Overdue Reviews takes a critical look at tech-centric films that are well-loved, well-loathed or eye-rollingly obscure.
When Kathryn Bigelow's 'Strange Days' was released in 1995, it didn't even break $8 million at the box office; with a production budget of $42 million, it was by all accounts a commercial disaster. Even the critically panned 'Johnny Mnemonic' pulled in $19 million, and cinematic abortion 'The Net' snagged over $50 million. (Both were released in the same year.) Unlike those films, however, 'Strange Days' starred two Oscar nominees and one Oscar winner, and boasted a script co-written by James Cameron. What went wrong?
Many observers have noted that the racial violence depicted in the film directly echoed the 1991 Rodney King ordeal, which saw its 20th anniversary last month. Were filmgoers just not ready to deal with depictions hitting so close to home? And why has the film -- a hodgepodge of cyberpunk, action, and psychological-erotic thriller genres -- since gone on to become a cult favorite for sci-fi fans? Is it because it's a film that mirrors our own addiction to images, from the '90s obsession with virtual reality to our current love affair with YouTube?
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Overdue Reviews: 'Strange Days' originally appeared on Switched on Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:40:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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