This month’s movie pick is probably in bad timing. But, “f*ck all that feelings sh*t”. This movie is probably not to some of yous taste or interest. You will probably be entertained or annoyed or you just might be like me and be on that timing. No, I’m not gonna give a whole Big Boss monologue. This is the Retro Movie of October 2025.

The Spook Who Sat by the Door is a 1973 action crime–drama film based on the 1969 novel of the same name by Sam Greenlee. It is both a satire of the civil rights struggle in the United States of the late 1960s and a serious attempt to focus on the issue of Black militancy. Dan Freeman, the titular protagonist, is enlisted by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in its elitist espionage program, becoming its token Black person. After mastering agency tactics, however, he becomes disillusioned and drops out to train young Black people in Chicago to become “Freedom Fighters”.

Directed by Ivan Dixon, co-produced by Dixon and Greenlee, from a screenplay written by Greenlee with Mel Clay, the film starred Lawrence Cook, Paula Kelly, Janet League, J. A. Preston, and David Lemieux.

Sometime in the 1970’s in Chicago. After the approval rating in the African American community takes a nose dive for a U.S. Senator, the Agency decides it would be good optics for the government as well for itself to go out and publicly recruit African American males to join the CIA. With no intention of passing any of them they begin scouting in the inner city. To their surprise one recruit actually makes it through the training. Dan Freeman who unbeknownst to the Agency (Nowadays this would be impossible with social media and digital footprints), Freeman happens to be a Black Nationalist.

The idea of the Agency recruiting from the population isn’t hard to believe. There have been numerous occasions of people being covertly recruited or claim to have been recruited since the beginning of the Cold War. Especially with all the projects such as MK ULTRA.

Back to the plot – Freeman is a Black Nationalist and the Feds don’t know it. After passing his training, Freeman impresses his handlers. However, he is placed in the basement as file clerk and routine tour guide for visitors to project the image of inclusivity. This doesn’t last long before Freeman comes to the reality that he is a Token. (To be honest he most likely was aware this would happen from the start). Freeman keeps a low profile as he completes the Guerilla Warfare training in weapons, subversion, communications and you get the point. When he learns what he needs to learn he quietly resigns and returns to social work in Chicago.

Freeman has the intention of using what the government has taught him and turning it back on them. This is called BLOWBACK. He starts training local youths the same techniques he learned from the government and begins his insurgency for Black Liberation.

After its release the film was pulled from theaters and banned for a time by the FBI for its political tones and themes. Especially since the Civil Rights movement was still fresh in the minds of the inner cities and there were a lot of African American veterans returning home to a country they fought for and  experience the same racism and poverty that existed before the war; a lot of veterans with military training in guerilla warfare and weapons. The idea that this film might spark the idea for revolt and self-determination was just too scary for the powers that be that happen to be Ofay. Shame because, I wish this flew below their radar and more people were able to watch it.

“Tim Reid, whose company helped to release Spook on DVD, said to the Los Angeles Times in 2004: “When you look back at the times…Martin Luther King was assassinated, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy. Black people were really angry and frustrated; we were tired of seeing our leaders killed. What do we do? Do we have a revolution? There is nothing that comes close to this movie in terms of black radicalism.””

I mean if you remember how the proto-dudebros were all charged up after watching 300 for the first time enough they adopted it’s imagery, themes and masculinity(?) like cosplay, tribal tattoos and fake muscles shirts. It would’ve been interesting if THIS film had a longer life in the theaters – Could’ve been interesting.

Regardless of their attempts, enough people did watch it and it gained Cult status over the years before the original film reels were found and restored for the public.  

“Nina Metz wrote in the Chicago Tribune: “For years it was only available on bootleg video. In 2004, the actor Tim Reid tracked down a remaining negative stored in a vault under a different name (‘When they want to lose something, they lose it,’ Reid told the Tribune at the time) and released it on DVD.”  In a 2004 feature for NPR, Karen Bates reported that the director of the film, Ivan Dixon, admitted that United Artists would not show the film in a way that would allow its political message to come through when clips were viewed prior to the film’s public release. “Dixon says when United Artists screened the finished product and saw a Panavision version of political Armageddon, they were stunned.””

