helpcomputer

I first saw this movie at a drive in theater as part of a double feature. The screen was so dimly lit that we could basically only listen to the movie, with the occasional flash of lightning/electricity. At first, we all assumed it was a bad projector or something. But when I tried to rewatch it on basic cable years later, I was surprised that, no, it wasn't entirely the drive in projector. The movie is very dimly lit. Almost as if they were trying to cover up the shitty CGI. Speaking of shitty CGI, bad CGI is a calling card for Stephen Sommers. As much of a calling card as frenetic cuts and 360 pans are for Michael Bay. If you go through his filmography, from his first action/horror film Deep Rising to the Mummy series to Van Helsing, they all feature terrible, cartoonish CGI. Finally, the movie made 300 million on a 160 million budget. After factoring in marketing and distribution costs, it probably was either breakeven or a money loser at the box office. It might have gotten into the black from cable and home video. If you also factor in the terrible reviews it got, you can see why Universal abandoned any plans for a sequel or TV spinoff.

I worked for Roger Corman about 10 years ago. Chopping Mall was a favorite among the younger staff. Some behind the scenes notes: The film was shot at the Sherman Oaks Galleria. Its owner at the time was, among other things, a creepy horn dog who would rent it out cheap to anyone shooting a film if it meant he could hang out on set and hit on Hollywood actresses/models. The mall has since been extensively remodeled (it's now open air) and is completely unrecognizable. Jim Wynorski is a fucking creep. He's shot tons of soft and I think hard core porn under various pseudonyms. Never met the guy personally but he was shooting something for Roger while I worked there. The movie he was shooting included a sex scene but the male lead (a martial artist turned actor) had qualms about showing his butt on camera. So I was dispatched to the hooker clothes store in Hollywood to purchase a flesh colored thong for him. The thong was clearly visible in the frame and when one of the PA's pointed that out he said "If they're looking at his ass they're a bunch of fags!" I heard from more than one person who worked on set with him that they felt like they needed a shower afterwards. If you happen to live in the UK and saw it on TV some time in the late 2000's, I helped make that sale! The nickname that we had for Julie Corman while I was there was "Swamp Hag."

It was only in the payroll department of his office that he was declared dead. It would only fuck him up for a payroll cycle or two before it was cleared up. Before this, Kate fucked up his credit and gave him a criminal record that would be really hard to fix. Dade signed him up for sex ads.

Hackers was one of the life-shaping movies of my youth. As a kid who was into computers but who had no social circle to share that interest with, Hackers was the lifestyle fantasy that I dreamed of: a diverse bunch of computerite counterculture friends, going to a school that valued intelligence and achievement, and socializing at awesome arcade/restaurant/rollerblading hangouts. Plus, Angelina Jolie. For these reasons, it will always hold a special place in my heart. That said: Why would Joey hang out with people who constantly shit on him without offering any help? I always wished that Joey would end the movie telling Dade et al. to go fuck themselves. Kate easily won the hacking contest. She did real, longterm damage to Bunk's life and career in fairly creative ways. Dade just inconvenienced him for a bit. Total bs that they called it a tie. Speaking of Kate, even as a 12 year old who was happy to see as many boobs as I could, I still felt bad for Angelina Jolie and her obviously gratuitous nude scene. The overly elaborate start up graphics of the hackers' laptops would have eaten up half the memory of mid-90's PC technology and slowed their performance to a crawl.

'Fair Game' refers to the boat because it was 'fair game' for Cindy Crawford to go after in her divorce case. I haven't seen this movie since it came out, but I remember two things: 1. The sex scene on the hood of a car in a freezing, filthy freight train car between two people who a) don't particularly like each other and should be seeking medical treatment for all of the explosions they've been through. 2. The scene in the garage, because when one of the cars pulls out and drives away, there's a blood stain on the window. But we don't see how that bloodstain got there until a scene or two later.