I found this on sale for $11 a few months ago and finally got around to watching it for the first time. It’s actually an incredible film, and brought back the excitement I felt seeing the first one in the theatre 27 years ago.
I realize that a lot of you may disagree, and if so, allow me to explain it to You with the utmost diplomacy: I̶t̶’̶s̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶a̶u̶s̶e̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶ ̶a̶r̶e̶ ̶o̶b̶j̶e̶c̶t̶i̶v̶e̶l̶y̶ ̶o̶n̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶s̶t̶u̶p̶i̶d̶e̶s̶t̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶w̶h̶o̶ ̶h̶a̶s̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶r̶ ̶l̶i̶v̶e̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶i̶s̶t̶o̶r̶y̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶h̶u̶m̶a̶n̶ ̶r̶a̶c̶e̶,̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶o̶p̶i̶n̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶s̶o̶ ̶b̶r̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶d̶e̶a̶d̶ ̶i̶t̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶i̶n̶v̶a̶l̶i̶d̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶d̶e̶b̶i̶l̶i̶t̶a̶t̶e̶d̶ ̶a̶s̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶’̶v̶e̶ ̶b̶e̶c̶o̶m̶e̶.̶
The “cup of tea” you are drinking from doesn’t exist, and never did. The spoonfed spoonful of sugar that made the medicine go down…? That fastfood “hamburger” you crammed down your gullet for dinner? That was your brain cannibalizing itself.
Aeon of the Living Dead.
I wondered why I hadn’t really heard people talking about it (I didn’t start watching Hollywood movies again really until a year or two after it came out in 2021). I had a feeling as soon as I began watching it that it would alienate both The Left and The Right, because the film is deeply allegorical, and most of you will just be grappling haplessly against the void haunted by the fact that your busted up sense of self identity can’t reconcile with its own schismed line of sight.
You’ve been crippled by the culture,
still hanging on to some amnesia
of a time when you actually paid attention.
Blame it on the vultures
Hovering above you…
And still you wonder, wonder why they fly
Above your sightless eyes?
Take another pill, prick.
Century of the Self.
This movie is a litmus test
For the state of your braindeath.
This is not a drill,
Ceci n’est pas
Pas le passé,
The only “drill” is in your head.
Don’t panic, your sense of abandonment
Comes from looking in the mirror,
Still hearing voices of the glass shatter
Krystallnacht of the soul,
Speaking through your chattering teeth
Pitter patter tempo skipped a beat
Quantized discretely
Freedom fading from The Dream
Like a digital brick to the face
Wake the f#ck up, indeed:
Although ya try to discredit, ya still never read it
The needle, I’ll thread it, radically poetic
Standin’ with the fury that they had in ’66
And like E-Double “I’m Mad”,
still knee deep in the system’s shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I’ll give you a dose but it can never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air in the land of hypocrisy
Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease when their heads are flown
‘Cause all these punks got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, (What!) the judges (What!), the feds
Networks at work, keeping people calm
You know they went after the King
when he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot
Yeah
Yeah, back in this
With poetry my mind I flex
“Flip” like Wilson, vocals never lackin’ that finesse
What do I got to, what do I got to do, to wake you up?
To shake you up, to break the structure up?
‘Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I’m like taking photos, mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove, then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the “Stutter Step” then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yeah, several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream and put it to an end
You better beware the retribution with mind war
2020 visions and murals with metaphors.
–Rage Against the Machine… 1992.
Also in 1999… I lamentfully fell asleep as a 10 year old watching RATM play Woodstock ’99.
I woke up when it was over.
