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Reality Bites

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lawn6.jpg ![lawn6.jpg](https://assets-global.website-files.com/62ee0bbe0c783a903ecc0ddb/6472a7905ba4190969f7e838_lawn6.jpeg) “The Lawnmower Man,” (1992). 107 Minutes. 35 mm. Courtesy Mad Dimension. [](https://flaunt-mag.squarespace.com/config/pages/587fe9d4d2b857e5d49ca782#)[](https://flaunt-mag.squarespace.com/config/pages/587fe9d4d2b857e5d49ca782#) Reality Bites The Future Is Weird, Terrifying, but Strangely Awesome Here’s something new—Brett Leonard’s once-shitty, now cult-classic _The Lawnmower Man_ may have accidentally been way ahead of its time. Read carefully. CGI was created in the late ’60s with Charles Csuri and James Shaffer’s _Hummingbird_ (a 10-minute computer-animated film), but really started to take flight in the early ’90s. The reason it boomed in this era was, well, the Internet. The World Wide Web had become part of everyday life and had opened the floodgates for ideas involving movies, video games, and Michael Jackson music videos. Virtual reality is the immersive extension of these graphics and their experimentation in the excitable ’90s. As a cinematic experience, almost every movie based on virtual reality is worse than a thousand _Battlefield Earth_’s. Films like _The__Lawnmower Man_ (1992), _Johnny Mnemonic_ (1995), David Cronenberg’s _Existenz_ (1999), and a few other cyberpunk movies were made during a time when computer generated imagery (CGI) was shifting—it started looking more believable. Some of these films made a large impact and are still mimicked in the film industry today, most notably _The Matrix_ (1999) and the excellent _Strange Days_ (1995); some are deemed cult classics because of their accidental campiness (_The Lawnmower Man_), and the rest got stuck in the “pure shit” pile. To give you an idea of the timeframe _The Lawnmower Man_ was released: Smack in the middle of _Terminator 2: Judgement Day_ (1991) and _Jurassic Park_ (1993), two ethereal masterpieces that still hold up perfectly today. Not until James Cameron’s _Avatar_ (2009) did CGI mesmerize when taking place _outside_ of reality (it should be noted motion capture technology helped this, heavily). _Johnny Mnemonic_ and _The Lawnmower Man_ didn’t truly hold up because the majority of each film’s plot takes place in the virtual CGI world, which was very ugly, but the _idea_ behind both of them is pretty slick and inevitably hit years later. Add Kung Fu, side-burns for Keanu Reeves (they were shorn in _Mnemonic_, remember, and anybody who thought that was a good idea should be punched in the face one million times), and you have _The Matrix_. In _The Lawnmower Man_—released seven years before _The Matrix_—Dr. Lawrence Angelo (played by the delicious Pierce Brosnan) makes an illiterate man (Jeff Fahey) genius by making him watch a bunch of atrocious CGI through a VR headset. He had minor side effects: headaches, seizures, and the appetite to kill using telekinesis and a lawnmower. But, like Fahey’s dummy in _The Lawnmower Man_, can Virtual Reality programs really make someone smarter? Probably not, but the next best solution is coming: the Oculus Rift. It’s a fancier, upgraded Nintendo Virtual Boy (the 32-bit red menace headgear released back in ’95 and then subsequently discontinued for a number of reasons, lofty price among them) that gives you the opportunity to look around a 3-D environment in the most immersive way yet. Aside from this being the coolest gaming device ever, it’s perhaps the most ambitious piece of technology created in the 21st century. Word on the street is that once this thing gets going, customers will be able to fill all life activities—school, work, doctor, etc.—all with the convenience of sitting on their couch in sweatpants (So long, Human Interaction!). There are also talks that eventually viewers will be able to watch a movie with the Oculus Rift and look around while the movie carries along. Maybe this happens in our lifetime, but how cool would that be to experience? (“Pretty fucking cool” is the correct answer.) This is where the joke is on us and _The Lawnmower Man_ was ahead of its time (and why it’s worth mentioning). There’s a silly scene in the film where two people are strapped into their respective VR headsets and have sex in Virtual Reality. It’s one of the most ludicrous scenes in VR cinema history. That was in 1992. According to reports, when the Oculus Rift is made available in 2015, you’ll be able to have sex with anyone of your own creation—in the virtual space, of course. If this sounds ridiculous, kind of appalling and implausible, we’re on the same page, but perhaps this puppy will be strong enough to stimulate the sense of touch via the brain à la _The Matrix._ This article can really go on and on about awesome dangers of the Oculus Rift, but shit, life is short and it’s more fun to roll with the punches. Thank you, _Lawnmower Man_, for showing us 22 years ago that sex in the virtual world will be weird, terrifying, but strangely awesome.