So many choices here, ranging from Cabinet of Dr. Caligari to The Matrix.

Let me chime in with two recent favorites: eXistenZ and Dark City.

The April 1999 issue of Sight and Sound has the former on the cover and
features both an interview-cum-feature on Cronenberg as well as a sidebar
on virtual realities in film by Kim Newman called "Time machines." Not too
scholarly but fascinating reading that looks at several films.

Scott Bukatman's "Who programs you? The science fiction of the spectacle"
is one of my favorite essays and deals with this as well, mentioning
Burroughs, Philip K. Dick's UBIK, Videodrome, Baudrillard's simulacra, and
Debord's spectacle. My copy is from Postmodern After-Images: A Readerin
Film, Television and Video (edited by Peter and Will Brooker and published
by Arnold), but I think the Bukatman was first published in Alien Zone, a
reader on science fiction edited by Annette Kuhn (?).

Andrew

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