Sometimes one of your favorite movies is celebrating its 25th Anniversary and you can’t find anyone who will let you write about it. In moments like this, you remember, hey I have my own neglected site! This is one of those moments. In these days of quarantine, there are no rules. And when there are no rules, I get to run on at the mouth (keyboard?) about STRANGE DAYS. So strap on that SQUID—that’s a STRANGE DAYS reference, folks—and settle in for a good time.

[Before I get too far, if you are interested in a more review like look at the film, please check out this piece. I wrote about all of director Kathryn Bigelow’s films to date around 2017 and STRANGE DAYS, unsurprisingly, got a huge amounts of words spilled on the internet about it courtesy of me.]

For me, any discussion of DAYS begins with the trailer. I was 14 when the film hit theatres and given its size and the ways of marketing back then, I was more than likely 14 when the trailer started to show up in theatres. Perhaps 13. Either way, it is one of the first trailer that I really noticed. In particular the final thirty seconds. In quick cuts, the leads names flashed on primary color title cards in the midst of out of context glimpses of the film, all set to the bridge of Skunk Anansie’s “Selling Jesus.”

It is not a particularly unique trick now. One could argue that most trailers have taken that format and make the majority of the trailer’s running time rather than just a fifth. Hell, I’m not even sure how unusual it was at the time. However, it was so perfectly done. The right colors, the right snippets of action, a near perfect match of music and image. In the years since, it remains an absolute personal gold standard for film marketing. When I imagine great trailers, their DNA is always rooted in that STRANGE DAYS clip.

Despite my love of the trailer, I never saw STRANGE DAYS in theatres. I suspect a combination of factors was to blame. For one, any movies I saw with friends were seen at one of the two inexpensive theatres near me, the Newington Twin Theatre, which may still have been 99 cents a ticket, or the Elm Hill Theatre. Both were second run movie house with limited screens (two and three, respectively) and thus typically only selected the blockbusters to keep themselves afloat. A 42-million dollar sci-fi film that only made about 7 million in first run multiplexes would not be an ideal choice for either theatre.

I did see a ton of first run movies with my mother on weekends she picked me up (child of divorce, y’all!). However, in 1995, my mom and I had already seen DESPERADO (in late August) and TO DIE FOR (the week before STRANGE DAYS opened) together. Both unconventional R-rated films, both boasting sex scenes that caused maximum discomfort for a 14-year-old boy sitting next to his mom. I think I opted out of suggesting STRANGE DAYS out of sheer fear of going through that again.

Equally likely is that, as I usually saw mom only every other weekend, that we simply missed the window. The week after STRANGE DAYS hit theatres, GET SHORTY came out. SHORTY had better buzz and starred John Travolta, a mom favorite. Given DAYS box office reception. It may have already been gone by the October 20th and, if not, certainly was by November 3rd when I know the mother-son bonding experience was THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT.

In any case, my mortification had to wait until April of 1996 when my dad and stepmom brought home the STRANGE DAYS on VHS from one of our local Blockbusters (we had literally 3 in my town…what a time). Remembering the trailer, I was super excited to watch. I forgot that whole R-rated for nudity thing.

While STRANGE DAYS does not open on a lesbian sex scene, all these years and watchings later, it still FEELS like it does to me. Every time I recall the first time I attempted to see DAYS, my brain tells me it was, lights dim, Dad hits play, two topless women having sex. This is a faulty memory—ironic considering the theme of the slippery and dangerous nature of memory in the film—and even though I know it is, it FEELS 100% accurate to me.

It does, however, occur early on, like first 10 minutes. I stuck with it as long as I could. Made it through that, in retrospect short, scene. But I had to bail. My own sense of mortification was too damn developed. I literally couldn’t focus on the movie over trying to figure out “so how interested should I be here? If I seem too interested, am I perv? Not interested enough, like I’m making a show? Or worse, I might miss something. And dear God, what if there’s ANOTHER sex scene?!” Look, I live a life of relative privilege and back then was no exception. But my brain did PLENTY to make me as uncomfortable and self-doubting in that privilege as possible.