So f**k all that interference and here is for your pleasure or discomfort is the controversial, thought provoking and inspiring – 1970’S The Spook Who Sat by the Door, directed by Ivan Dixon.

Stay free, Stay Strapped, Read more, Learn Real History, Build your bodies and Minds, Question authority, Buy physical media, practice your aim, sharpen your punches and conceal your knives, know the law and the law won’t trick you. Stay fresh, smart and always keep your finger on that damn REWIND button.

Movie link: https://youtu.be/HG-56GKbPtk?si=C53B1Pwf0122h5IU

• How is this not a Troma film?

Flesh Eating Moms directed by: James Martin. Starring: Robert Lee Oliver, Donatella Hecht, Neal Rosen, Valorie Hubbard and Marie Michaels.
Year of release: 1988
Runtime : 88 min / 1.85:1

Pardon my French but “these b*tches is crazy”. What the hell did I just watch? 90 minutes of lucid insanity and I needed it. Please just take me back to the eighties and the nineties, please. Take me back to the BMX ramps in the cul-de-sac, the yellow school bus with the nicotine stenched driver. The Pizzeria run by a guy named Sal next door the breakfast diner that served beer after 7pm. The shitty box television set with the knobs and the furniture with the plastic coverings. The Late, Late Movie on channel 7, frozen orange juice in the freezer, the leaves of autumn, the imaginary Leave It To Beaver music that played in your head on the way to school, the rotary phone with the two foot cord, walkie-talkies, lazer-tag, Saturday mornings, 25cent juices, the girl next door, the creepy van that was always parked down by the river, the haunted house on the corner, the sketchy guy at the park, the Ice Cream man with the sailor tattoos, stranger danger, DARE, the danger of razors in the candy, the rocks that addicts smoked, “No-that wasn’t candy”, MSG, the OTB, phone phreakers, NYNEX, book reports, BOOKS, Nintendo, VHS, A Current Affair, Unsolved Mysteries, the Cold War and the threat of impending doom with every slice of pizza & fruit punch. I was lucky enough to find this on youtube while researching conspiracy threads and documentaries online; there I was taking a break from learning about the Sabbateans and I noticed this title pop-up in my feed (no connection).

• PLOT
  Somewhere in some corner of New Jersey, the mothers have come down with a sickness and have turned into savage cannibalistic fiends. Nothing is off the menu when these hotwives go feral and start ripping into their neighbors and loved ones. The kids are stoned and freaked out trying to get to the bottom of the madness. The chief of police knows more than he says. The local medical examiner is barely over five feet tall and even he smells something is fishy going on.
  

This film was shot on a shoe string budget and enough imagination, humor and not-a-care in the world attitude to make this something special. I’ve already watched this film twice and still laugh my balls off. All shot on location in west bumblef*k.

• “It’s so damn bad it’s great. How is this not a Troma film.”

The limited budget was obviously focused on what special fx they could put together and “YES” the gore is here; almost reminiscent of early Peter Jackson type body horror courtesy of special effects artist Carl Sorensen (Child’s Play, Tremors). There is so much red stuff dripping here you could stock a Nathan’s Hot Dog stand and film an entire MaxiPad marketing campaign. The script is witty, tongue-in-cheek and crass. The cannibal virus itself has a nice original plot twist to it.
The acting? The acting is pure public-access meets Loyd Kaufman shot on film and smeared together inside the frame of an episodes of MONSTERS. I can’t say I recognize any of these actors aside from Marie Micheals who was one of the mob wives in Goodfellas and Donatella Hecht (The Manhattan Project 1986). I LOVE THIS. This is why I review these forgotten gems of analog entertainment when life was simpler, less sanitized and fun. Gen X wasn’t just an era it was a friggin attitude and I was fortunate enough to slide down the tail-end of that generation into the birth of the millennial before everything just became cookie cutter and redundant.

