Today we celebrate a film recommended by CPRM! This is not his first recommendation, he has been up a couple of other times. This is the one I am most excited about. This is a fantastic science-fiction film about mind manipulation and control, something which is near and dear to all of our hearts. You will notice that it kinda/sorta shares some similarities with The Matrix – please keep in mind this came out a year before the first Matrix film. In my opinion, Dark City is better. Let’s see what you all think!
So what is it about? I am turning to IMDB user nitehawk-8 today. Note that I did cut this review back, it was huge and had spoilers:
John Murdoch (Rufus Sewell) wakes up in an eerie hotel, naked and in the bathtub, with no memories and blood on his forehead. (I couldn’t imagine a more strange and frightening experience.) The ring of the hotel phone breaks the silence– a strange man on the other end tells him he must leave because there are people looking for him. Many events such as this one unfold in Dark City, where “man has no past… and humanity has no future”.
Dark City has been passed over by so many critics it’s depressing. I think that it should at least have been up for “original screenplay” or SOMETHING at the Oscars to reward Alex Proyas for his fantastic vision. I fail to see why so many people label this movie “noir” like it’s BAD or something. Being dark and twisted is not a crime, and despite some other people’s comments, this movie is NOT just for the trenchcoat-wearing masses (or if it is, maybe the rest of you can learn something from Goths). If you like sci-fi, dark plots and having reality be so well distorted that you don’t realize it IS, so you will love Dark City. (People who have seen the Matrix BEFORE this movie MUST see it, it is very similar in these three respects).
The visuals in this movie were absolutely stunning. The effects were NOT used to substitute for the plot, like other movies such as Starship Troopers, Lost in Space and Alien: Resurrection. They were used only as needed and were breathtaking. The editing is NOT as choppy as is rumored, it only lends to the power of the movie. There are some heart-stopping images in Dark City. Watch for the Strangers’ clock, views of the city and John’s memories.
Proyas takes ideas and ambience from many other movies but integrates them all neatly into Dark City. Gotham City is clearly seen as is Metropolis and other influences such as Ed Hopper’s “Nighthawks” dominate in the diner scenes. The forty-ish era (yet strangely futuristic) city is known to be populated, and yet it is ominously empty (hence one of Hopper’s main themes, isolation in large cities). (It’s especially quiet at midnight, hehehehe… ;D ) This 40’s era ambience together with the sci-fi fantasy undercurrent makes for a very interesting feeling while watching.
That was a ton of exposition on this film, so I am going to leave it at that. Thank you CPRM, for an excellent film recommendation!
So watch! Or don’t! Everything is voluntary! Next week we celebrate the film choices of Evan with Brotherhood of the Wolf!
Note
Surprise! FOX bought Roku. This may be good, or it may be bad. Hoping for positive changes. As a reminder, the Roku interface for smart TVs is fantastic, and it is LINUX – based, not android based. It has the most cable-like channel interface too, that works with over the air and streaming channels in one place. Roku did need help as TCL dumped them for Android – based Fire TVs this last year, which resulted in pretty spectacular discounts on TCL Roku smart TVs for a few months. I am hoping FOX keeps the OS and the streaming licenses intact. Why does this matter? FOX also owns TUBI. Now what happens?
“wakes up in an eerie hotel, naked and in the bathtub”
I’ve done that.
Me too.
Won’t happen tonight since I’ve temporarily quit drinking. Got some old school northern lights to go with this 28 year-old movie though.
NOLA 2006
How many kidneys did you have left?
Both
Just don’t ask me where I got my shoes.
I have never seen this – looking forward to it.
I’ve seen it but it was a long time ago.
It’s great.
“LINUX – based, not android based”
Thought android was based on linux?
Also, is android sexist?
I thought it was too.
I’m not even sure what a Roku is or does but my Smart TV is “Google TV” based and the interface is generally garbage and the “combine” feature that is supposed to combine various apps doesn’t work.
I have a google TV (newer $200 TCL) and android TV (older $1K Sony). Never did any app stuff on either of them though.
Do androids dream of electronic sheep?
