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Strange Days
James Cameron and Jak Cocks
HOST: So Dan, are you looking forward to the New Year? DAN: Not really. I mean what's the point? Nothing changes New Years 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?
LORI: If you read the Bible, Mark, you'd know that there won't be another thousand years. Right now we are in the Last Days, as foretold in the book of-- HOST: The Last Days? You mean the coming of the Apocalypse, right? The Rapture? LORI: Yes, that's right. You only have to look at the signs... there are wars and rumors of wars--
LENNY: Okay, let's get you wired up. I hope this axle grease you got in your hair doesn't screw up the squid receptors. EDUARDO: What's all this squid shit? LENNY: Superconducting QUantum Interference Device. SQUID. Got it? There's gonna be a test. EDUARDO: Hey, fuck you, man. LENNY: Easy, Eduardo, easy. Preserve a sense of humor at all times. Okay, the receptor rig... what I'm putting on your head... sends a signal to the recorder. See we call it "being wired," but there's no wire. You gotta keep the recorder close... five, six feet away max, like in your jacket pocket by the bed or wherever you're going to close escrow, know what I mean? EDUARDO: Yeah, right. LENNY: Some tips. Don't dart your eyes around. Don't look in the mirror or you'll ID yourself. OK? You got a half hour of tape, so give me some lead-in to the main event. But don't wait too long, I don't want to be going out for popcorn. And don't act natural. Don't act at all. Just forget the thing is on. Got it? EDUARDO: No problem. LENNY: A star is born.
LENNY: That's right. Clips. Look, I want you to know what we're talking about here. This isn't like TV only better. This is life. It's a piece of somebody's life. Pure and uncut, straight from the cerebral cortex. You're there. You're doing it, seeing it, hearing it... feeling it. KEITH: What kind of things exactly? LENNY: Exactly anything. Whatever you want. Whoever you want to be. Fabri, get us another round, would you. You want to go skiing without leaving your den, you can. But I'm assuming a guy like you, you wanna go skiing you 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 adrenalin pumping through your veins. Or... see that guy, with the drop-dead Philipino girl friend? Wouldn't you like to be that guy for twenty minutes? The right twenty minutes. I can make it happen. And you won't even tarnish your wedding ring.
MAX: You know how I know it's the end of the world? Because everything's been done, every kind of music's been tried, every government's been tried, every fuckin' hairstyle. How you gonna make it another thousand years, for Chrissake? MACE: Excuse me. What part of NO don't you understand? LENNY: Way I look at it, I actually perform a humanitarian service. I save lives. MACE: Uh huh, I wanna hear this part. LENNY: Okay, take some executive... bored with his life, bored with his wife... he picks up a hooker or some girl at a bar. Then he goes around for months, torn up worrying that he's got AIDS, that he'll infect his wife. And maybe he really does catch something-- MACE: Price he pays for being a scumsucking pig. LENNY: Everybody needs to take a walk to the dark end of the street sometime, it's what we are. But now the risks are outa line. The streets are a war zone. And sex can kill you. So you slip on the trodes, you get what you need and it keeps you from jumping your tracks. MACE: Lenny, this shit's illegal. LENNY: Define illegal. MACE: Me bailing your sorry pale ass out of jail twice in the last six months. LENNY: Yeah, but that was for love. MACE: Define love.
STRICKLAND: I don't like disappointments, Nero. And do you know what disappoints me very much? LENNY: Your sex life? STRICKLAND: Your existence.
TRAN: Lenny the loser. Panhandler of stolen dreams. FAITH: Leave him alone, Tran. TRAN: He's no concern of mine, as long as you don't talk to him. Don't talk to anybody. You understand? Not with everything that's going on right now. FAITH: You're too goddamned paranoid. TRAN: Paranoia's only reality on a finer scale.
MACE: Now you're really getting paranoid. LENNY: The question is not whether I am paranoid, but whether I am paranoid enough.
MACE: Take it easy. The glass is bullet resistant. LENNY: Bullet resistant? Whatever happened to bullet proof?
LENNY: Goddamnit!! 911 is busy! MACE: It's okay, Lenny They'd never get here in time anyway.
MACE: So you're saying we just pretend is didn't happen? It happened! The LAPD executed one of the most important black men in America! Who the fuck are you to bury this?! MAX: Fine. Do you want blood running waist deep in the storm drains? The gangbangers'll spread like a wave through this city and burn it to the ground. And when the fires start the street cops'll be capping off at anything that moves. It'll be all- out war and you know it. MACE: Yeah, well maybe it's time for a war!
MACE: Lenny! This is your life, Lenny! Right here. Right now. This is realtime... not playback. Real... time. Time to get real. Understand what I'm saying... she doesn't love you. Maybe she did once, I don't know, but she doesn't now. These are used emotions. It's time to trade them in. Lenny, memories were meant to fade. They're designed that way for a reason.
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: A cop? You want me to trust a cop?! LENNY: No. Trust me. MACE: Oh boy. What if you're wrong? LENNY: Then we'll be right where we are now. MACE: Yeah, right. Fucked. |