Sleep Dealer. You need to see this movie.

[LilyPatToo]

Wow--how did I miss that one?! Thank you!

LilyPat

[Peregrine]

heh, it's in Culture Studies. I often forget to venture beyond here & the lounge, but there's lotsa gems in there.

[8bitagent]

Thank's for the Cypher suggestion, justdrew--it sounds as though it's right up my dark, crime-ridden c'punk alley. And Lucy Liu too Another addition to my NetFlix list, for sure. The only way a person is likely to find out about movies like this is in a thread like this, it seems. So many really interesting themes are explored in films that most of us never hear of at all.

8bitagent, when you mentioned the wonderful The Contstant Gardener above, that elusive memory FINALLY popped into my mind, because it starred Ralph Fiennes too. It's called Strange Days and here's its IMDb plot summary. (what a relief! I feel like a cat that's taken 24 hours to cough up a particularly stubborn hairball )

LilyPat

Aw yes, Strange Days. I remember 1995 had a ton of internet/cyberpunk themed movies like Strange Days, Hackers, Virtuosity, The Net, Tank Girl, 12 Monkeys, etc.

A LOT of cyberpunk mainstream movies in the last 7 years:

AI
Minority Report
Surrogates
I Robot(my favorite of them all)
Teknolust
(and anime films)
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
Ghost in the Shell: Solid State Society
Appleseed
Appleseed Ex Machina

Some newer indie ones too, like The Gene Generation,
Code 46(LOVE this one), Sleepdealer, Immortel, etc.

[LilyPatToo]

Wow--thank you! After wracking what's left of my memory for more titles, it belatedly occurred to me to Google "cyberpunk movies list" and look what popped up -- CyberpunkReview.com's list of c'punk movies by decade and each one links to a review

I've never even heard of many of these--my NetFlix queue is going to enter epic territory

And BTW, a big thank you to Code Unknown for beginning this thread. It's difficult for me to find science fiction fen around here who are still enthralled by cyberpunk and will suggest movie titles. It's like it's somehow become passé...WTF?!

Even at the great Other Change of Hobbitt Bookstore in Berkeley (where we've known the owners for a quarter of a century), when I ask for suggestions for cyberpunk fiction, they just send me to the classic ones that I already own and have been rereading for years and years. Why IS that?! Is no one writing it in novel form anymore? Are screenplays the only living form of the subgenre?

LilyPat

[8bitagent]

Wow--thank you! After wracking what's left of my memory for more titles, it belatedly occurred to me to Google "cyberpunk movies list" and look what popped up -- CyberpunkReview.com's list of c'punk movies by decade and each one links to a review

I've never even heard of many of these--my NetFlix queue is going to enter epic territory

And BTW, a big thank you to Code Unknown for beginning this thread. It's difficult for me to find science fiction fen around here who are still enthralled by cyberpunk and will suggest movie titles. It's like it's somehow become passé...WTF?!

Even at the great Other Change of Hobbitt Bookstore in Berkeley (where we've known the owners for a quarter of a century), when I ask for suggestions for cyberpunk fiction, they just send me to the classic ones that I already own and have been rereading for years and years. Why IS that?! Is no one writing it in novel form anymore? Are screenplays the only living form of the subgenre?

LilyPat

Heh, since the 80's Ive been big on the genre. Just rare to find people actually into cyberpunk aside from mentioning the Matrix trilogy.

Yeah Im sure most will recommend old 80's William Gibson, Bruce Sterling and Neil Stephenson works. I think now days the concepts and visuals of "cyberpunk" is in so many movies, tv shows and commercials people probably feel the whole techno dystopic theme and look is analogous to contemporary pop culture.

Now a LOT of "cyberpunk" from the 80's 90's and 2000's *is* quite cheesey. But there's a lot of good ones.

The foreign stuff, like Renaissance, Immortel and Casshern I really dig.
And the "real world" drama like Code 43.

