Friday, June 11, 2010

[Vids] Strange Days and Demolition Man

In the 1990s, there were two dystopian action flicks, Strange Days and Demolition Man, each with different tones and situations that resonated deeply with me when I saw them in the theatre. Recently, I got both from my local library.

Each film posited a future where society was on the brink. In the case of Demolition Man, a society, that had taken all the undesirable elements and shoved them underground to maintain the appearance of a gentler, more civilized society, suddenly needed those same undesirable elements to solve their problems. In Strange Days, during a countdown to the year 2000, society is wracked by police violence and social unrest, murder and obsession.

I really enjoyed watching both, seeing how they've held up to time in the intervening years. The last scene in Strange Days with Vincent D'onofrio, covered with blood and handcuffed to the corpse of his partner (who just committed suicide to avoid jail), dragging the dead body towards Angela Basset and Ralph Fiennes, with a gun ready and intent on killing them both, while surrounded by police and rioting crowds, was excellent. Kathryn Bigelow later on went to direct the Hurt Locker (currently on my Netflix list).

These films got my imagination working on a near-future dystopian-style, maybe cyber-punk, game. Watch them and let me know what you think.

1 comment:

  1. I really liked Strange Days. I love that scene where Ralph Fiennes gives the crippled man a sensory chip of a man running along the beach with a pretty girl. So cool.

    ReplyDelete

Unfortunately, due to spam, I have set up comment moderation. I will review and approve your comment as soon as possible. Thank you for your patience.