And when I did start to fake it til I could make it to get past that? Someone close to me said no one liked someone that confident. Ah, but that’s a story for the memoir.

Anyway, the next day my dad told me that it “was actually very good,” and encouraged me to watch before it was due back. So I waited until I had the television to myself to give DAYS another shot and did just that. And thank God I did because I loved it. Not only did I love it, it created an interest in Kathryn Bigelow movies in general. Which led to, well, this project, but also just a deeper appreciation for movies in general.

I can’t say STRANGE DAYS made me fall in love with movies because that lot was cast way before that. Heck, that was probably baked into my genetic code. It was, however, another step deeper. It as sci-fi with something on its mind. It didn’t blanch at sex or nudity or violence or uncomfortable discussions of race or addiction or or or. Not everyone movie needs to punch you in the nose with this stuff but some should and much of Bigelow’s first period was filled with films that consistently did just that. Why not have great action scenes and refuse to look away from cops’ violent desecration of their duty? Why not ponder sex as love and sex as economic transaction? Films are big enough to do everything, it seems worthwhile to take the medium out for those kinds of spins now and again.

I confess I don’t have much else to say about the movie that I didn’t say back when I wrote about it in 2017. I’ve been pitching around an article about DAYS as being prophetic about this moment, not 2000, but frankly the level of detail that would require isn’t something I am willing to spend the effort or depression on here. I’m sorry if you feel robbed by that.

However, I still wanted to write about it. To write about us, I guess. Which I know sounds unbelievably cheesy, but there it is. Movies matter. And movies especially matter to me. They’ve left their mark on me as sure as anything. That doesn’t diminish my friendship or familial relationships, my victories, failures, or tragedies. Or at least, I don’t think it does. It just acknowledges that mixed up in that…rue that is me, movies are an undeniable agreement.

It’s also that if STRANGE DAYS is 25, that means Ralph Fiennes and Angela Bassett and Vincent D’Onofrio and Juliette Lewis are all 25 years older. More egocentrically, that means I’m 25 years older too. Staring down 40 in the all too close distance.

I honestly don’t know what to do with that. Forty is really of no more significance than my current age or 41. The fact that my daughter will be 10 is, I think, a bigger milestone. And yet, it feels like something, you know? My family is preparing to move to a new home in just few weeks, likely to be the last place I willingly live, depending on disease and memory. In some ways, I can feel my life taking root around me, for real, for good.

I don’t hate it. Truly I don’t. I’m a sentimentalist by nature, but I’m also someone with, at times, brutal anxiety so the thought of being set is undeniably appealing. But there is still a part of me that beats with the desire for the confusion, the anxiety, and even the mortification of being a 14-year-old discovering, for the first time, a movie destined to be his favorite. I’m happy. I’m rooted. But I sometimes worry I’m letting that version of myself down.

STRANGE DAYS, among all other things it highlights and brings to mind, makes me sit with that. I think that’s good. Uncomfortable, discomfiting, but good. All that 14-year-old wanted was to feel comfortable in his own skin and I’ve done my best to give him that gift, but maybe there’s something to not being totally comfortable, completely set.

DAYS especially stokes these feelings, I suspect, because of how it ponders memory. Fiennes’ Lenny Nero can recall his happiest memories exactly because he has them recorded and waiting for him via the SQUID. Anytime, anywhere, he can remember and relive the moments most important to him.

However, that perfect recall robs of his present. His inability to let the moments since mold and change those memories makes it impossible for him to evolve. Everything about his life has changed since then but he can’t adapt to it because his digital memories have anchored him in the past. That’s the danger of a head full of a beautiful past. How do you move on when those memories feel so much better? How do you toss over a sure thing for a risky proposition?

I don’t know. But I “like” wrestling with all that. And I love doing that as a movie I love reminds me of why all over again, frame by frame.