The Total Recall remake is on tubi, but it sucks.
Not even gonna bother with that.
I liked it.
Give them some credit, they kept the 3 titted hooker.
Both Roku and Android are Linux kernel.
Android TV is a specialized version of the Android phone OS.
LEXX is on tubi.
That was a fun show but I barely remember it.
Every episode is 1 1/2 hours, so I can do a series introduction on a Thursday.
Suggestion added.
I just emailed CPRM about this film that popped up called “Wake the Death Treasure.”
Here are some details about it from Brave’s Leo:
Wake Up the Death Treasure is a super-8mm film directed by Tac Miyamoto, included as a bonus feature on the “Visual Bandits” Series Blu-ray release. The film features miniature effects and depicts a giant, spider-like machine emerging from the ground to attack cities, with the army engaging in an ineffective battle against it.
The “Visual Bandits” series, also directed by Miyamoto, includes the films Tombstone for the Blank, Salamander Pissicida, and Light Way Home, all characterized by a distinctive “X-Files” vibe involving kaiju and aliens. This limited Blu-ray release, restricted to 200 units (expandable to 1,000 if sold out by July 1st), is expected to ship in late October 2025.
Quite the rabbit hole.
“Suggestion added.”
It’s a TV show not a movie.
Still works. I did the Aquabats Super Show.
The pool guys are still laying gunite and sanding. It is so loud I went to hide in the other wing in the guest room.
There are no mixed drinks or spare smoking jackets in here.
Look at the guy rich enough to have a separate wing of his house.
We have two wings.
Giant kitchen dining living room open floor plan impossible to keep clean room and our sleeping cells.
Where do you live? Stately Wayne Manor?
Jennifer Connelly! Should have led with that!
Yes! My apologies. I all but outsourced to an IMDB reviewer due to time constraints.
I don’t know this lead actor but he has a spectacular ass. I don’t think we have seen Jennifer’s (yet?). The hooker has nice tits if you’re into that sort of thing.
That is Rufus Sewell, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001722/
We saw it in Requiem for a Dream.
Jennifer had a perfectly good ass, but like Sydney Sweeney, no one paid attention to it.
“…has nice tits if you’re into that sort of thing.”
As it happens, Im a sucker for tits
Woah, woah. Rufus is Heath Ledger’s final knight to defeat in the jousting tourney.
He’s upsettingly handsome in that, so well cast. Certainly ‘ethnic,’ vaguely Mediterranean. Take him out of the villain (to the extent desired) and into one’s own real life after a fun night at the bar? ‘Uh. I say this with a stanch history of heterosexuality: I̵t̵ He looks fantastic.’
@rhy: Also a shame. Found out he played “Autolycus” in a Hercules movie I didn’t know was made. You know he’s good. Tough date. (Should be Biggus Dickus’ lover. Oh, the poetry in motion.)
No love for Man in the High Castle?
You can see a more mature Rufus ass in ‘The Diplomat’, should you be so inclined.
First couple seasons are enjoyable fun, before they take a somewhat jarring tonal shift.
Keri Russell scares me after The Americans.
Trey from the top rope…
I’ve pretty much told my wife she’s the only woman I’d leave her for.
With a torch song too.
This is fun but the fake NYC accents are terrible.
Didn’t the black guy have a Chicago accent?
On the train? I didn’t notice.
Being from the NW all funny east coast accents are NY or southern.
Heh. I lived long enough in NYC to easily spot fakes.
Once I lived in the south I could tell between hick, local, east TN, West TN, Louisiana, texas and fake southern.
It’s back to all southern now that I’m blessedly no longer there.
Backwoods Missouri was the one I couldn’t stand.
Ohio has 3 or 4 distinct dialects. So does Kentucky.
To the people up here in the (216) I sound like a briar even tho Im just 200 miles SW
So does New York.
Buffalo is unique. Rochester (my hometown) is similar to Buffalo but less extreme. Both very different from NYC.
Central NY (Syracuse and north and south) from my recent experience is very generic. Like a newsreader.