[justdrew]

Now a LOT of "cyberpunk" from the 80's 90's and 2000's *is* quite cheesey. But there's a lot of good ones.

it doesn't get cheesier than the king of explicitly cyberpunk movies, Johnny Mnemonic. It's cheesy, but it works out ok, I just rewatched it a couple months ago and it was fun to see again.

contrast that with Cronenberg's excellent... eXistenZ

in the anime sector, Serial Experiments: Lain is must see.

and probably the oldest, 1966's... Cyborg 2087

[stefano]

I watched Sleep Dealer this weekend and thought it was all right... The sci-fi part of it was very cool, particularly predicting water privatisation and the consequent invention of the term 'aqua-terrorist', and elimination using drones of anyone who could pose a threat to corporate profits. The idea of the sleep dealers was good, too. I thought they missed a trick by having people put actual cash into boxes instead of every person having a monitored card for payments, but I liked how the guy loses 30% of his transfer in taxes and fees, ha. The characters in the movie were disappointing, though. I especially didn't like the very unrealistic drone pilot, who has an epiphany and goes all the way to Tijuana. I think the movie would have been better if it had shown him stressing about his job and wrestling with his conscience, but ultimately getting up every day to keep doing it, cause that's his job and he has bills to pay. Ultimately, that's what almost all of us do in that situation.

[justdrew]

this seems like the best thread to recommend (well, point out, as I haven't seen it yet):

World on a Wire (1973)

Adapted from “Simulacron-3,” a 1964 novel by Daniel F. Galouye, “World on a Wire” revolves around a cybernetics corporation that has created a miniature world populated with “identity units” unaware that they are being controlled from above. Toggling between dimensions, a researcher (Klaus Lowitsch) learns that what he has always known as the real world may itself be a simulation. This is the brand of existential horror that Philip K. Dick perfected (notably in “Time Out of Joint”) but that took off cinematically only in the late ’90s, in a subgenre that the writer Joshua Clover, in his book on “The Matrix,” terms “edge of the construct.” (Among the other movies in this cluster are “The Truman Show” and “The Thirteenth Floor,” another adaptation of “Simulacron-3,” for which Mr. Ballhaus was an executive producer.)

http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/144137/World-on-a-Wire/overview
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/04/movies/04wire.html

[MinM]

http://www.democracynow.org/2012/3/16/m ... therapists

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2012 ... scapegoat/

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/ ... ack-again-

http://www.redicecreations.com/article.php?id=19068

http://cannonfire.blogspot.com/2012/03/ ... dence.html

viewtopic.php?p=452033#p452033

[Grizzly]

[elfismiles]

I watched this a couple years ago on the recommendation of this thread and loved it.

[NaturalMystik]

The biggest problem with living in the age of science fiction is that CyberPunk has become a bit of a dead genre. I too am a cyberpunk fanatic, but just can't find enough content... The recent "Do Android Dream of a Electric Sheep" comic series was fun...

One movie that I didn't notice anyone post was "New Rose Hotel" based on the Gibson short story... Christopher Walken and William Dafoe. Not the greatest thing ever, but still it's more CyberPunk! I love the Johnny Mnemonic movie. I know most hate it, but it's exactly what I picture when I think of CyberPunk and all those pen and paper campaigns from my youth...

Will definitely look into this Sleep Dealer. Thanks!

[justdrew]

[Hammer of Los]

...

I think of CyberPunk and all those pen and paper campaigns from my youth.

I had a character called Captain Trips, although Cyberpunk was never my thing.

God I love rpgs.

Life is a role playing game really, you know.

At least I think it is, or I think it might be. I wait and see, one day at a time, one step at a time.

Maybe I might share some of my Faerun fan fiction with you one day.

My goodness!

Er on topic: haven't seen the move. I don't have much time for movies.





...

[lucky]

....Wild Palms that had a very curious effect on me - sinister,freaky confusing, I remember when i saw it on its first run (10 years ago or so?) and thought it was amazing and couldn't understand why A. people wern't watching it or B. were apathetic towards it.

Cyberpunk movies.....now I know what to call 90% of by fave films - Vanilla Sky? I know many hated this movie but again this 'affected'me maybe 'infected' me just had my mind go to places never visited before.