The Fount of the Gaping Maw

    Above, “Angelina Jolie, Lusty Spring” by David LaChapelle. Click to enlarge. And please visit the source.
    As I ponder this intoxicating image and savor the prurient implications of that gaping maw, my cable company and Movieplex are presently offering Hackers (1995) for free on demand. It’s a ridiculous movie which has sucked me in time and again, the initial draw a brazen LaJolie, then twenty-years-old, voluptuous mouth, piercing eyes, boyish ‘do and wrinkle-free baby fat so rounded, so fully packed, a yummy dish of young womanhood who prompts the screen mother of the character she’s falling for to quip, “Now I see what all the fuss is about!”
    Now, indeed. If there’s anything that’s nowhere near ‘now,’ it’s this lame account of computer nerdism among middle-class adolescents back when the web was in its infancy and hacking, as the script would have it, a viable activity among sleazy teenage outlaws who answer to handles like Acid Burn and Crash Override. (Prone to self-nipple-pinching, Matthew Lillard’s braided, tongue-wagging Cereal Killer is among the foremost grotesques of modern cinema.) As I remember it, 1995 was something of a pop culture wasteland tragically anchored to the 80s while meekly anticipating the revolution of the hard drive. Our rollerblading troupe in Hackers (three or four totally righteous dudes to LaJolie’s one tough cookie) save the dial-up universe with their ADHDs and floppy discs.
    As a fan of Pink Floyd and Floyd guitarist David Gilmour, I was surprised to hear this number on the Hackers soundtrack. Written and performed by Guy Pratt, a rhythm guitarist who’s toured with Gilmour for more than twenty years, it features an uncredited Gilmour solo: