First & Last 030
Thursday, September 28, 2023 at 9:00AM Can you guess the movie from its first and last shot?
Countless movies begin with an eyeball so that doesn't tell you much. But what a beautiful eyeball it is! If it helps for a hint we get a time code just before the eye (we usually don't include text on a black screen as a "first" image) that reads "1:06:28 AM 30 DEC 1999". If you haven't guessed the answer is after the jump when you scroll down...
It's Strange Days (1995) which takes across a 47 hour period as Lenny (Ralph Fiennes, he of the beautiful eyes) and his best friend "Mace" (Angela Bassett in one of her fiercest movie roles) struggle to survive during a major crime involving"SQUIDS" illegal recorded memories that can be felt by the viewer in "playback", a sensation that Lenny is addicted to.
Kathryn Bigelow's Strange Days, which also features a savage rock-star performance from Juliette Lewis doing PJ Harvey, is currently streaming on Max. If you haven't seen it, you really should.
first and last, sci-fi fantasy
Reader Comments (6)
This is one of, if not my favorite, Kathryn Bigelow film. It's paced so well, the action scenes land, and the stakes are all there. I also think this film towers above many of the other futuristic/virtual reality films of the mid and late-1990s. The world they're in feels so alive in a way other films miss.
Also Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett are at peak movie star beauty, and Bigelow captures them perfectly. I loved their chemistry together, and would love to see them work together again.
We definitely do not talk enough about the fact that there's a tremendous movie starring Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett, directed by Kathryn Bigelow...
Jason Bailey has a podcast called "A Very Good Year" where guests discuss their favorite movie years, and it's made me ponder my favorite movie year. I think it's 1995, which has just an embarassment of riches - Clueless, Before Sunrise, [safe], To Die For, Se7en, Muriel's Wedding, Sense and Sensibility, Apollo 13, Babe, Casino, The Bridges of Madison County, this film, etc.... and I'm sure I missed a bunch!
Joe & Jules -- agreed on this movie. To me one of the great sins of post studio-contract Hollywood is the failure of filmmakers to reunite stars that proved they had great chemistry together in new films. Though I'm sure it didn't help that the film flopped.
An absolutely underrated film of the 1990s and truly a film that has gotten better over the years. It's why I laud Kathryn Bigelow as it had style but also the unlikely chemistry between Angela Bassett and Ralph Fiennes as I didn't know I wanted that. We need those 2 to do another film together.
Trivia I did not know until this year: the central "right here, right now", from Fatboy Slim's 90s tune of the same name, was Bassett taken from this very film.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmL5uWrvUUM
She is one of my all-time favorite movie characters. She’s absolutely gorgeous, badass, and she loved Lenny so much.
Strange Days is awesome, as well as getaway shootout and I still listen to the soundtrack.