Hollywood Goes Online

by Alan Benson

Based on this summer's movies, Hollywood views the Internet as a scary place, full of shadowy companies up to no good, evil anarchists, kiddie-porn connoisseurs, and no-goodnik hackers whose idea of fun is a spirited jaunt through someone else's credit rating. On the surface, it appears the big studios are staffed with neo-Luddites who spend their days hiding under their desks, praying for the return of slide rules, manual typewriters and those good ole non-silicon-based family values.

Of course, Hollywood isn't a town that only bets one way. Apparently on the theory that pervs and psychos have to get out SOMETIME, the studios are now flooding the World Wide Web with movie-related sites that allow internauts to download sound clips, stills, and background info.

Nearly every major flick of '95 has its own home page, whether it was a success (Hoop Dreams) or not (The Tie That Binds). According to Knight-Ridder News Service, this whole movie Web site thing started in '94 when MGM/UA opened a site for Stargate. Now Buena Vista has a site, as do Fine Line, First Look, Sony, MGM/UA, and pretty much every other major studio.

This fascination with the net is not surprising. Hollywood cycles through fads faster than your average 13-year-old. Thus we've had the Gen-X phase (Singles, Reality Bites), the slasher phase (Halloween, Friday the 13th), and the "Man, that Burt Reynolds is sexy" phase (Paternity, any number of films involving a Trans-Am and a cop) and, now, the Internet phase.

The studios' obsession with the internet is showing few signs of waning. It's even inspired Dweebs, a new Warner Brothers sitcom about a bunch of nerds (two of whom are played by Peter Scolari and Corey Feldman, yikes!) who learn social skills from a computer-illiterate woman (Wings star Farrah Forke). You've come a long way, baby; instead of having to play a stupid waitress, secretary or wife, you can play a stupid office worker. Elizabeth Cady Stanton must be spinning in her grave right about now.

What's next? When Harry Fingered Sally ?

The hacker community is not too thrilled about this trend, but the studios have neatly subverted any opposition. After the Hackers page was hacked several times in August, Digital Planet -- the web authors -- simply recreated the old page, added links to the hacked page, and let everyone know what good sports they are.

Meanwhile, since the initial attacks, Digital Planet and MGM/UA have been vigorously denying they hacked the site themselves. Their "proof" of this are three apologies (written in that impenetrable pseudo-anarchist gibberish preferred by many hackers) from the hackers who fucked with the site. Yeah, sure.

Actually, the hackers' best bet is to just lie low and let bad reviews, paltry turnouts and low returns do their work. So far, none of these cyberfilms have done well. Virtuosity earned just $8.3 million in its opening weekend, hardly enough to cover your average film's catering budget.

The real question facing us is: Why can't Johnny inspire better movies? This whole cybermovie thing owes its life to two men: William Gibson, the author of Johnny Mnemonic, a perfectly intelligent short story about a futuristic courier, and Keanu Reeves, the simian teen hunk and star of the Bill and Ted movies.

The resulting film, Johnny Moronic...err, Johnny Mnemonic, was a series of good action sequences grafted onto an abominably stupid storyline. See Johnny run! See Johnny shoot! See Johnny break glass! See Johnny speak! Shut up, Johnny, shut up! Director Robert Longo (best known for R.E.M.'s "The One I Love" video) gave us Gibson Lite: all the action, none of the character development; Speed with some cheesy "virtual reality" effects thrown in. The highlight of the film comes when Reeves mumbles "What's in my head is worth millions to these guys." Yeah. Right Keanu. Keep telling yourself that.

As bad as Johnny Mnemonic is, Virtuosity is worse. This tepid "cyber thriller" proved director Brett "Lawnmower Man" Leonard is, indeed, a virtuoso. Few directors can shovel bullshit at his pace, and fewer still can transform a heretofore good actor (Denzel Washington) into such an embarrassingly bad parody of himself.

Virtuosity revolves around Syd 6.7, a computer-based amalgamation of

the personalities of 183 serial killers and other assorted baddies. Max Headroom with the charm of John Wayne Gacy and the wit of the guy from Doom played by Russell "Romper Stomper" Crowe. In an interesting Tron reversal, Syd escapes from his computer (happens all the time, the other day I was chasing Myst's Achenar around the room) and runs amok in L.A. If this wasn't asinine enough, he makes his big debut by strutting in, Travolta-like, to "Stayin' Alive."

