Metal Cinema: Y2K (2024)

 

Due to too many posts waiting in the queue, I decided to release them this week in the global language only - Polscy czytelnicy wybaczcie!

In today's feature, I will do something different: I will write about a move that I enjoyed, but which at the same time, is probably despised by majority of people in the world.

There is some kind of strange fetish that people have about the 90s, that is much more prevailing than previous attempts at mimicking 80s or 70s, or even 50s. I assume that it is due to the fact that 90s were something of an end of an era, or rather, a logical outcome of the development of XX century - the conservative, traditional values were still going strong, but at the same time, the liberal / alternative values were also flourishing, but not dominating the main discourse in politics. And the technology was more or less what we have today, only not as advanced.

The plot deals with the teenagers in 1999 trying to save the world from the upcoming apocalypse. Kinda typical, but I don't really feel like telling the main story. Nope, I'd rather focus on the artefacts presented in the movie, which are treated both with nostalgia, but also in a satirical manner.

We can see the music store 😭, CDs 😭, Tamagotchi 😭, VHS 😭, early internet, Bill Clinton, among other nods to the glorious 90s. The soundtrack itself features the likes of Fatboy Slim, Korn, Soul of Mischief, or ATB. Weirdly enough, it doesn't feature the famous Chumbawamba song, which chorus is sang a lot in the movie. "Y2K" was directed by Kyle Mooney (born 1984) in his directorial debut (better late than never I guess), so maybe it was his way of exorcising his teenage years, or maybe giving them a proper send off. Who knows. There is a humor in the way it is all presented, but no malice.

The cast features some people I recognize from other films, but I'm not going to bother to google their names. Sorry folks, I'm an old fart after all, and I need my daily share of yelling at clouds to survive. 

So, why the hell do I even wrote about this movie? The answer is below, and it's something of a spoiler, so...

You

have

been

warned

...

..

.

 

 

Yes, big ole Fred Durst himself appears in the flick. You love him. You hate him, You love to hate him, but including him there in person, is actually a pretty clever disemination of the 90s and what they were about. Hell, he is THE FACE of the late 90s, early 00s. The face of maligned Nu Metal, which I probably will discuss in the future in much greater depth. And his role in the "downfall" of Metal is actually dealt with here in half-serious manner, but pretty reflective of how people feel about that era. It certainly takes balls to publicly make fun of yourself, and deal with how you are being perceived by (significant) others. For that act of self-deprecation alone, I applaud Mr. Durst.

And that would be it. Not everyone will enjoy the movie the way I did, but I am very happy that it exists.