Black + White Friday: The Net

I can't remember who it was (Ebert?), but I read a review of The Net once that pondered what the great Alfred Hitchcock would have made of the Internet. I'm sure he would have done something far more amazing with it than Irwin Winkler did in the early days of the product (is it a product as such?) that we now take for granted.

Having said that (oh you knew this was coming), I freakin' love The Net. Sure, it's not a great movie by a long shot, but I think it's a hoot and a half. I first saw it on good ol' VHS in my initial love affair with Sandra Bullock (right after Speed, natch) and for some odd reason I kept imagining myself in her shoes as a computer geek who takes her laptop to the beach. For whatever reason, I always suspected I'd be a hardcore computer geek. Thankfully it didn't turn out that way, although these days it feels like I'm on here enough to officially call myself one.

Nevertheless, I thought we'd take a look to see if The Net were filmed in black and white. Is it anything like Hitchcock?


In Hitchcock she'd be blonde. And perhaps would have an identical twin/evil deceased mother spirit/murderous husband. Sandra has none of those. Poor gal. :(


Remember when Jeremy Northam was actually sorta hot. Remember in old movies when they could occasionally allow their lead actor to take their shirt off and, unlike today, they didn't all have rippling muscles and manicured chests. Bless.


This actually looks like it's from an old movie. Except Sandy's hair is too messy. Not even socially inept geeks had messy hair in classic movies (unless you're Bette Davis in Now Voyager if I remember correctly).


Even in times of panic - such as when your identity has been stolen while on vacation in Mexico - a Hitchcock leading lady would never wear this. She'd still be dressed up in a nice hoop skirt frock or, if it was his later period, a tweed skirt suit number with a cute-slash-stern-school-teacher up 'do. Never a loose-fitting shirt and a miniskirt.


I just took this shot because it's hilarious! This was only 13 years ago, folks!


Hitchcock loved a good carnival fair, did he not?


I don't have anything to add about this shot, I just like it.


The Net's most outlandishly preposterous moment - and in a movie full of them, that's quite an achievement really - is when Bullock's character becomes a fugitive in a high speed chase on the freeway, which then leads into a foot chase across a rocky, muddy riverbed! Oh man, I couldn't make this shit up, I swear! This movie has everything, I tell ya! EVERYTHING! It really would be a fantastic "Cinema of the Absurd" entry, would it not?


Yay! My favourite scene in the movie. If this were Hitchcock then all those women would be paper-pushing secretaries who wouldn't know technology if it spoke to them on a daily basis while serving muffins. And the whole movie would be about shorthand.


High-waisted pants... really?!?

And thus it goes. I'm sure Hitchcock would be rolling in the isles!