The vomitous mass of filth known as Hackers should not be viewed by anyone with two neurons to rub together. It's just one cliché after another strung together to form a simplistic, asinine plot. Everything about this movie is geared to attract Gen-Xers, from the stars (they dress like club kids) to the ads (a picture of two of the kids with words like "Love," "Sex," "Secret," and "God" superimposed on them) to the Web site (it includes a

crack-the-code-to-get-into-the-school-computer-and-change-your-grade game). The movie's tagline is "Their crime is curiosity." No, their crime is acting in a piece of shit.

The best of this bunch is The Net, which stars babe-of-the-moment Sandra Bullock as a lonely software tester who stumbles upon a secret button that gives her access to a secret part of the internet. When the bad people find out, they destroy all computer records relating to her existence, giving director Irwin Winkler (no, not the Fonz) the chance to drop in all kinds of internet-ish words like "telnet" and "TCP/IP" and end it up with a speedboat chase. It's OK, but it's no Wargames. Hell, it's not even Sneakers.

In an interview posted at The Net's site, Winkler said he hoped the movie taught people "there is a world beyond technology, and that's a world of human contact. . . . We should be more open about our lives as far as people are concerned and, probably, be a little suspicious every time we use our credit card." So we should be more open AND more suspicious. I've got news for you Irwin, computers aren't the ones stealing credit card numbers and running up the bills.

Though Winkler's laughable interview is worth reading, the highlight of The Net web site are a dozen letters to, and answers from, Sandra Bullock. All of the letters are extremely polite (a rarity on the net) and Bullock's answers are curiously vague. The best of the bunch is:

Sandra,

At the risk of sounding shallow and blunt, I'll say that for as long as I've been old enough to have an outlook, my view of life is such that I would like to influence my more-than-just-casual acquaintances in some sort of positive way and to be there when I'm needed. It seems like you have a very positive outlook on life as well, as opposed to some of the other big stars you hear about. I was just wondering if your stardom has changed or influenced your outlook on life at all.

Thanks for being real.
Erik from Minnesota

Dear Erik,

To the very best of my ability I will try to protect my outlook on life. Even though every day I seem to feel another stone being hurled, I figure, step aside, let it pass, then pick it up and use it in my garden!

Sandra

Even though it was the most successful of all, The Net has still faced lackluster sales. So maybe the end is in site. We've got a long wait, though. According to c|net central (a sort of Entertainment Tonight for terminal-jockeys) we're also going to be subjected to:

Strange Days (20th Century Fox)
The story of a guy who sells a machine that records real-life experiences and allows people to play them back through their cerebral cortexes. This is set in the year 2000, so those folks at Nintendo better start working now on The Real Life Adventures of Mario (get up, scratch, feed Yoshi, read the paper, call Luigi, get in car, drive to work, jump some turtles, three-martini lunch, jump more turtles, go home, fall asleep in front of TV). Due out in October.

Copycats (Warner Brothers)
Sigourney Weaver gets stalked by an online psycho. Let me guess... she met him in an AOL chat room. Due out in early October.

Catching Kevin (Miramax)
A "based-in-fact" flick about Kevin Mitnick, who was arrested for cyberfraud. Due out in `96.

Mainframe (Amblin/Universal)
Steven Spielberg movie about an artificial intelligence computer that takes on a life of its own. Wait, wasn't that the plot of Short Circuit? Can a Guttenberg-Sheedy revival be underway?

F2F (Touchstone/Disney)
Another psycho stalks more victims. This must happen more often than I thought.

The Last Hacker (Touchstone/Disney)
A young hacker is born into the quiet confines of the imperial palace. Cut off from all human interaction, he is shocked by the real world when civil unrest thrusts him from his vaunted place in the world. Oh wait. That was The Last EMPEROR. Sorry. This one's about a teen hacker who gets on the FBI's most-wanted list.

Part II - Films That Failed: The Medical Films Exploitation Movement