Flesh Eating Mothers is also available in Blu-ray format from Vinegar Syndrome presents, freshly restored in 2K and featuring a new batch of exclusive extra features.

You been fluffed enough now. So click the link below and watch with some friends and some pizza rolls, soda pop, whatever the hell you smoke and your significant others Hot Pockets. Just remember to take it easy, be dangerous, be cool, keep your finger on that Rewind Button and Yippee-ki-yay and F the Law.

I am breaking night again. Sleepless and restless yet bored and tired of the hamster wheel of square living; lost in the ether of the surface web again. I’m just here vegetated and binging on information and entertainment to numb the nerves and relax me as I float and drift with spontaneity. It looks like there’s an abundance of skullduggery and cloak & dagger schemes occurring in the world – more than the average citizen or loiterer could fathom. There is just so much information to process, to extrapolate, to synthesis and to summarize with such short time left. Information is more important than necessity; without information you have no access and avenues to proceed in society. You cannot arm yourself mentally and physically without information and the access to it.

That is what compelled me to present 1992’s Sneakers and luckily someone on YouTube was cool enough to have it uploaded.

Sneakers directed by Phil Alden Robinson, screenplay co-written with Walter Parkes and Lawrence Lasker. Starring Robert Redford, Dan Aykroyd, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, River Phoenix, Sidney Poitier and David Strathairn.

A successful movie from the creators of the 80’s classic WARGAMES, and the 20^th highest grossing film of that 1992, Sneakers is a crime thriller that if made nowadays would be considered cyber-noir. It’s another film that Roger Ebert didn’t get and gave a low review when released but, he had a knack for disliking movies before they found their audience.

The films plot revolves around a group of security penetration testers or “Pen Testers” that are recruited by men claiming to be NSA agents to retrieve a Russian black box that they are looking for. After successfully retrieving the item, the team learns that they have walked into something bigger than any of them could have imagined.

Filmed in multiple locations with a really good script and a stacked ensemble cast of heavy hitters, Sneakers has just enough humor and intrigue to keep your attention for the whole journey. A moment in time capsule for real-life cyberpunks of an analog time when things were more hands on. I definitely recommend this film for you the viewer.

Interesting sidenote:

• Leonard Adleman was the mathematical consultant on this movie. The character of “Bernard Abbott” was named after Robert Abbott, the so-called “Father of Information Security,” who was also a consultant for the film. The character “Whistler” was based on Josef “Joybubbles” Engressia and John “Cap’n Crunch” Draper, well-known figures in the phone phreaks and hacking communities.  “Donald Crease” was based on John Strauchs, a former CIA officer who founded the security consulting firm Systech Group.  Dan Ackroyd’s brother Peter supplied conspiracy material on “UFOS, cattle mutilations, the Tri-Lateral Commission, the staged moon landing, JFK, [and] Marilyn Monroe” that was used to “spice up” his character.

• The film’s press kit was accompanied by a floppy disk containing a custom program explaining the movie. Parts of the program were quasi-encrypted, requiring the user to enter an easily guessable password to proceed. It was one of the first electronic press kits by a film studio.

I know you’re probably out there in the wastelands feeling it right now: living check to check, angry, scared, dejected, detached, and trying to find some kind of escapism from reality. I hope my retro movie choice can give you some form of escapism from the madness and noise. Movies are an escape. Movies have a beginning and a definitive conclusion with all the drama and conflict playing out made digestible by the dialogue, characters and exposition, unlike reality. Reality sucks for everyone. But just know that you’re not alone out there in the storm. Stay safe, live reckless, question everything, dress smart and always keep one finger on that Rewind button. Til’ Next time.