PS. weirdly the Buffalo accent shares some similarities with Chicago but it seems to have leaped over Cleveland because nobody there talks like either Chicago or Buffalo. I wonder what it up with that.
The Scranton accent is kind of midwestern. They are all connected by similar immigrants back at the turn of the last century.
Lots of cabbage people and pasta benders mixed with Irish.
A Daytonian is a briar who ran out of gas on the way to Detroit.
The briars all came up here after WWII to work at GM. They even built bridges across the Ohio river so they wouldn’t get wet when they swam across the river in the rain….
True story I was told- Blue Ball, OH just south of Middletown and Red Lion, OH betwixt Middletown and Lebanon both have sculptures in the middle of town signifying the name. A big blue ball and a red lion. Those were there for the illiterate that came up here so they knew where they were. If you traveled up Old 25 and got to a city with a blue ball….there you were.
Same with a red lion if you came up 42.
I’m blessedly no longer there
the leaving is the best part of everything
l’enfer c’est autres
I was told by a local not to go to Monkeytown Don.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inland_Northern_American_English
Interesting that they identify Cleveland as part of that because my employer is (mostly) headquartered there; I work with dozens of those people and none of them have this accent.
Either that or it’s so similar to where I grew up that I can’t detect it.
Cleveland has a very distinct accent but it only applies to natives. The city has so many transplants that its often watered down.
Ha! On that map they use, Indiana’s on it and important enough to receive zero red dots. And the cities they mention are just Chicago. (We may be ‘getting’ the Bears, eh? Huh!) But the map just fucking cuts off Evansville! That’s our left toe!
Perfect place to grow up in the 90s.
Almost anywhere was the perfect place to grow up in the 80s.
I want this guy to get into the hyper local accents
https://youtu.be/H1KP4ztKK0A
(Skip over the woke shit the retconned into that video)
*presses play, skips around*
Oh hell no. That guy is irritating AF.
As a linguistics nerd I am familar with all of that material anyway thank goodness.
Well I hopped on the Zoom KK wanted and it was dead. So I am back.
A building full of John Malkoviches is nightmare fuel.
That was a good film. Really freaky.
He’s the fun, unexpected local celebrity – randomly saw him in the local sushi spot last year.
He lives in Somerville?
They’re passing me to Logan’s Run next… nice. But I’ve seen it soooo many times.
Renew! Renew! Renew!
Yeah, the main draw of Logan’s Run may not work for you, rhy…
LOL
You might not know this but the male lead is a smokeshow too.
Fish from the sea is the main draw.
Ole broken nose? Lol.
I got the Twilight Zone.
Too local news
https://www.koin.com/local/oregon-coast/unhinged-bias-crime-suspect-killed-by-officers-on-oregon-coast-went-on-racist-rant-before-destroying-fruit-stand-witnesses-say/
1) bias crime is bullshit; they used exclusively against people who aren’t putting up with bullshit being stuffed down their throats
2) assaults are handle local police agency. State police never do these sort of investigations
3) police, local and state, turn a blind eye toward brown skinned illegals conducting unlicensed vending in prohibited locations and trespassing
4) same with the “fruit stand”‘s cousin, the cut fruit cart. Zero interest from county and state health departments that slam every other food establishment
5) the head of the state police is at least a three time killer with many more officer involved shootings, several of which exhibit poor judgement by his and the agency. But he killed the right person so he got his sinecure reward. And got one officer involved shooting as agency head. Should not be working in any law enforcement position.
6) the news report correcting that the fruit table vendor is Guatemalan not Mexican, but doesn’t challenge the illegal accusation proves the point.
Multiple clues in there about who has power over whom these days. Ridiculous.
“Community members have since launched separate GoFundMe campaigns to help Reyna rebuild her fruit stand and to support Blanchard, whose actions during the confrontation drew widespread attention online.”
A GoFundMe for being a fake Indian?
Looks like almost all the donors are white women.
Look! That man doesn’t like this fruit!
I despise the OSP with the passion of a thousand burning suns.
Flat Earth theory confirmed!
Is that little kid Clint Howard’s son?
