Hackers (Iain Softley, 1995)

I've heard that the net is vast and infinite. I've also heard that the sky over the port is the colour of television tuned to a dead channel. And while I'm not on the topic: "You're no good for me, I don't need nobody / Don't need no one that's no good for me." Hey, everybody. I'd like to officially start off my review of Hackers by apologizing to 1995. I don't know what I was thinking when I  dismissed you recently as bland and uninteresting. You're actually pretty rad. Now, granted, my memory of you is a tad on the foggy side. But thanks to Hackers, your innate awesomeness came flooding back to me like a 28.8 Kbps modem dipped in battery acid (in other words, ultra-fast). The fact that the previous films I watched from 1995 were not set in New York City didn't give me accurate overview of the year in question. And, as everyone knows, New York City makes everything better (even 1995). Take, for example, the amazing Party Girl. It takes place in NYC and came out in 1995. You could also include the New York set Vibrations from 1996 in this category. But that film was shot during the summer of 1993. Either way, I was wrong about 1995. And I'm more than willing to make it up to it by lavishing copious amounts of misguided praise on the only film to make computers seem cool. Yeah, that's right, I said cool. Think about all the movies that have featured computers over the past twenty years. Okay, did any of them make you feel any less lame for having watched them? Of course they didn't. If anything, they made you feel more lame. And given that I'm an expert when it comes to things that make you feel cool, I can safely say that Iain Softley's Hackers is the only movie to boast excessive computer usage that will make you feel cool afterward.

Well, Ghost in the Shell, also from 1995, has, if I recall correctly, plenty of computer usage throughout it. So, it's not exactly the only movie. And, yes, while that is true. Does Ghost in the Shell have a short-haired Angelina Jolie scowling up a storm in a leather racing jacket? No, it doesn't. Does Ghost in the Shell have a more pillowy lipped than usual Angelina Jolie wearing black stockings at night? No, it doesn't. Does Ghost in the... (Stop! We get it.) Good. 'Cause I could have kept going.

And I'm not even that big a fan of Angelina Jolie. In fact, I don't think I have seen more than three of her movies (Gia and Girl, Interrupted are the only ones I can think of at the moment). That being said, her performance as Kate, a.k.a. "Acid Burn," is so freakin' sexy.

Getting back to Ghost in the Shell for a second. The line that unofficially opened this movie review, "The net is vast and infinite," is from Ghost in the Shell. And the one that follows it is the opening line from William Gibson's Neuromancer. And the one that follows that is from The Prodigy track, "No Good (Start the Dance)." The reason I opened my review by quoting a classic piece of anime science fiction, the world's most famous cyberpunk novel and a the oft-repeated vocal hook from a mid-90s techno floor filler is because without them, Hackers wouldn't exist.

Oh, before you snarkily chime in by saying, "Maybe Hackers not existing is a good thing." try to remember the sight of Angelina Jolie's giant eyelids slathered in red eye make-up. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Man, I don't know 'bout you. But it feels weird saying nice things about Angelina Jolie. It's weird because, to me, she's the epitome of humour-challenged Hollywood. Plus, she cares about stuff. I got give it up to her, though. She's on fire in this movie. So much so, that I can't remember the name of the film's lead actor.  Oh, yeah, it's Jonny Lee Miller.

Nevertheless, you know the movie you're about to watch is going to be awesome when it opens with Orbital's "Halcyon + On + On." Playing over the scene where former child hacker, Dade Murphy (Jonny Lee Miller), is flying to New York City with his mother (Alberta Watson), the use of the Orbital track signaled to me early on that Hackers was serious about its techno.

Though, you have to wonder, why are the walls of Dade's bedroom covered with posters for grunge bands? I mean, the soundtrack is chock-full of techno. And grunge is basically heavy metal.  Think of it as Ratt in knitwear.

Other than screwing up the posters in Dade's room (someone clearly didn't inform the production designer that this is a pro-techno movie), Hackers manages to get everything else right. And fans of 1990s nostalgia will eat this shit up. However, angelheaded hipsters who feed off irony will have a difficult time making fun of this movie, as it eerily predicts the internet explosion years before it... well, exploded.

