I've rewatched 12 Angry Men and updated the review: CLICK TACK TOE
__________________ Movie Reviews | Anime Reviews Top 100 Action Movie Countdown (2015): List | Thread "Well, at least your intentions behind the UTTERLY DEVASTATING FAULTS IN YOUR LOGIC are good." - Captain Steel
Dark City seems like the kind of movie Omnizoa would like.
WHAT'D I THINK? *SPOILERS*
IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN DARK CITY,
STOP READING AND GO WATCH IT.
I have very complicated feelings on Dark City. Mainly because it seems like an accident.
Collectively written by David S. Goyer (Dark Knight, yay! Dark Knight Rises, boo!), Alex Proyas (The Crow, yay! Knowing, boo!), and Lem Dobbs (Kafka... I need to see Kafka...), Dark City is awash in uncertainty.
It was even heavily cut down from it's original version because "people wouldn't get it".
I'm really not sure who those people would be because there's little to get. It's a Sci-Fi Fantasy Neo-Noir Paranoia Thriller, OBVIOUSLY I MEAN COME ON WE'RE NOT MAKING THINGS TOO COMPLICATED HERE.
Unlike say... an arthouse movie, Dark City's intentions are pretty transparent: It's there to put you in a mood, that tingly feeling you get when you read one of those cheap Orwellian sci-fi paperbacks with the bittersweet ending that's pleasant in the moment, but staggering in the scope of it's implication.
Dark City feels like The Matrix taken in a different direction. Where The Matrix dwells on the action and general ideas of skepticism, Dark City toys with themes of memory, individualism, and paranoia.
The theme of paranoia is a particularly strong aspect of the movie because every narrative thread seeks to tug at the corners of reality and unravel the mass deceit the protagonist finds himself in. He finds the walls of his cage and he's stalked by the supernatural "Strangers" who echo X-Files-style g-men in every sense.
The theme of individualism is explored in how the Strangers themselves act like a hivemind and even routinely shifted everyone's memories around to present them with a new reality. Are who we are purely a product of our own history? Yes and no. History shapes our relationships and interpretations, but it only tempers our personality.
The theme of memory is the capstone of this movie and it's presented in contrast to the development of our protagonist with the regression the city and it's occupants around him. There's a nostalgia for things as they once were, but it's established that what once was wasn't always what it might have been and what it might have been may not have ever even been true.
It's a daunting feeling, to emotionally cling to something that never will be or may have never been. It really isn't a happy ending. Just as John's happy memories remain unrequited, the feeling of freedom is crushed and left to fester in the knowledge that the Dark City is was and only ever will be a spot in the void. A carving of life amidst nothing, strangled, and left to stagnate.
It sounds really ****ing depressing when you think about it and perhaps that will be a lot of peoples' takeaway from this movie, but I loved the ideas this movie played with. I remember the first time I watched it it really didn't leave much of an impression on me beyond, "it's okay", but watching it now really makes me think and gives me a huge rush of nostalgia for that brand of sci-fi that TRULY explored these ideas, that fed you imagination, that pulled those emotional chords, and made you think.
The overaching themes, the grim style, the subtle music, the solid editing, and even a couple hammy performances made for a very engaging movie.
So engaging that's it was honestly challenging to step back and assess it critically.
One thing's for the sure: the plot is certainly flawed.
Why would a kid who witnessed her mother's murder stay in the room and just sit around drawing the crime?
When and how did John's wife ever get the address of the prostitute he visited in the first place?
How did she and the detective EVER manage to find John, let alone with the awareness of people who understand the significance of midnight and the Strangers?
That's just too damn convenient. WAY too damn convenient for the plot. I don't buy it. The romance glommed onto the side of the movie is naturally off-kilter too with a particularly cheesy scene in which John breaks the glass wall of a visitor booth to kiss his not-really-wife which she doesn't react to at all.
