EP02 - CYBERPUNK Cinema - 1995 - "Johnny Mneumonic", "Hackers", & "Strange Days" Artwork

Video Vagabond

Video Vagabond is a filmmaking podcast that delves deep into the films of the 80s/90s and how those movies defined a generation of fans that are now creating their own influential content. Vagabond will be breaking-down films from our collective childhood, the ones that still haunt our dreams like implanted memories, the ones that defined who we were as a generation of unsupervised, bicycle-riding kids who read the Anarchist's Cookbook for fun and ate Green Berets for breakfast. This podcast is for you.

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Video Vagabond

EP02 - CYBERPUNK Cinema - 1995 - "Johnny Mneumonic", "Hackers", & "Strange Days"

December 23, 2021 • Anthony • Season 1 • Episode 2

This segment of Video Vagabond is called CYBERPUNK CINEMA, an ongoing breakdown of Cyberpunk films from the 80s/90s, a genre of science fiction that jacked-into the sub-culture of the "high tech/low life" future where cybernetic implants made us less human.

The year is 1995. Hollywood has finally caught up to the Cyberpunk craze that started, cinematically, with "Blade Runner" (1982) and was popularized by the William Gibson novel entitled "Neuromancer" from 1984. Six films came out in 1995 that had aspects of Cyberpunk, but for today's podcast, I will be breaking down the three (3) films that I believe best exemplify what the core essence of Cyberpunk was, as seen from that year.

I will be breaking down "Johnny Mneumonic" (1995), the Keanu Reeves action-film that was a proto-Matrix and has garnered a cult following; I will be also discussing "Hackers" (1995), a film that looks "fifteen seconds into the future"; and finally, my personal favorite from that year, "Strange Days" (1995), the Kathryn Bigelow-directed/James Cameron-written techno-thriller that was strangely prescient to our world today.

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