Dominion has been adapted into three original video animation series: the first, Dominion Tank Police, was released in 1988, the second, New Dominion Tank Police (特捜戦車隊ドミニオン, Tokusō Sensha Tai Dominion) in 1993, and the third, Tank Police Team TANK S.W.A.T. 01 (警察戦車隊ＴＡＮＫＳ．Ｗ．Ａ．Ｔ．０１, Keisatsu Sensha Tai TANK S.W.A.T. 01) in 2006. The 1988 OVA is four episodes long and animated by Agent 21, the 1993 OVA is six episodes long and animated by J.C.Staff, while TANK S.W.A.T. is one episode long and was animated by DOGA Productions. The manga was published by Hakusensha, Kodansha and later by Seishinsha. It has been published in English by Dark Horse Comics. The anime has been released in English translation in the United Kingdom and Australia by Manga Entertainment and in the United States by Central Park Media, under their U.S. Manga Corps division.

Cyberpunk from the land of the rising sun. Masamune Shirow’s precursor to his magnum opus Ghost in the Shell. Tank Police is retro-futuristic camp, as cheesy as you would imagine a love child of the Kerberos Panzer Cops and the Police Academy films.

First aired in the States on the Sci-fi Channel in it’s first years during Saturday Anime in the 90’s.
Get connected. Enjoy the ride and tune into a channel under a dead sky and get jacked into my nostalgic drip.

Stay off the drugs, stay strapped, stay dangerous, don’t forget your burner, wetware and ballistic hardware and always keep your finger on the REWIND button.

-HaiNe

MadMax’s bastard child. A future where human birth rates are at an all time low and reptilian mutations have evolved into the new age. No, it’s not a David Icke lecture. It’s Roddy Piper starring in HELL COME TO FROGTOWN.

Roddy Piper is Hell, One of the last fertile men alive in the world and destined to help rebuild humanity. Sandahl Bergman is a government scientist assigned to Pipers’ HELL. Lost in the wastelands tethered by a shock collar to his escort (Bergman) and battling evil tribes of amphibious savages. When his companions are kidnapped by the Frogs he must navigate a nightmarish hellscape to free them and give humanity one-more-chance.

One of Roddy Pippers lesser known cult classics. Hell Comes to Frogtown is actually a very very good movie. Loaded with very convincing practical make-up and visual effects; with a story that actually looks like someone was thinking outside the box. Bergman is as beautiful and engaging as she ever was. And Roddy Pipper is just awesome.

Critical reception for Hell Comes to Frogtown has been mixed to positive. TV Guide awarded the film two out of five stars, calling it “Another of those futuristic, post-apocalyptic science fiction dramas”.^[4]

DVD Talk gave the film three out of five stars, writing, “Rowdy Roddy Piper has to save the world by diddling beautiful babes and squashing six-foot mutant toads with crummy attitudes. What’s not to like?”^[5]

Jason Cook from The Spinning Image rated the film a score of six out of ten stars, writing, “Cheap and cheerful its narrative lulls and directorial shortcomings are glossed over by a winning central performance and a smattering of witty dialogue. Its no cinematic masterpiece, but were there any talking mutant frogs in Citizen Kane?”^[6]

Though not received well by critics, producer Randall Frakes says he was glad the fans seemed to like it and “get all the jokes as intended”.

Hell Comes to Frogtown inspired the title of the “Hell Comes to Quahog” (2006) episode of animated television series Family Guy.

I really don’t want to spoil this one. So keep an open mind. Be cool. Be real. and always keep that finger on the REWIND button.

I discovered this film on Amazon Prime and sweethearts let me tell you. This movie is one of the best worst films I’ve ever seen. A complete gumbo stew of schlocky 70’s Italian cinema and early 1980’s straight to the VHS bargain bin Grindhouse delight.

I have not seen the MST3K episode featuring this and I have no interest because, there is no way they could enhance what is already one hell of a lunatic frenzy this movie really is. And don’t expect a “Happy Ending” or some type of closure here. If this were remade today (God forbid) this could be a profitable trilogy.