Of course, some might say that Lorraine Bracco's character's lack of tech savvy was an exaggeration. But her attitude was the norm in 1995. In all honesty, I'd say her viewpoint represented at least 99% of the North American population. Hell, even the secret service agent (Wendell Pierce) in charge of cyber-crime seemed to have no clue when it came to 'puters and the interweb.

Believe it or not, the characters played by Jonny Lee Miller (Dade, a.k.a. Zero Cool/Crash Override), Angelina Jolie (Kate, a.k.a. Acid Burn), Matthew Lillard (Emmanuel Goldstein, Jr., a.k.a. Cereal Killer), Swimfan's Jesse Bradford (Joey, a.k.a. Boy Meets World*), Laurence Mason (Nikon, a.k.a. Lord Nikon), Renoly Santiago (Phreak, a.k.a. The Fantom Phreak) and even Fisher Stevens (Eugene, a.k.a. The Plague), are pretty much life-size facsimiles of everyone currently living on the planet. And it's probably going to stay this way for quite some time, as I can't really see the genie being put back in the bottle. Unless, of course, the sun decides to hit the earth with an electromagnetic pulse, and it's bye-bye smartphone, hello pencil and notepad.

If the name "Fisher Stevens" seems out of place among the other names I mentioned, that's because he's not a roller-blading high school student who spends most his or her free time hanging out at Cyberdelia (the city's hippest hacker hang out). He's actually a skate-boarding hacker (with great taste in clothes) who works for a multinational corporation. I know, Lorraine Bracco mocks The Plague's fashion sense at one point in the film, but what can I say? I dug his style. Anyway, when Joey/Boy Meets World tries to impress his fellow hackers by hacking into the company The Plague provides cyber-security for, he finds himself labeled a terrorist by the authorities.

Meanwhile, Dade and Kate begin their exhaustive courtship of one another. Competitive about almost everything, Dade and Kate spend the bulk of the movie not fucking like rabid monkeys, but annoying each other. While these phony I hate you, I love you movie relationships are typically off-putting, I actually liked theirs. And besides, I loved how their initially meeting in cyberspace is set to The Prodigy's "Voodoo People."

From a technical point-of-view, I don't know how director Iain Softley managed to make the hacking scenes seem exciting. And the shots that take us inside "the matrix" were not as cornball as I thought they would be. Granted, none of it very realistic, but Hackers isn't a documentary. It's a slick techno-thriller that does the impossible, it redeems 1995. Oh, and, Happy [belated] Twentieth Anniversary, Hackers. May you continue to "Hack the Planet" for another twenty.

* Joey doesn't have a hacker handle (at least not officially), but I heard Phreak call him "Boy Meets World" at one point in the film. Which, and I think most people will agree, should totally be his hacker handle.

The Burning (Tony Maylam, 1981)

Who kills a vengeful burn victim by burning them? Talk about insensitive. Let's say, your entire body is burnt beyond recognition by a bunch of  juvenile pranksters who think every week is Prank Week ("I live with snakes and lizards and other things that go bump in the night / 'Cuz to me every week is Prank Week / I have given up hiding and started to fight"), and when you're well enough, you decide exact your revenge by heading over to the local wooded area to slaughter yourself some sexually active campers (it doesn't matter if they had anything to do with your burns, just as long as they're sexually active while camping). Instead of chopping off his head or stabbing him with a pitchfork when his killing spree is eventually thwarted by said sexually active campers, they choose to set him on fire. And not only that, just before he's burned...again, we get a quick montage containing all the grisly, Tom Savini-orchestrated deaths he was responsible for over the course of The Burning, the summer camp slasher film where hedge clippers are the teen-dispatching weapon of choice. Implemented to remind the audience that the burn victim is the film's villain, not the sexually active campers, the montage re-demonizes the burn victim. Wait a minute? Hedge clippers?!? So this what it's come to, eh? Hedge clippers? All right. Anyway, get this, it's the burn victim who's deemed the menace to society in this film's upside down universe, not the pranksters. Maybe my brain works differently, but I thought it was absurd that the burn victim was the one being portrayed as wicked and threatening. Either way, much enjoyment was extracted from this humdinger of a slasher flick.
 

