Hackers

Tech-films for me represent what sci-fi films or monster films or horror films or whatever else meant to past cinephiles. Tech-films films were where my fantasies merged with reality. Ones I remember fondly are Hackers, Antitrust, Johnny Mnemonic, Virtuosity, Electric Dreams, and all the rest. Love them.

Hackers is a personal favorite.

It has tech speak

neon

rollerblades

a shirt with a cat

extreme-sport absurdity

attic-trunk fashions

clubs

electrified,

colorized modernity

wtf-in-restrospect technology

and tons of urban coolness.

It begins in Seattle and ends in NYC.

You'd have to watch the movie to see if it's for you. I couldn't talk you into it. It is what it is.

Was PUMPED to see Andrzej Sekula (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, American Psycho, Cube²: Hypercube, Vacancy, Armored) in the credits, as director of photography. Bigger fan of Sekula than director Iain Softley. Softley directed five others movies, can't speak for a single one, never seen them. But. His name is important to me because he made Hackers.

It's super quick, fun, and modern pop art. The story isn't the best part of the movie. The story concerns things like the secret service, a virus, and Zero Cool (the best hacker almost ever at ten years old - except he's caught, arrested, and sentenced [banned from computers and touchtone phones!] and then there's a forward time jump [after which he's in high school and has the raddest friends and life, sweet parties, etc]).

The main badasses are played by Jonny Lee Miller (Trainspotting) and Angelina Jolie. Matthew Lillard is a buddy hacker who wears rock and roll t-shirts, Wendell Pierce (The Wire) is secret service, Jesse Bradford is grounded by his mom for hacking, Fisher Stevens (he's in both Short Circuits) is computer security/movie's badguy, Laurence Mason is an l33t hacker with a photographic memory, and Renoly Santiago is a hacker so cool he wears cat t-shirts (pictured above).

Director Iain Softley is from London. Not joking when I say I think Softley was on the cutting-edge of cool. I think Hackers is visually layered in a prophetic way and tuned to the the speed of modernity. The soundtrack is mostly electronic, like The Prodigy and Orbital, and uses Underworld (who Boyle would use to greater effect for next year's Trainspotting).

I labeled Hackers crime cinema for blogging purposes, but I think it's much cooler than most crime movies. Wong Kar-wai is beyond Hackers, but I think Hackers is closer to a Wong Kar-wai movie than most other crime movies.

Note: Hackers was undoubtedly shot in widescreen, but formatted full-screen for Netflix.