Filmed in The Bronx as well a movie studio in Rome for some of the interior set pieces; you get the full atmosphere and desolation of the South Bronx during the late 70’s and early 80’s; a time I remember the most fondly when I think of NYC (1980’s-1990’s). The 70’s specifically (although before my time) was a vibrant time when HipHop was just born and so much innovation in subculture was being cultivated and building from the ground up in the shadows of bombed tenements and the ruins rubble, abandoned cars, open fire hydrants all due to a city at the brink of bankruptcy … but, still very much alive.

The movie is set sometime after 1990; the Bronx has devolved into a lawless territory run by gangs. The General Construction Corporation has designated the entire Burrough for evacuation and demolition for new condo’s and high-rises. The residents are being forcibly evicted from their homes and incentivized to relocate to New Mexico (“Yeesh”).  The pretext for this being some sort of viral outbreak spread by rats. Could it be a hoax? Who knows.

Trash is the former leader of a biker gang in the area that has become a loner and enemy of the state. His parents are flambéed by Corporate GCC goon squads running vagrants out of their homes and it pisses him off. Trash is on paper a, rugged, take-no-nonsense rogue, with a steel gaze and a wolverine’s tenacity. However, the part is played by an inexperienced young actor that lost a lot of muscle mass between this film and the previous film; an inexperienced actor that saunters around looking off camera like the director is pointing to his marks. It doesn’t matter because the movie works in all the wrong ways.

Trash is thrown together with a troublesome reporter trying to get to the bottom of the GCC and the city’s corrupt plans of gentrification. Later they are joined by the leader of a subterranean confederation of gangs as well a former bank robbery turned mole man and mercenary.

The shit is sure to hit a giant fan by the time the movie ends and I LOVE IT. I LOVE NY.

Escape from the Bronx has a runtime of 89 minutes, was released on August 1983 in Italy and premiered in the U.S. on January of that year. It is available to stream on Amazon Prime and here with subtitles on YouTube.

Enjoy this gift I’ve found for you. Keep yourselves safe, nasty and disobedient …. But, above all else “Keep your finger on that REWIND button”.

The basic formula for cheesy 90’s cinema; if you didn’t see it in a matinee then you probably rented it from the local video store. Schlocky leftover clichés from the previous decade: firearms that sound like explosions, urban cowboy boots, duster jackets, and of course another film that warns you not to electrocute serial killers or else they’ll come back from the dead and keep killing.

Yes, just like House 3: the Horror Show, Shocker and Ghost in the Machine (1993), a homicidal maniac is resurrected into the world to reap havoc and kill, kill, kill.

The First Power is a 1990 American neo-noir horror film written and directed by Robert Resnikoff, and starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Tracy Griffith, Jeff Kober and Mykelti Williamson. The film received mostly negative reviews, but was a financial success just like a lot of horror movies of the era.

The film begins with LAPD on the manhunt for a serial killer (Jeff Kober). Mykelti Williamson (Forrest Gump, HEAT) and badass Filipino Detective (Lou Diamond Phillips) go to the borderline of law & order to catch the killer. After a near death confrontation with the “Pentagram killer” Lou Diamond Phillips character, Detective Russell Logan, manages to apprehend the killer with the help of an anonymous tip. But, that anonymous tip came with a price – “No death penalty”, a promise that Det. Logan breaks when the Pentagram Killer is sentenced in court. “Shaklack, klack” and the verdict is given. The killer enters the chamber and he is gassed to death in the presence of the arresting officers and officials. Tormented by a feverish nightmare of the killer breaking his restraints and stabbing him, Detective Logan awakens and is relieved that the nightmare is over. However, after a few more daymares he suspects something is wrong.

Tracking down his anonymous informant to a lavish house in the hills; home to a popular online psychic played by Tracy Griffith. How that works in 1990? I have no idea. Is she using search tools, such as ARCHIE, Gopher, or WAIS? I don’t know.  Her site looks like DOS. Regardless, another body is found. One of the officers involved in the arrest of the Pentagram killer is found murdered in one of the gang hideouts from Police Academy 2: the first assignment. Looks like another Pentagram murder or possibly a copycat.

When confronting Tracy Griffith about the copycat. She is angered by the Detectives ignorance and chastises him about breaking his promise.