At the end of the movie I was just WAITING for John to point at his heart and go, "You should have looked here". Fortunately he doesn't, but it's implied, and that's bad enough.
Narratively, Dark City is, shall we say... flimsy, but it's strong points shine through even if the end of the movie does get a bit carried away with itself with a goofy telepathy fight. Up until then it's a fantastic example of reticent CGI. The effects are hugely important in selling the concept.
Minus points for the goldfish and mice, bonus points for the spirals. I like spirals.
All in all it looks to me like a modern classic. Made by some extremely unreliable filmmakers.
Final Verdict:[Friggen' Awesome]
REWATCH UPDATE 7/22/2021: So I've decided to rewatch Dark City. Reason being that I've always been skeptical of my own perspective on it, and as you can read above, I've oscillated pretty heavily on my opinion, and this serves to reiterate that fact.
Prior to rewatching this movie I rewatched Titanic, a movie I've always had reservations about and I got the same experience watching that as I do every other time I watch it: It's ****ing great and it makes me cry.
But unfailingly, that's the result of a deeply interwoven combination of very different elements; music, setting, characters, acting, tension, payoff, direction. James Cameron's movies click with me harder than most any other director I watch (up until they make Avatar). Alex Proyas is much less consistent and in a movie like Dark City where they need to assemble far more elements to deliver a provocative story, or "film experience" than in say, The Crow, it's clear to see that James Cameron's movies just deliver that narrative flow so much better.
Rewatching Dark City, I do not at all share the same blown-away feeling as I did when I first reviewed this, and I'm leaning more towards the "it's okay" feeling I had prior. I think the reason is that I can infer a sense of deprivation from my review wherein the semi-surreal ultra-cosmic-dread feeling was oft overlooked in sci-fi movies.
Not that it is any better represented now, arguably it's worse, but I feel like I was able to isolate those elements which I may be granting a free "good movie" review and assessing the overall experience excepting the particular flair I'm biased towards.
What I'm left with is a little neo-noir fantasy thriller that really only ever presents me an enjoyable performance when Mr. Hand is on screen to chew scenery. It seems too quick and liberal with it's showing of the antagonists plotting behind the scenes and overall I was pretty unimpressed with the sets which far too often were just darkly lit dank industrial areas. The movie even makes a point to say that the environment is all randomized based on memories of different time periods, but I honestly didn't notice this anachronism at all and the environment could have been heavily exploited to reflect that, adding even more to the off-kilter world and the strangeness of it's inhabitants not noticing it's inconsistencies.
Something that's also not made clear, but central to the movie is the main character's ability to "chune". Why did he get this ability? How did he awaken to it? It's implied that it's like an evolutionary quirk, but the movie also says he's been imprinted and reimprinted with new memories countless times.
If the Strangers only cared about discovering the product of HIS soul, this would be much more like The Truman Show, and much less Planet of the Apes.
Anyway, I've had this movie set aside separately for a while with the intention to rewatch it and revise my opinion on it, and my opinion is now to drop it a rating and remove it from my favorites. Fine movie, but it is not the quality of psychological thriller I prefer.
Thanks, I do realize I've rated it lowest of anyone else so far.
In the reviews maybe, everybody here seems to dislike Goodfellas now. Plenty still love it of course but most first time watches i've seen recently have been people disliking it.
In the reviews maybe, everybody here seems to dislike Goodfellas now. Plenty still love it of course but most first time watches i've seen recently have been people disliking it.
I don't know crap about Jeepers Creepers or Lords of Salem, but I know what I'm getting with TCM. That's really not my thang.
That's no excuse to me. TCM2 is a masterpiece compared to Lords of Salem. Actually, both of them are horror movies involving a female radio disc jockey. I'm sure Rob Zombie totally stole from TCM2 for Lords of Salem, knowing him.
