Just saw this 1988 John Carpenter flick for the first time. It's not a great movie, but it's very well done, very watchable and definitely worth seeing if you haven't.
Great concept of the Hoffman shades-- they allow you to see "reality", all the aliens and their subliminal messages everywhere in the media. And of course the mainstream media and authorities are in on the deception.
a classic line from the main character played by the recently deceased Roddy Piper:
"I came here to chew bubblegum and kick some ass... and I'm all out of bubblegum."
Importantly, the movie hits on a major conspiracy theme: aliens living among us, using us and controlling us.
This early sequence basically tells the story, then I love how the 33's show up on the TVs, in a new scene, right after he tells us about the secret evil PTB (screen shots from the DVD):
No, I don't think the two different 33's showing up right after that speech (in the price tags on the TVs he sees) was a coincidence.