Keanuthon

2:57pm – “Johnny Mnemonic”, 1995

Holy crap!

Second decade of the 21st century. Corporations rule. The world is threatened by a new plague: NAS Nerve Attenuation Syndrome, fatal, epidemic, its cause and cure unknown. The corporations are opposed by the LoTeks, a resistance movement risen from the streets: hackers, data-pirates, guerilla-fighters in the info-wars. The corporations defend themselves. They hire the Yakuza, the most powerful of all crime syndicates. They sheath their data in black ice, lethal viruses waiting to burn the brains of intruders. But the LoTeks wait in their strongholds, in the old city cores, like rats in the walls of the world.

The most valuable information must sometimes be entrusted to mnemonic couriers, elite agents who smuggle data in wet-wired brain implants.

The setting: the internet – 2021. The internet is vastly different from anything we know today in the year 2004. And I have been working in the internet industry for the last five years. But believe me, I never would have predicted that in a scant 17 years from now that the internet would be so vastly different. I can hardly wait.

His hooch just picked up her Keanuthong off the floor. Someone had a good night last night. A real good night.

Ralphie was in “Cowgirls.”

It is possible that with the amount of rewinding, pausing, slow-mo, etc. we have already set as a precedent just a mere 11 minutes in, we will stretch this movie out for hours, possible making it the last movie of the night. But no, the ‘Thon must go on.

Keanu has two iPods worth of storage capacity in his brain, but he had to buy a capacity doubler in order to pull off this next (and what he wants to be final) job. The scary thing about the doubler is that he absolutely cannot fill over capacity. If he does, the data will leak into his brain: synaptic seapage can kill a mnemonic courier in two or three days, and worse, the data could become corrupted.

The big thumb guy reminds Matt of Richard Mulligan’s big scary thumb in “Babes.” His thumb spat green animated gas — might need to watch out for that. Yes, that is right, the guy from “Empty Nest” and “Soap” has a big scary thumb that spits green animated gas. Yikes, I’m scared. Watch, I’m shaking in my boots.

Yet another in a long line of Keanu-with-short-professional-looking-hair-cut movies.

We see Keanu perform some kind of Buddhist-style concentration exercise after he uploads 320 gigabytes of data (twice his already doubled capacity) in order to calm down. Is this a foreshadowing to “The Matrix” movies, or is this a throw back to “Little Buddha” and “Life Under Water” (“muggers, rapists, mimes”)?

Keanu has to take the data to Newark, which when we first see it, is called “Free City of Newark” on the screen. My guess is that no one wanted to take control of the state of New Jersey and so all of the cities there are just free.

“Scanning dyslexia…” amazing, because Keanu actually has dyslexia.

It is comforting to see that in the future, AT&T will still be running the telephone system across America.

Henry Rollins siting. He’s such a bad ass.

Oh the 2×4, Keanu’s weapon of choice.

I-Tea is playing a guy named J-Bone, he runs Heaven.

Why do bad guys always conduct their business out of techno-rave night clubs?

To keep Keanu from yelling when the bad guys rip his head off, they stuffed a Nerf ball in his mouth. You wouldn’t really have thought that Nerf balls would be around in the future, but then again, who could have predicted a future as crazy as this one?

Spelunk

Dolph Lungren plays a bad guy whose cover is as a priest of the Church of Retransformation.

Henry Rollins goes on a short tyrade about technology and information overload. Henry’s character is named Spyder. He is a flesh mechanic.

We just spent a few moments reflecting (rewinding and writing down) the monumental speech that Keanu makes atop a mound of garbage at the landfill. This speech is part of what changed Matt and me as adolescents (granted we were 17 at the time that we originally saw the movie, so that is not so much adolescent, but we were pretty immature, not that anything has changed in that regard). This speech put Keanu on the map in terms of dramatic acting. This speech changed my life. I wish I could have used it as a monologue for an audition back in high school, but it had not been written when I was doing auditions (and I probably would have gotten kicked out of high school, what with the hooker/club sandwich/beer/fucking requests). What a shame; what a shame.

Jones. Is a fish. Make that a mammal. One thing Spyder wasn’t was stupid. Guess that was why he made that “fucking your mother comment” to Dolph. Still a fish – no matter how much “can opening” and “frontal lobe turning to mush” we are threatened with.

Think Ice-T (SVU) just requested tennis to be broadcast – wonder if Martina Navratalova will be still playing 15 years in the future, I’m guessing yes (doubles at least).

“The only way left is to HACK YOUR OWN BRAIN.” If only they would have read the t-shirt they would have known from the start. And the fish let us down. Not in the head.

All that is saving Richard Mulligan now is that gas spewing thumb of his. And he lost his head. Should have just calmed down and taken a couple of deep breaths. And closed that door. Lots of safety hazards around here. Must file a workman’s comp claim.

Jesus remains bad. Is this our message? Kinda like “Point Break”‘s message was that Reagan was the best president (although we might be reading a little into that). Dolph is in a toga, which (rather understandably) pissed off the fish. Use the fish, Johnny! Use the fish!

The only way is, still, to hack your brain.

This movie had to have been the main movie the Matrix ripped off. (for example, remember the the “I want a $10,000 a night hooker speech” in the Matrix 1, 2, & 3?)

The impact of this movie on our lives can never be adequately conveyed. Simple words (or even an interpretive dance) could never express the importance this film has had (and will continue to have) on our lives. Although “Just Johnny” is impacting Carla later in life, I have no doubt she will be greatly influenced by this fabulous feature film in countless ways. Ways she will never be able to explain or understand (much less acknowledge or know about). I know what you are thinking, “No way!” But I insist, “Yes way.”

“They’re still in Newark?”