That's no excuse to me. TCM2 is a masterpiece compared to Lords of Salem. Actually, both of them are horror movies involving a female radio disc jockey. I'm sure Rob Zombie totally stole from TCM2 for Lords of Salem, knowing him.
I wouldn't know. All I do know is that I will almost certainly not enjoy TCM.
Lords of Salem is awful. Jeepers Creepers is misguided fun. It really comes down to if you like Zombie's style or not. I think Salem is his second worst film......
I really hate Halloween 2.
__________________ "A laugh can be a very powerful thing. Why, sometimes in life, it's the only weapon we have."
Lords of Salem is awful. Jeepers Creepers is misguided fun. It really comes down to if you like Zombie's style or not. I think Salem is his second worst film......
Looks like 2 votes Lords of Salem, 1 vote Jeepers Creepers.
Titanic: This release of Titanic is loaded with oodles of nice features including two separate commentaries which is a plus for me, however the movie itself is frustratingly split between two discs. Both discs have bonus features on them too so it annoys me that these weren't simply collected onto the second disc and the whole movie was left intact, but it's probably because of some "we want the highest possible quality" crap. I'd much rather have the movie compressed and viewable without having to swap discs like it was a PS1 RPG, but that's probably heretical thinking to some people. COMPRESS IT!? YOU MONSTER!
12 Angry Men: No such issue here and again I'm mostly pleased with the presentation. I say mostly because while there's little in the way of bonus features (which is understandable given the time period), they did this weird weird thing where menu item selection is indicated by multicolor brackets or dots which appear as pink on red. It took me a moment to realize anything was even showing up on screen.
If you ever get the chance, check out Ebert's commentary on it. Very insightful.
I love Dark City because it's so contradictory. Memory is nothing you can rely upon in a world where everything is changed each "night". The whole movie has the quality of a nightmare that you can't leave. It's not logical, but is logical, just when you think you get it, it changes. Only Shell Beach seems to be there to give us hope. I would say it's all like Plato's Cave, a metaphor for the human lack of understanding about WHAT and WHERE we are (oops, I already did that, didn't I), but that would over-think it, so I will stick with nightmarish creepiness and the dark imagery that makes the whole thing work. Dark City is one of my favorite sci-fi-fantasy-noir films and probably my only sci-fi-fantasy-noir film, so I will leave it at that. Even if it was a cobbled-together film that none of the crew knew what to do with, sometimes great things do happen by accident.
I love Dark City because it's so contradictory. Memory is nothing you can rely upon in a world where everything is changed each "night". The whole movie has the quality of a nightmare that you can't leave. It's not logical, but is logical, just when you think you get it, it changes. Only Shell Beach seems to be there to give us hope. I would say it's all like Plato's Cave, a metaphor for the human lack of understanding about WHAT and WHERE we are (oops, I already did that, didn't I), but that would over-think it, so I will stick with nightmarish creepiness and the dark imagery that makes the whole thing work. Dark City is one of my favorite sci-fi-fantasy-noir films and probably my only sci-fi-fantasy-noir film, so I will leave it at that. Even if it was a cobbled-together film that none of the crew knew what to do with, sometimes great things do happen by accident.
It's interesting to think about how nostalgia comes and goes in waves.
I had said that Nightmare Before Christmas holds a lot of nostalgia for me and I would probably attribute that to not having seen it for over a period of 10 years at least. Since then I've popped it in regularly alongside Back to the Future and today I'm struck with the peculiar thought...
Imagine if this was the first time I'd ever seen this movie.
I don't even remember my first time seeing BTTF and I've seen it so many times that I feel the effect has seriously worn off on me. I can only imagine how pleased I would be having only just gotten around to it, but the magic new discovery or even revisiting old memories is gone... I've just seen it too many times.
Not that I don't like it any more, far from it, Back to the Future is a fantastic movie, but my experience with it now is probably a big reason why you haven't seen me review Ink yet, I just DON'T WANT TO WATCH IT.
