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Strange Days (film)

1995 film by Kathryn Bigelow

Strange Days is a 1995 film set in a dystopian 1999 Los Angeles on New Year's Eve.

Directed by Kathryn Bigelow. Written by James Cameron (director) and Jay Cocks.
new year's eve 1999.
anything is possible. nothing is forbidden. (taglines)

Lenny Nero

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  • Look... everyone needs to take a walk to the dark end of the street sometimes. It's what we are.
  • Bullet-resistant? What ever happened to bullet-proof?

Max

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  • The issue's not whether you're paranoid, Lenny. I mean, look at this shit. The issue is whether you're paranoid enough.
  • You know how I know it’s the end of the world? Everything's already been done. Every kind of music’s been tried. Every kind of government’s been tried, every fucking hairstyle, bubble gum flavors, you know, breakfast cereal. What are we going to do? How are we going to make another thousand years? I’m telling you, man, it’s over. We used it all up.

Lornette 'Mace' Mason

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  • Memories are supposed to fade, Lenny. They're designed like that for a reason.
  • This is your life — right here, right now! It's real-time. You hear me? Real time! Time to get real, not playback. You understand me?

Faith Justin

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  • You know one of the ways that movies are still better than playback? 'cause the music comes up, there's credits, and you always know when it's over. [Turns to Lenny] It's over!

Jeriko One

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  • (rap lyrics)
    ... and you watch us take it all
    and then you'll understand our pain!
    We'll make you the rat
    that crawled through the cracks.
    You love that red, white and blue
    but you hate that black-black-black.

    And you try to make me think I did this to myself,
    when the drugs I smoke
    and the guns I tote
    both came from your shelf!
    …
    But I never had a dream, cuz.
    My life is a nightmare.
    America's been my bogey-man for four hundred years!
  • The mayor and the city council sit up in their offices with their social programs that don't work. These people are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic, but the new day is coming. 2K is coming! The day of reckoning is upon us. History ends and begins again — Right here! Right now!
  • (to the cops) You know what? You pulled over the wrong black male tonight officer — what is it? Steckler — Officer Steckler, because I'm that 800-pound gorilla in your midst, fucker! I make more money in a day than you make in a whole year! And my lawyer loves spending my money dragging sorry-ass Aryan Robocop fuckers like you to court! Get a man down on the ground with no probable cause? Man, fuck you!

Dialogue

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Talk radio host: So Dan, are you looking forward to the new year?
Dan: Not really. I mean, what's the point? Nothing changes on New Year's Day. The economy sucks. Gas is over three bucks a gallon. Fifth grade kids are shooting each other at recess. The whole thing sucks, right? So what the hell are we celebrating?
Lenny: Now listen. I want you to know what we're talking about here, OK? This is not like TV, only better. This is life. It's a piece of somebody's life. It's pure, uncut, straight from the cerebral cortex. I mean, you're there. You're doing it. You're seeing it. You're hearing it. You're feeling it.
Keith: What kind of things, exactly?
Lenny: Exactly anything. Whatever you want. Whoever you want to be, OK? You want to go skiing without leaving your den — you can. But I'm assuming that a guy like you — if you want to go skiing you'd fly to Aspen. That's not what you're interested in here. It's about the stuff you can't have, right? The forbidden fruit, like running into a liquor store with a .357 magnum in your hand, feeling the adrenaline pumping through your veins. Or … you see the guy over there with the drop-dead Filipino girlfriend? Wouldn't you like to be that guy for twenty minutes — the right twenty minutes? Yeah. I can make it happen, and you won't even tarnish your wedding ring.
Keith: That sounds good.
Lenny: I can get you what you want. I can. I can get you anything. You just have to talk to me. You have to trust me, OK? Trust me. I'm your priest. I'm your shrink. I am your main connection to the switchboard of souls. I'm the magic man, the Santa Claus of the subconscious. You say it — you think it — you can have it. Do you want a girl? Do you want two girls? I mean, I don't know what your thing is, what you're curious about. Do you want a guy? Maybe you want to be a girl. Hey, think of that: be a girl. See what that feels like. I mean, maybe you want a nun to tie you up. It's all doable.
Steckler: You're that rapper, Jeriko One? You're the one that's been getting all the gang-bangers together, going downtown, forming citizen groups, trying to rake the LAPD over a cheese grater?
Jeriko One: Yeah, that's right. And you're gonna be in my next song. It's gonna be called "Robo-Steckler." It's all about a cop who has his worst nightmare: a nigga with enough political juice to squash his ass like a stinkbug. You're gonna be famous, fucker!
Lenny: Have you ever been in love with somebody who didn't return that love?
Mace: Yeah, Lenny. I have.
Lenny: It didn't stop you from loving them. Right? Or understanding them, or being able to forgive them.
Mace: I guess.
Lenny: And it didn't stop you from wanting to protect them. Did it?
Mace: No, it didn't.
Mace: I can't believe you had to give them the damn tape.
Lenny: Yeah, I know. It was one of my favorites: me and Faith in the hot tub on my birthday. (takes the real tape out of his jacket) Are we impressed yet?
Mace: Yeah, pretty impressed.
Palmer Strickland: Nero.
Lenny Nero: Strickland.
Palmer Strickland: Comissioner Strickland!
Lenny Nero: See, since you shit-canned my career, I don't even have to call you sir. One of life's small pleasures.
Lenny Nero: I didn't know you were color blind, Max.
Max: It was the only way I could stand your ties.
Max: Only he doesn't know about me and Faith. So I say to myself: If I turn the job down, he just gets somebody else, and I lose Faith — to coin a phrase. So to buy time I do the skank. I still gotta do something about Tran. I figure it's him or me, but I can't cap him without a chump to take the fall. And who better than his girlfriend's loser ex-boyfriend, a known criminal who has been seen hassling them in public numerous times?
Lenny Nero: And who was, regrettably, also your best fucking friend.
Max: No plan is perfect, Lenny. Hey, cheer up. World's gonna end in ten minutes anyway.

Taglines

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  • new year's eve 1999. anything is possible. nothing is forbidden.
  • An extreme taste of reality.

Cast

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