Just discovered that iTunes Store [mdh 2023: defunct link] has Hardware (Richard Stanley, 1990) for $9.99 in HD! Blu-Ray is out of print, DVD was a trash VHS port. Best punk rock SF apocalypse flick. "It's horrible, I love it!"
One rewatch later…
Hardware looks even more prophetic now than when young cyberpunk Mark would watch the VHS over and over on a shitty CRT. Get used to the world of ecological disaster, locked into your apt by security systems installed by panopticon-watching perverts, terrorists with trucks smashing open buildings, people squatting & scavenging in the ruins. When a billion people near the uninhabitable equator starve and try to migrate away from global warming, you think anyone's gonna take them in? Or will we just irradiate the planet fighting wars, sterilize the mutant population, and let Google's autonomous killer robots knock us down to carrying capacity? I never believed in a future, and here it is.
… So, that went a little dark. Have a drink, a joint, a fuck, make some art, and play some cute distracting videogames to forget about the end of the world.
The soundtrack's another OOP classic, but here's the day's music based on it:
- Dawnrazor, by Fields of the Nephilim: Carl McCoy of FotN is the Zone Tripper, and they were intended to be the opening song, but Virgin only wanted their own artists.
- The Nephilim, by Fields of the Nephilim
- Elizium, by Fields of the Nephilim
- This is What You Want, This is What You Get, by Public Image Ltd
- The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste, by Ministry
- The Land of Rape and Honey, by Ministry
- Bomber, by Motörhead
- Ace of Spades, by Motörhead
- Raw Power, by Iggy & the Stooges
- Instinct, by Iggy Pop