Reconsidering Johnny Mnemonic

Some people study method acting but I'm studying wooden acting so I rented Johnny Mnemonic last night. This is my second time viewing this Robert Longo vehicle since it first came out. It stars two beautiful men: Keanu Reeves and Henry Rollins. Udo Kier is in it too! Rollins plays a doctor who is fighting an evil pharmaceutical company (an oxymoron?) that a has a cure for a terrible disease but will not release it. They want to continue making money treating the symptoms. International courier and mercenary Johnny stores the stolen code for the cure in his brain where the data has been uploaded via a socket in the back of his head (shades of John Astin in Candy). At the end of the movie everyone tells Johnny they have to hook him up to a dolphin in a dangerous download and he may die. He just wants to continue his plush courier expense account lifestyle and not be a hero. He loses it. Atop a mound of dried asphalt he yells "I WANT ROOM SERVICE! I want a club sandwich." Speaking of John Astin, Patty Duke is coming to the Castro Theater in San Francisco in July with a screening of Valley of the Dolls. I have it from the mouth of the producer, Marc Huestis who lives just a few doors down from me on Telegraph Hill. Why do I keep pronouncing mnemonic as pneumatic? There must be a special method by which I can remember this. The first time I saw Marc Huestis he played a hot male in fishnet stockings - a pool boy to Doris Fish in the play Sluts Au Go Go. This satire featured the girls going on a Bob Hope tour of Afghanistan and mind you this was in 1980. The other members included "Tippi" and Miss X. Now, what was I talking about? Oh yes, Johnny Pneumatic is not such a bad movie.

John Astin teaches method acting at at Johns Hopkins University.