What follows is an absurd, neo-noir horror thriller that is entertaining to say the most. On the surface, this very similar to the film Fallen starring Denzel Washington. The killer jumps from body to body and rooftop to street level, with the grace of Spider-Man in some parts.
Other parts are pretty cool: such as using the ceiling fan as a blender gimmick.

• “Psychic and a Cop walk into a bar… the partner died.”
• “Oh shit! It’s the flying bum. Cock Blocked by the homeless”.
• “Downtown LA was just as filthy as it is now.”
• Hocus Pocus and sexy nuns. It’s a film that will be forgotten but, not this day.

I present to you – THE FIRST POWER (1990). Stay safe. Stay sanctified. Get smart. Get lost and Get Free. The writings on the wall. Keep your finger on that REWIND button.

Movie Link – https://youtu.be/F3s0PlxWavE

I’m back bitches. And here we are – together again. Forever.
Here this December 2020 the movie pick is the live action adaptation 20^TH CENTURY BOYS directed by Yukihiko Tsutsumi and based on the classic manga written & illustrated by Naoki Urasawa(Monster, Pluto). This is the first film in the trilogy and was released in 2008 through TOHO.

20^th Century Boys main plot as it remains pretty damn close to the source material revolves around a middle aged store clerk who is drawn into a conspiracy somehow involving his childhood friends.
The story and characters can be a bit overwhelming if you’ve never read the manga however, the film does serve well to entertain its viewers. There is some good genuine moments between long lost friends. There is a flavor of Stephen King here with its flashbacks and the idea of a group of childhood friends coming together to solve a mystery from their past…. That mystery being the string of bizarre attacks and disappearances that may or may not have to do with a popular cult lead by a mysterious figure known as FRIEND.

The film quality is of its time. The acting is actually pretty good. The limited special effects are nice and not distracting. I really enjoyed this and will proceed to watch the next two films in the trilogy; all films are available on YOUTUBE for now. I recommend anyone interested to go find them and watch – before youtube decides it not acceptable.

20^th Century Boys the Beginning is well worth its duration and very fun. I also recommend picking up any of the printed volumes, omnibuses or special editions of the MANGA at your nearest comic book retailer or Barnes n Nobles.

Be SAFE this NEW YEARS, Covid isn’t gone yet and you’re government is not in your corner through this – no matter what they say. Stay cool and stay refined and keep your finger on that REWIND button.

Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence, known in Japan as just Innocence (イノセンス, Inosensu), is a 2004 anime/computer-animated cyberpunk film that serves as a sequel to 1995’s Ghost in the Shell. It was co-produced by Production I.G and Studio Ghibli for Tokuma Shoten, Nippon Television Network, Dentsu, Disney, Toho and the Mitsubishi Corporation, and distributed by Toho. It was released in Japan on March 6, 2004, and was later released in the US on September 17, 2004 by Go Fish Pictures, Innocence had a production budget of approximately $20 million (approximately 2 billion yen). To raise the sum, Production I.G studio’s president, Mitsuhisa Ishikawa, asked Studio Ghibli‘s president, Toshio Suzuki, to co-produce.

With a story loosely connected to the manga by Masamune Shirow, the film was written and directed by Ghost in the Shell director Mamoru Oshii. The film was honored best sci-fi film at the 2004 Nihon SF Taisho Awards and was in competition at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival. The soundtrack for the film was released under the name Innocence O.S.T. and a related novel called Ghost in the Shell: Innocence – After the Long Goodbye was released on February 29, 2004. This film makes many allusions and references to other famous works, such as The Future Eve. The foreign DVD release of the film faced many issues ranging from licensing to audio.

