JOHNNY MNEMONIC (1995)— That Third Act Dolphin Tho

Cinema of Cruelty (Movies for Masochists)

This week The Cultists Present Robert Longo's Johnny Mnemonic (1995). The year is 2021. A mysterious virus has swept through the globe and one man holds the cure. The catch? That cure is embedded in the 160 GB neural cortex implant now seeping data all over his brain. It will kill him. Or, at least, it would, if that man wasn’t one Keanu Reeves. With a screenplay by cyberpunk founding father, William Gibson, Johnny Mnemonic was meant to herald in the gritty underground subgenre of consul jockeys and biohackers into the mainstream. It was an 80s fanboy dream, one anticipated by many, and one that ultimately failed. Utterly. (The Cultists set for to try and figure out why.)

Deep Dives include: Robert Longo’s fine art series “Men in The Cities”; William Gibson and the origins of Cyberpunk; Comparisons of the film vs. Gibson’s short story; comparisons of the American film edit vs the Japanese cut; and the real world history/context of that military weaponized dolphin...

Episode Safeword: “offline”