34: Johnny Mnemonic (1995)

Good friend of the crew and cyberpunk expert Austin Walker joins us to round out our month of '90s action/sci-fi "classics" with a deep dive into Robert Longo and William Gibson's troubled but fascinating Johnny Mnemonic. So plug your brain directly into this pod as we save the world from evil corporations and drop a few busses on people along the way. CHAPTERS: (00:00:00) - NOTE: Some timecodes may be inaccurate in versions other than the ad-free Patreon version due to dynamic ad insertions. Please use caution if skipping around to avoid spoilers. Thanks for listening. (00:00:18) - Intro for the movie and our guest: Austin Walker! (00:02:59) - Our histories with this week's movie: Johnny Mnemonic. (00:06:12) - A little cyberpunk history overview. (00:12:13) - Talking about production history, and Gibson and Robert Longo. (00:18:07) - Discussing the different cuts of the film that are out there. (00:26:38) - What a cast we have floating in this cyberpunk soup. (00:36:40) - Let's get into the actual movie with a dramatic reading of the intro crawl. (00:44:08) - Johnny's brain tech and his role as a courier. (00:49:48) - The free city of...Newark? (00:51:33) - Johnny makes a bad decision, and some talk on Keanu's ability as a physical actor. (00:58:14) - Break! (00:58:31) - We're back, and laser razor wires are cool as hell. Also, talking about the movie's villain problem. (01:06:55) - Wasting away in the free city of Newark. Searching for my lost three pictures of anime. (01:14:54) - What's with the computer lady? (01:21:04) - Henry Rollins' big moment, and Johnny needs to get on the computer. (01:29:02) - The movie gets stuck in a weird gear for a while here. (01:33:02) - Johnny's big moment of clarity. (01:42:31) - The message will be delivered via the medium of the future: television. (01:50:18) - What a mess of a climax. (02:02:31) - View of a burning Pharmacom tower. Also, apologies for misidentifying a God Lives Underwater song as Stabbing Westward. We'll do better in the future. (02:06:54) - Final thoughts on the film. (02:13:06) - Outro. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.