Johnny Mnemonic
This blog post is in two parts, I guess. One is about the movie Johnny Mnemonic, and the other is about a conversation I had with my uncle about movies.
It's hard to find anything nice people have said about Johnny Mnemonic. I picked it up as a gag, knowing its cultural status as a laughing stock trying to be Bladerunner and failing miserably. Watching it, however, I found myself enjoying it. A LOT. By the end of it, I looked at my little brother and we both agreed - that was awesome. The movie doesn't give a fuck that it's over the top - cheesy lines are said with weight and pathos, Johnny himself being played by Keanu in a stunning display of total inability to act. Somehow, this weirdly wraps back around to being awesome; Johnny is literally experiencing slow brain death, with a chunk of his long term memory replaced by a microchip that's steadily leaking its contents into his brain. Of course he acts like a weird little freak, his brain is being fried! The other characters vary in their performances but I was totally blindsided by the serious air of Ice-T's acting, and the Takeshi Kitano jumpscare in fucking Johnny Mnemonic. He's not at his best here, but like what the fuck? Why is he here at all? And why is his character kind of slaying?
The visual effects are brain-melting and fun, and the ideas present aren't just generic cyberslop like I went in expecting; there's a hyper-intelligent dolphin, for one thing. The themes, too, are more relevant than dismissive reviews suggest - the danger of sending files via internet is a real and present concern, which is in fact sometimes solved in the modern day by literally physically moving storage containers. This movie fucking rips, is what I'm trying to say.
Onto the next bit of this blog post, which is about my uncle. I should preface that he's a very kind man and I love him very much, so my complaints here do not come from a dislike of him as a person - just that what he said made me grumpy at the time to the point that I felt I had to write about it. It was Easter sunday and we were sitting at the table at the end of the day, when I was well overstimulated and wanted to be left alone already. We got onto the topic of movies because he saw the DVD cases of Johnny Mnemonic and Tron by the TV - and was summarily surprised I enjoyed Johnny Mnemonic so much. He then dug up his Letterboxd and grilled me on how many movies I had watched. I did not enjoy this one bit.
To be clear, I have seen a lot of movies, but this is a dick move that you shouldn't do to anyone even if they're your niece who loves movies and invited this conversation because they want to talk about it. He then proceeded to list a bunch of movies in genres I could not care less about, and then went harhar well you haven't seen anything then! Jeez! You should watch hot fuzz and the fifth element and space crash!! I did not enjoy this one bit.
Aside from being unpleasant and feeling undervalued as a lover of movies, I think this highlighted a cultural set of standards around movies. There are 'must-watch' movies that have dug themselves into the cultural consciousness, usually at a certain time (most people in their 20s saw Cars as a kid, for example). Having missed out on these is seen as an affront by some even though you may be interested in very different things. As I continue to watch more and more movies, I find that the ones that are so 'culturally sticky' often don't live up to the hype. They were just there at the right time, in front of the right people, presenting the right thing. Footloose fucking sucks, but I bet christian tweens loved it at their sleepovers. That's why I don't feel that bad when I miss out on a 'must-see' which seems to hold value only because it has been widely watched. It's far better to watch deeply and widely, seeking out what makes you specifically happy. So sorry, uncle. I'm not watching Hot Fuzz and I'm going to keep loving Johnny Mnemonic, now partly out of spite because you were dismissive about it.