I mean I DO. But I don't want to ruin it by seeing it too often, you know? I like to keep that experience preserved fresh.
ANYWAY, so what do I make of BTTF now that it's perhaps worn stale?
Probably harsher criticism.
Seeing it again there's no mistaking that the movie is chock-full of melodrama, overacting, and numerous little leaps in logic. I couldn't even really begin to count them, they're everywhere.
Why is Doc working on a mind reading device without someone to mind read? Was he mind reading the dog?
Why do the farmers leap to the conclusion that Marty's an alien because of his car? Sure it looks futuristic, but it still looks like a car. They have cars in 1955.
Why is George so accepting of this total stranger with a bizarre and never explained compulsion to specifically hook him up with the one girl who's after him?
Why is the billboard any reasonable hiding spot for a car? It stands right in front of a construction site. Won't construction workers see it?
In fact, why do the first people Marty meets on the road freak out and drive away from him? Because he's a kid with a "life preserver" jacket? Is there's some 50s era paranoia about strange high school kids jacking old couples in broad daylight in the midwest somewhere? WTF was that about?
And of course there's the biggest plothole of the movie which is the fact that Marty and his family slowly vanishes over time if he triggers the Grandfather Paradox.
This doesn't make any sense at all since there's no direct explanation for why he would only slowly disappear at some arbitrary rate.
Is it relative to how close he is to his parents' conception?
If it is, then would he not see any effects if he went further back in time?
Why do his siblings disappear before him if not for dramatic convenience?
Why do his siblings disappear top to bottom, but Marty just fades from existence?
When Marty begins to fade away when George is parted from Lorraine it implies that the future is slowly undone by the progression of the now, not the inevitability, so what if Biff showed up and knifed George at the concert? Would Marty fade away?
What if he didn't die, just went to the hospital and he and Lorraine still got it on another day? Would Marty still fade away?
Marty's future seems dependent on their relationship, not their literal sex, so what if they got together and just agreed to be friends? Would Marty fade away?
What if their relationship was cut short, Marty faded away and their relationship came back together? Would Marty fade back?
Is Marty the same Marty if he was born on a different day?
Would it be a different sperm that makes Marty?
What if Marty had sex with Lorraine and Marty disappeared? Would her baby disappear?
He already shares some of her DNA so would only part of the baby disappear?
Would she miscarriage?
What if Marty had sex with Biff? Would Biff disappear?
What if Biff had sex with Lorraine who had sex with Marty and THEN had sex with George, would Marty disappear?
Would Biff be Marty's daddy?
Would Marty have different Biff siblings?
Would they be called Bifflings?
What if Biff got Doc pregnant? Would Marty disappear?
What if Biff was Doc's son? Wou-OH MY GOD I'M MAKING FAN-FICTION.
The biggest issue here is the assumption that anyone would disappear at all. This seems to be everyone's answer to the Godfather Paradox that if you "shouldn't" exist, you stop existing, but that doesn't make any sense. All you're doing is removing history, you're not removing the present, so why should the present change? History isn't really gone, it's just separate timeline.
Which is one of the reasons Back to the Future: Part 2 is better. BTTF seriously pushes that level of acceptable suspension of disbelief. We don't REALLY have a firm understanding of time travel, so these assumptions are made for the sake of producing conflict. It's a significantly worse variation on what Inception pulled by suggesting that our dreams occur fast, rather than slowly.
I still like it though. And to be perfectly honest BTTF is a far smaller cluster**** than most other time travel movies.
Doc's still fun, Biff's still fun, Marty's... there, and all the little clever continuities in the background are neat to pick out. Also the soundtrack. It's a hard one not to revisit.
Butchu still got dogfood, dogs, meatloaf, kissing, obvious SFX, and...
Back To The Future is one of the cheesy family films from my childhood that i still adore. When i was about 9 it was my favourite film and i'd still say it is in my top 5 from the 80's.
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