 

I've just been handed a note telling me that the burn victim at the centre of The Burning wasn't a nice person. In fact, it says that the burn victim was a bit of a sadist. First of all, you can't be "a bit of a sadist," you're either a sadist or you're not...a sadist. Call me someone who licks dick for a living, but I refuse to believe there's any middle ground when it comes to sadism. And secondly, stop trying to justify "the burning." I know, the pranksters who carried out "the burning" didn't intend on burning the burn victim. But that's exactly what did happen. And you can't exactly un-burn a burn victim (believe me, I've tried). They're isn't enough ointment in this world to undo that humdinger of a boo boo. What's this? It's looks like I'm being handed another note. Let's see. Huh, it says here that I should stop using the word, "humdinger."
 

 

As the pranksters watch the burn victim hopelessly try to put himself out, they must know, if he doesn't die, that he's going to come after them one day wielding a pair of hedge clippers. Oh, and before you start making wisecracks about your hedge being in need of a trim, he has no intention of straightening out your bushes and sculpting shrubs into weird shapes, he wants to murder you by penetrating your yuppie ass until it oozes blood, and, fingers crossed, hopefully a little pus as well.
 

 

Since "the burning" takes place five before we see George Costanza with a full head of hair, that means the film, directed by Tony Maylam and produced by Harvey and Bob Weinstein, begins in 1975, where a group of disgruntled campers are planning to pull a prank on Cropsy (Lou David), the caretaker at Camp Blackfoot. And like I said, the prank goes terribly awry. Instead of scaring him, Cropsy ends up engulfed in flames. While recovering in hospital, we quickly learn that Cropsy has become a bit of sideshow attraction. In that, some of the staff, I'm looking in your general direction, Mansoor Najeeullah, like to haze the interns by showing them his flame-broiled body.
 

 

After five years, Cropsy is finally released from hospital. Told by the nurses to "try not to blame anyone," Cropsy heads immediately to the sleazy part of town to look for some action. And by "action," I don't mean...Come to think of it, I have no idea what I mean by "action." Let's just say, he solicits one of the most beautiful prostitutes the city of Buffalo, New York has to offer. If the sex workers in Buffalo actually looked like K.C. Townsend circa 1981, I'd be down there every other weekend.
 

 

Oh, and just to clarify, I wouldn't be going down to Buffalo to fornicate with Western New York's finest prostitutes. No, I'd be down there to accompany them when they went shopping for new hooker clothes. Duh.
 

 

Luring the dark stranger to come up her room, the luminous K.C. Townsend (Bellow the Belt), who is wearing a short black skirt, black pantyhose, and a teal blouse, temps Cropsy inside with the promise that he will be able to molest her tender flesh...for a price. As the garish light from the neon sign outside her window causes her succulent, pillowy lips to shimmer like diamonds, Cropsy slowly enters the room. Now, here's the question: Was Cropsy there to kill her? Or did Cropsy kill her because of the way she reacted when she saw his ghastly appearance? I'm going to go with the latter, as you'll notice doesn't use his trademark garden shears to dispatch K.C.'s prostitute. In fact, I think was K.C.'s reaction that caused Cropsy to head down to the hardware store, pick up a pair of garden shears, and catch the next bus to North Tonawanda.
 

 

Why would a burn victim wielding garden shears want to go to North Tonawanda of all places? That's simple. It's where Camp Stonewater is located. Yeah, but didn't "the burning" take place at Camp Blackfoot? That's true, it did happen there. But if you remember, that camp burnt down. And, besides, as we'll soon find out, Cropsy has good reason to visit Camp Stonewater. 
 

 

When we arrive at Camp Stonewater, the female campers are engaged in a heated game of baseball. What are male campers doing, you ask? Well, some of them, like, Alfred (Brian Backer, Fast Times at Ridgemount High), are cheering them on, while others, like, Eddy (Ned Eisenberg) and Dave (Jason Alexander), are admiring the ass attached to the lanky frame that belongs to Karen (Carolyn Houlihan), who is playing, oh, let's say, short-stop. Hey, I'm not one to judge their taste in women. But if I was at that game, my eyes would be all over Tiger (Shelley Bruce), the team's angelic first basewoman. Sporting cut-off jean shorts and a blue top tied at the belly for added sex appeal, Tiger is a baseball-playing goddess.
 