+ try the tranya
LOL this seems to be the “worst” of the celebrations today. I watched some of it on TV. Reminders of previous ticker tape parades I have attended.
In order to successfully attract a mate, the twerker must first be attractive and talented.
Suthern is right- we really are all just monkeys
STIJLTHL(?) – did I do that right, Common Tater?
I still need an acronym guide.
Sometimes I Just Like The Headline
Sometimes Temptation Is Just Tinctured Hot Liqueur.
She had lots of it, but the twerktress ain’t temptin’ me. (Or anyone?) People continue to baffle me. When purposefully drawing attention to yourself, it’s best to fucking have some talent. (One way or another.)
(It’s also true I don’t have the ‘celebration’ gene. I fundamentally, really don’t understand it. (I get it, but I don’t feel it.)
Well. Food tempted me enough to fuck up that acronym. There’s a like in there, like, somewhere. Like, yea’s.
I’m back. On the road for a while. Did I miss anything?
Oh darn…they canceled my son’s flight. Oh no!
That’s bad news. Is there any alternative?
Im so sad they stay one more day and all take a flight together. So distraught.
Jeff Goldblum would have been a great replacement for Sutherland.
So they ended up on Disk World?
Flatland
I love this one R.J.
Definitely an underrated classic.
“Mayor Zohran Mamdani soaked up the spotlight during the Knicks’ tribute at City Hall Thursday — droning on for nearly 10 minutes after partying with the NBA champions on a parade float.
—
The mayor’s predecessors, Eric Adams and Bill de Blasio, gave much shorter speeches at post-ticker-tape parade sports celebrations during their respective terms. Adams spoke for almost two minutes when the New York Liberty were hailed in 2024 and de Blasio spoke for a little more than four and half minutes at the parade for the US women’s soccer team in 2019.”
Um. To be fair, the Knicks kinda /sorta ‘matter.’ Fuck. Politicians have It in ’em, just actively getting pleasure from the accomplishments of others. Just tie onto that horse, let it do all the work, then have yourself a big fucking party. Yuck.
Commies droning on and on is kind of a thing that they are known for.
I do give him props for recognizing the importance of this stuff to his subjects and mostly playing it right. In similar situations he has already shown himself to be at complete odds with the little people.
All of the idiots love it.
Even idiots need bread. The circuses just make it go down smoother. ‘Specially if from the state-owned co-op. The dystopian Happy Pills have some flavors we haven’t yet mastered, But fuck, prosperity is a helluva drug, even when it feels scarce.
Speaking of Tubi, here’s the CEO: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anjali_Sud
This is a resume of bullshit. If it were a book or movie proposal, it would be rejected as farcical.
Calling her a CEO is another bullshit, she has at least two CEO bosses above her. Like banks and vice president titles.
York Revolution forfeit game after players refuse to wear ‘Pride Night’ jersey
We can force you to engage in our political signaling, and we’re going to rub your noses in that fact.
This is a great movie, which along with ‘The 13th Floor’ and ‘ExiZtenz’ got overshadowed by ‘The Matrix’ in the history of ‘Brain in a Vat’ movies.
ExiZtenz was trippy. Frog bone gun!
though I see ExiZtenz more like Inception before Inception than the matrix…
This is kind of a cult classic I would have expected most people to have seen it
I still remember the Jennifer Connelly Sway
Morning, Glib-stars!
I know you’ve been looking forward to this day all year. It’s solemn, auspicious, and worthy of our recognition. Banks should be closed for it.
https://nationaldaycalendar.com/celebrations/national-garfield-the-cat-day-june-19
😸🫡🌤️
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVOUTkFkMNU
🎶🎶
Morning, Sean.
That fat lazy lasagna thief should have been neutered back in the ‘80s along with the cartoonist.
Happy Friday!
It’s funny, because of the kickball tournament, people are discovering the genre of “foreigners come to America and discover how nice/big/better is is” of videos, but they’ve been around for years. A staple of it is “foreigner visits walmart supercenter”
What I’m saying is we need to video Pie’s visit.