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Strange Days

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4102318
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Strange Days (1995)

Additional Information

Additional Information
you know you want it

An extreme taste of reality.

new year's eve 1999. anything is possible. nothing is forbidden.

strange days are coming


Set in Los Angeles two days before the end of 1999, Strange Days introduces us to Lenny Nero (Ralph Fiennes), an ex-cop turned sleazy hustler who hawks the newest underground thrill on the black market: a "squid," a headpiece that allows one to transmit digital recordings of other people's thoughts, feelings, and memories into their brain; as Lenny describes it, "this is real life, pure and uncut, straight from the cerebral cortex." Lenny deals "clips" (the software) as well as "squids" (the hardware) for this new and illegal entertainment system, and while sex and violence are the most popular themes, Lenny refuses to deal in "blackjack" -- slang for snuff clips. Lenny is nursing a broken heart after his girlfriend, punk singer Faith Justin (Juliette Lewis), left him, and he spends a lot of time with clips he recorded when they were together. Faith is now involved with Philo Grant (Michael Wincott), a music business tycoon who once managed Jeriko One (Glenn Plummer), a hip-hop musician and political activist whose murder has sent L.A. into a state of chaos. When a clip emerges that shows that Jeriko was killed by L.A. police officers, Lenny finds his life in danger, and he tries to escape possible death on both sides of the law with the help of his friend Mace Mason (Angela Bassett). Strange Days was written by James Cameron in collaboration with former film critic Jay Cocks; Kathryn Bigelow directed.


Strange Days is a 1995 American cyberpunk[1] thriller film directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Co-written and produced by her ex-husband James Cameron and co-written by Jay Cocks, it stars Ralph Fiennes, Angela Bassett, Juliette Lewis, Tom Sizemore, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Michael Wincott. It was a commercial failure, earning only a fraction of its production cost in its domestic release.
The film was nominated for five Saturn Awards including Best Science Fiction Film, Best Writing for Cameron and Cocks and Best Actor for Fiennes, with Bassett winning Best Actress and Bigelow becoming the first woman to win the Saturn Award for Best Director, fifteen years before becoming the first woman to win the Academy Award for Best Director.


The film received praise for its gritty, serious view of a possible future. Roger Ebert gave the film four out of four stars and wrote, "The movie is a technical tour de force ... The pacing is relentless, and the editing, by Howard Smith, creates an urgency and desperation".[3] In her review for The New York Times, Janet Maslin praised the performances of Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett: "Mr. Fiennes gleefully captures Lenny's sleaziness while also showing there is something about this schlockmeister that is worth saving, despite much evidence to the contrary. As for Ms. Bassett, she looks great and radiates inner strength even without the bone-crunching physical feats to which she is often assigned".[4] Entertainment Weekly gave the film a "B-" rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, "Strange Days has a dazzling atmosphere of grunge futurism, but beneath its dark satire of audiovisual decadence lurks a naggingly conventional underworld thriller".[5] Rolling Stone magazine's Peter Travers called the film Bigelow's "magnum opus", and wrote, "In a film of striking performances, Bassett's is the standout—she is fierce, funny and heart rending".[6] In his review for the San Francisco Chronicle, Edward Guthmann wrote, "Strange Days wants to say something about faith and redemption—about the importance of maintaining one's humanity in a darkened world. That's a worthy intent, but Bigelow is so enamored of high-tech thrills, and so mesmerized by the violence she seeks to condemn, that her efforts at 11th-hour moralizing seem limp and halfhearted".[7] In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, "No matter how much thought may have gone into Strange Days, terribly little has come out the other end".


Release Date: October 13, 1995


Distrib: 20th Century Fox

Boxoffice: $7,959,291 2013: $14,930,500


Related Releases1

Strange Days (1995)
Release Year
Catalog Number
8939
Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
Catalog Number
8939
Format
Packaging
145 mins (NTSC)
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