 

If my affection for Tiger is coming off as a tad creepy, that's good. As that is exactly the note I'm trying to strike. Actually, creepy with a touch of unpleasantness is the most accurate way to describe the tone I'm going for. Anyway, the best part about watching Tiger play baseball was the fact that she gets to introduce the audience to Cropsy's garden shears. Wait, she's not the first camper to buy it, is she? No, don't worry. A chick who kinda looks like Amy Smart hits a foul ball into the trees, and it's up to Tiger to find it. The first of the film's many non-kills, Tiger is unwittingly stalked by Crospy as she looks for the missing ball. Bending over repeatedly, which causes the coarseness of the denim material of her shorts to press tightly against her undercarriage, in a veiled attempt to locate the ball in question, Tiger has no idea how close she came to being brutally murdered by a burn victim wielding a pair of hedge clippers .
 

  

Not to give anything away, but Tiger does eventually find the errant ball. Which should come as no surprise. I mean, Tiger is not the type of gal to give up so easily when she sets her mind on something. After she throws the ball back into play, she engages in a celebratory hair flip. No one probably noticed this, especially Eddy and Dave, who are still admiring Karen's bony ass. Either way, I thought Tiger's celebratory hair flip was awesome, and don't care who knows it.
 

 

I'm surprised they didn't utilize Tiger's ball finding skills later on the film, as I'm sure she could have easily found those missing canoes. Think about it, a canoe is nothing more than a canoe-shaped baseball.
 

 

Just before another non-kill is about to take place, a misdirection involving a showering blonde camper named Sally (Carrick Glenn), you'll notice that Tiger has a pair of white knee-high socks hanging on her bed frame. Yeah, so what? So what?!? Well, I don't know if you know this, but Tiger doesn't wear knee-high socks, she wears lavender-coloured socks that barely go past her ankles. Again, so what? Don't you want to know whose socks they were? Not really. Fine
 

 

Your obsession with Tiger, who can't be older than fourteen, is starting to even creep me out, and I'm the slightly demented voice in your head. Hey, did you know Shelley Bruce played Annie on Broadway? It's true, she did. Oh, and, by the way, Shelley was fifteen going on sixteen when she made The Burning, so there.
 

 

Since I've already talked at length Tiger, who's a real troublemaker, judging by her mess hall theatrics (she likes to throw food), I might well introduce the others. Who haven't I mentioned? Okay, there's the Fisher Stevens-esque Fisher Stevens plays Woodstock, a couple of bland camp counselors named Todd (Brian Matthews) and Michelle (Leah Ayres), there's Glazer (Larry Joshua), a musclebound bully who likes to pick on Alfred, who, like I said, is played by Brian Backer; don't forget Fish (J.R. McKechnie), a kid who sort of sounds like Jason Lively, Marnie (Bonnie Deroski), a bespectacled blonde with large breasts, and a gaggle of nondescript brunettes. A gaggle that includes: Sophie (Holly Hunter), Diane (Kevi Kendall), Rhoda (Ame Segull), and Barbara (Sarah Chodoff).
 

 

Truth be told, there's nothing nondescript about Ame Segull and Sarah Chodoff. Well, for starters, Ame is a big gal, whose equally big butt should have been the focus of Eddy and Dave's ass appreciation during the baseball game. And Sarah had a coquettish vibe about her that was quite appealing (her many flirtatious encounters with Jason Alexander were awkwardly adorable).
 

 

Seeing all the teens gathered in one place during the scene that takes place at the lake, the girls are sunning themselves on one of them swimming platform thingies (check out Tiger, rocking a dark green one piece bathing suit on the life guard tower - no wonder they call her Tiger, rawr!!!), the guys are busy goofing off on shore, you have to wonder: How is Crospy going to kill all these people in a such a short amount of time? What they [the producers] need to do is to have a mass cull. Yeah, just wipe five or six campers is one fell swoop. Just as long as Tiger isn't one of the five or six. Aw, man, if I see Tiger getting abroad that makeshift raft, which we all know is not going to make it very far, I'm going to freak out.
 

 

In closing, I'd put The Burning up there alongside Sleepaway Camp and Little Darlings in terms of summer camp movies that managed to scratch most, if not all, of my many itches. Oh, and I almost forgot, Ralph Wiggum: "I ated the purple berries... They taste like...burning."

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