http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-and-radio/friday-november-14-20141106-3jqix.html
Cypher (2002), Action Movies (pay TV), 8.30pm [Sydney Morning Herald, Nov 14 2012 Weekend TV guide]
Because we now see science-fiction films routinely made with budgets that could clear the national debt of a small African state, it's easy to forget that sometimes the best special effects don't come from a computer. Case in point: the extended close-ups of Lucy Liu's face in Cypher, where freckles, cigarette smoke and some stern (or von Sternberg?) usage of blue light prove more intriguing than much of the final Matrix movie. As Rita, an industrial spy circling Morgan Sullivan (Jeremy Northam), a bored everyman in over his head, Liu proves the femme fatale role can be as modern as it is traditionally timeless. The way Rita beguiles Morgan is matched by the expert number director Vincenzo Natali does on the audience's comprehension: his film is an Alice in Wonderland experience, with the plot continually descending levels as identities and allegiances change. In Natali's near future you can delete who you are, even what you know, but not what you want.
I mean, really! The man is in practically every shot of the movie and that's all he gets??
“Friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: 'What! You too? I thought I was the only one.'”
-- C.S. Lewis
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