, convinced me I should find a support group for victims of the “Saw” films rather than subject myself to any subsequent torture at the hands of the filmmakers.
-Brad Lohan
Jan
4
The Best Movies of 2010
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It’s that time of year, the time when critics and cineastes publish their “Best of” lists, which more or less contain the same dozen or so titles but ordered differently. Yes, my list has “The Black Swan” on it, too. And it’s also got “Birdemic” because that’s the kind of movie-goer I am. 2010 seemed like sort of an off year for movies. It was a year of movies I generally liked, but not movies I absolutely loved. I skipped a couple movies theatrically that I’ve heard good things about (“Exit Through the Gift Shop,” “Catfish” and “Restrepo”) and will have to catch up with on DVD. For now, we’ll have to settle with this list of 2010 films that I found the most remarkable for one reason or another. Yes, even “Human Centipede.”
Dramas
127 Hours
The Social Network
Popcorn Movies
Red
The A-Team
Documentaries
Winnebago Man
Animated
How to Train Your Dragon
3D
Jackass 3D
Cult
The Human Centipede (First Sequence)
Comedies
Horror
[REC] 2
The Black Swan
Noomi Rapace Movies
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
The Girl Who Played With Fire
Jan
3
“Strange Days” Review
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Like Thanksgiving movies, New Year’s movies are few and far between. Yes, there’s “New Year’s Evil,” a film I have virtually no recollection of seeing (but apparently reviewed). Beyond that, only “Strange Days” immediately springs to mind as a film that’s set on December 31st.
I hadn’t seen “Strange Days” since its brief theatrical run in 1995. It was rated “R,” so I had to wait until it was playing at the dollar theater. There, the usher tore your tickets right at the entrance, giving movie-goers the run of the place. And so, I bought a ticket for something PG-13 like “Mortal Kombat” and stumbled into “Strange Days” completely by mistake; this is how I also saw “Species” and “The Usual Suspects” that summer.
“Strange Days” was directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by James Cameron. Now I have your attention. Set on the eve of Y2k — or simply “2K,” as it’s referred to in the film — the film is about an ex-cop-turned-drug-dealer named Lenny Nero (Ralph Finnes), who peddles something called “playback.” It’s a super-sophisticated type of VR that plugs into your cerebral cortex and feeds someone else’s experiences into your mind, putting you in middle of the action.
It took Lightstorm Entertainment a full year to develop a camera system that could shoot the playback scenes, since they’re POV shots done in one (supposedly) unbroken take and filmed in 35mm. The first sequence in particular — a robbery that goes sideways — is a triumph. How they were able to catapult a cameraman wearing the rig from one rooftop to another before dropping him several stories to his implied doom is something I’ve not been able to puzzle out.
If only the rest of the film were as thrilling. “Strange Days” limps along throughout most of its lengthy first act. There’s a lot of world-building going on in a film that’s set four short years in the future. In 1999, Los Angeles has descended into a police state. A creeping fear that the world is coming to an end (and not because of the fictitious Y2K bug) has gripped the city following the murder of a prophetic rap musician named Jericho One (Glenn Plummer).
Lenny finds himself the chief suspect in a related murder, that of one of his friends, when a playback disc falls in his lap that documents the whole gruesome event. He teams up with his disapproving friend and bodyguard Mace (Angela Bassett) to track down the killer and blow the lid off a conspiracy within the LAPD to cover up the truth behind Jericho One’s murder. Whew. Convoluted? Yes. I haven’t even gotten to Lenny’s former flame, Faith (Juliette Lewis), who Lenny hasn’t quite gotten over yet, despite her having moved on to a record producer, played by Michael Wincott. And there’s Lenny’s buddy on the LAPD, Max (Tom Sizemore), whose Eddie Vedder hairdo suggests the department’s relaxed their policies on personal appearance.
“Strange Days” is a bit overstuffed. As a noir picture, the hits all the right notes — especially when it comes to having an overly complicated narrative — but the murder mystery is the least interesting thing about it. I was more fascinated by the world of playback addiction and the scenes like the dizzying opener. Rather, the film uses the near-future as a backdrop for a rote thriller and all but sidelines its exploration of simulated realities and their effects on people.
-Brad Lohan