Thoughts on Strange Days (1995)?

It’s a deeply flawed film that is, in its way, perfect to me. The most nagging of those flaws is that, yes, it “chickenshits” the ending, but the broad emotional beats work enough for me that it doesn’t bother me as much as it could or even should. I just find its atmosphere so intoxicating, such a uniquely tactile rendition of a sort of grungy, grimy cyberpunk that I tend to love, and I think the two lead characters (and Fiennes’ and Bassett’s performances) are so compelling and endearing. I don’t tend to evaluate movies on the “likability” of characters, but man, I love those characters.

One of my favorites - of the ‘90s, of its genre(s), and in general - and bar none my favorite Bigelow, though I also strongly prefer her early-career genre stuff to her later-career pivot into the “serious.”

It's my favorite Bigelow. I really love it and think it's a pretty staggering work in the modern context of how omnipresent visual media is, be it for the simple pleasures/escapism or the startling reality we're exposed to on a consistent basis. It's a movie acting as a response to Rodney King that now feels like a look forward to the internet age.