Well 2020 has been a friggin’ interesting, exciting and terrifying year of pandemics, duplicitous mainstream media, a bubbling independent media, fractured racial relations, racists unmasking themselves, militarized police departments infiltrated by hate groups and corrupt globalists pulling the strings on the bird of democracy. A new cold war with China, child trafficking and child pedophile rings being swept under the rug by lobbyists, entertainers, bankers and world leaders. Natural resources being plundered at every turn and world maps being redefined and drawn; the food isn’t fit to eat and clean water is a luxury; everyone is suspect and corporations are taking control; reality has been replaced by social media and eventually A.I. will be a real life thing and not just something from the movies. Step by step we are entering a cyber-future – that may or may not work for you but, in all disclosure was never meant to work for you. Cyberpunk is here and the real hack is you mind.

Ghost in the Shell has become one of the quintessential cyberpunk anime of all time with equal parts – William Gibson, AKIRA and Blade Runner, extrapolating those ingredients and delivering on questions and ideas of personal identity, cyberspace, political espionage and yes – memes.

The sequel to the original anime that was based on the manga continues the storyline from the first and not from any of the alternate timelines from the series.

We follow Batou as he is assigned to investigate a crime that leads him down a digital rabbit hole of conspiracy.

The film once again merges the mediums of digital animation and 2d illustrations. Seamless and beautiful in majority of the scenes. The mood is darker and more noir than the original, leaning towards cyber-noir and hard boiled elements that go hand in hand with the existential themes that the franchise is known for. The music is amazing with a score written by Kenji Kawai.

If you love the slow cyberthriller pace of MR.ROBOT or Genocidal Organ then this is your treat to distract yourself during our current times in turmoil, kicking and screaming down a razorblade slope of cocaine and redbull into our cyberpunk present.

It’s the future now, Stay sweet, disconnect, decompress and do what you gotta do. But above all else – Keep your damn finger on that REWIND button.

The story of a young adolescent who joins a local football firm and becomes a Casual. Running with the pack, he is seduced by the allure of football hooliganism with it’s fashion, brotherhood and violence.

I am a sucker for CASUAL culture. Even in my late thirties I still gravitate towards my former everyday attire of polo/fred perry shirts and working class ethics, even while living out here in the wastelands of Tucson. Themes often unheard of out here in the sands.

The feeling of brotherhood and belonging to a crew, the thrill of violence as you come across a rival firm and the adrenaline rush that hits you like a fifteen pound medicine ball in your stomach as the fighting kicks off and you live the day like it’s your last. Like a savage. Like a friggin Spartan warrior; a well dressed Spartan warrior.

Awaydays plays out like what if Green Street Hooligans was directed by David Fincher. It’s cinematography matching the ashy skybox that is London. Never allowing color to glamorize the drama taking place within the screen.

Stephen Graham as always gives a good performance as the crazed ring leader of The Pack, pushing his boys to their limit; rewarding them in victory and punishing them for their humanity.

There isn’t much else to say about this film. The acting is good and serves to push the film forward. The soundtrack is filled with jams like Ultravox, The Rascals, Cabaret Voltaire and more.

Based on the same story that the film THE FIRM (1993) and THE FIRM (2009) remake.

It’s a sour patch of little history and subculture.

Stay fit, Stay Fresh and keep y0ur fingers on that REWIND button.

I was still in co-ed catholic school at the time this movie was released. I can’t remember if it was successful in the theaters. I do, however, remember it staring that really attractive chick from CYBORG 2 before we all knew her as Angelina Jolie. It also starred Johnny Lee Miller who was sickboy from the classic film Trainspotting.

The concept of the film was completely foreign to me, as i said before – not too many people had home computers and majority of us even bothered to use them outside of homework, chat rooms, Mech-Warrior or DOOM and its fps offspring. However, this wasn’t the first movie featuring Hollywoods interest in the hacker subculture. The first and very successful hacker from from Hollyweird was the 80’s classic War Games. The only other film I can recall off the top of my head would be SNEAKERS which was a very very good movie also featuring the act of ‘Phreaking’ as it was called.

Phreaking is a slang term for hacking into secure telecommunication networks. The term phreaking originally referred to exploring and exploiting the phone networks by mimicking dialing tones to trigger the automatic switches using whistles or custom blue boxes designed for that purpose. Generally speaking, it was curiosity about how phone networks operated that motivated phreaks, rather than a desire to defraud telecommunications companies.

