Some buddies down in Austin threw a big party this past weekend that was 24 straight hours of post-apocalyptic films on two screens. I'd seen plenty of them and tried to make an effort to watch a couple of films I'd never seen before (which is how I can now say I've seen RoboJox and She Wolves of the Wasteland).
Cherry 2000 was one of the films I hadn't seen before. Hell I didn't even know it existed! A drunken hipster explain the plot to me and I was thoroughly surprised (and a little delighted).
It had that 80s to early 90s "future" vibe that gets a child of the 80s all nostalgic, but it also had the most bat shit set up I've ever seen. Like this movie felt straight out of a manga or something.
Watching it I like to think that the creators of Cowboy Bebop pulled some of their aesthetics from this film. That fusion of pure 1950s and 1870s Americana was pretty wild.
My two favorite aspects of the film would have to be the complete lack of grit (thank fucking Christ) and the lengths they went to to make the lead character likable.
The former is just refreshing. Grit and the post apocalypse just go hand in hand. Seeing these two attractive people roaming through the desert and staying clean and not going up against some Mad Max rejects was just...nice. It made me warm and fuzzy.
But the kicker was that lead character. I mean the guy is an absolute creep. He's risking life and limb and willingly going to kill people so he can get a REALLY nice vibrator. But they want you to feel for the guy. So they make human sex all bothersome and the women (except for Melanie Griffith) are all terrible human beings.
They actually try really hard to create a love triangle between a nice woman, the creep and a sex doll. The audacity behind that, and the very serious way they treat that story is just fantastic. And that big climactic choice he had to make while flying around in a plane? I was in hysterics over that.
I'm pretty sure this film is about to go into my guilty pleasure box alongside Calamity Jane. A lot of fun that's so blatantly sexist that you can't help but smile and ruffles it's hair.
Cherry 2000 was one of the films I hadn't seen before. Hell I didn't even know it existed! A drunken hipster explain the plot to me and I was thoroughly surprised (and a little delighted).
It had that 80s to early 90s "future" vibe that gets a child of the 80s all nostalgic, but it also had the most bat shit set up I've ever seen. Like this movie felt straight out of a manga or something.
Watching it I like to think that the creators of Cowboy Bebop pulled some of their aesthetics from this film. That fusion of pure 1950s and 1870s Americana was pretty wild.
My two favorite aspects of the film would have to be the complete lack of grit (thank fucking Christ) and the lengths they went to to make the lead character likable.
The former is just refreshing. Grit and the post apocalypse just go hand in hand. Seeing these two attractive people roaming through the desert and staying clean and not going up against some Mad Max rejects was just...nice. It made me warm and fuzzy.
But the kicker was that lead character. I mean the guy is an absolute creep. He's risking life and limb and willingly going to kill people so he can get a REALLY nice vibrator. But they want you to feel for the guy. So they make human sex all bothersome and the women (except for Melanie Griffith) are all terrible human beings.
They actually try really hard to create a love triangle between a nice woman, the creep and a sex doll. The audacity behind that, and the very serious way they treat that story is just fantastic. And that big climactic choice he had to make while flying around in a plane? I was in hysterics over that.
I'm pretty sure this film is about to go into my guilty pleasure box alongside Calamity Jane. A lot of fun that's so blatantly sexist that you can't help but smile and ruffles it's hair.