Phreaking has become synonymous with hacking now that networks have gone cellular and cracking them requires more clearly illegal methods.

So 1995 was the year that Hollyweird decided to give it another crack.

Now HACKERS is not a top-tier film. But through the avenue of Home Video and bootlegs in some of our neighborhoods it has become somewhat of a cherished classic by my generation. It featured realistic concepts (I say that loosely) but for the sake of entertainment used some unrealistic methods. The hacking is done using visual graphics and 3-D dioramas, instead of the real world program coding and displays. There are actual corporations and companies that hire security techs that were or are hackers and there are communities and groups of hackers that socialize and engage in friendly (mostly legal) competitions. We didn’t know this then because, well it was mainstream news except for very large hacks. These days the term is synonymous with treason, whistleblowing and anonymous cyber-vigilantes like Edward Snowden and Julian Asange (Wiki-leaks).

I’ve always said the hacking subculture is very similar to graffiti subculture. I love that. People going out of there way to get a rep. ‘Destroy N Build’ as i head once as a child. Using esoteric coding and monikers to get a name for themselves either for legal or illegal reasons or just for the sake of fun. Going where people aren’t supposed to go and raiding the nest.

The film follows Johnny Lee Millers character of Zero Cool as he moves with his mother to New York City and starts school in a pretty lit public school. There he meets other hackers Joey, Lord Nikon, The Phantom Phreak and Cereal Killer and becomes friends with them. Experiencing the fun NYC of the 1990’s, some of the fashion may be tragic but the decade was fabulous for house parties, indie record labels, dance music and subculture in general.

After a hacking into a GIBSON, Joey becomes entangled in a FBI investigation targeting hackers. When the corporate security tech The Plague gets involved, Zero Cool and his friends find themselves backed up against the wall being chased by the FBI and blackmailed by THE PLAGUE with the threat of a massive environmental disaster approaching.

The hacking itself may be fantastical and unrealistic but, the film is so much fun and innocent to its bone. However, there is a great Jolie nip-slip in the movie if you can spot it.

The locations were very low-budget and mostly on location all throughout Manhattan. The actors definitely look way older than they are supposed to be. But, meh – things happen that way in Hollyweird. If you can expect me to suspend disbelief enough to accept that teenagers are flying through cyberspace like the friggin Lawnmower Man then, I can look past an actor in his mid-twenties playing a teenager.

The music in this film is fantastic and date the movie very well. If you were like me and haunted TOWER RECORDS whenever, you cut class to either purchase or shoplift cd’s then you remember that the 90’s was the decade of the film soundtrack.. Soundtracks were everything. And Hackers had one of the best damn soundtracks ever; so good that it spawned three additional volumes of additional music= EPIC.

Songs featured: ‘Voodoo People’ by The Prodigy, ‘Protection’ by Massive Attack, ‘Halcyon+On+On’ by Orbital and songs from Luke Slater, Underworld, Leftfield, Carl Cox, Stereo MC’s and more and more and more.

It gets 4 erect modems out of 4. Watch It.

Hackers stars Johnny Lee Miller, Angelina Jolie, Fisher Stevens, Matthew Lillard, Jesse Bradford, Laurence Mason, Lorraine Braco, Renoly Santiago, Marc Anthony and directed by Ian Softley.

Some critics praised the film for its stylish visuals but criticized its unconvincing look at hackers and their subculture. Roger Ebert gave the film three out of four stars and wrote, “The movie is smart and entertaining, then, as long as you don’t take the computer stuff very seriously. I didn’t. I took it approximately as seriously as the archeology in Indiana Jones“.^[17] On the show Siskel & Ebert, Ebert gave the film thumbs up while Gene Siskel gave the film thumbs down, saying, “I didn’t find the characters that interesting and I really didn’t like the villain in this piece. I thought Fisher Stevens was not very threatening… The writing is so arch” – wikipedia