Kiefer Sutherland

Dark City

  • Title: Dark City
  • IMDb: link

“That’s what Science Fiction and Fantasy is for, after all; to take one behind the scenes,
to force one to reinvent the paradigm. And Dark City does that in spades.”
—Neil Gaiman

I’m a big fan of The Matrix, but I’m a bigger fan of Dark City. Released more than a year before Neo took the red pill to the delight of audiences everywhere, writer/director Alex Proyas presented a similar tale of a man trapped in a world where nothing is quite what is seems. Although not as widely known (more than six times the number of people have taken the time to rate The Matrix on IMDb), it is a superior film in almost every conceivable way. Released in 1998 we mark the occasion by reviewing the DVD ten years later.

Back in the spring of 1998 I was in the middle of a particularly brutal college semester and looking for a few hours respite.  Checking the paper I discovered the local $1 movie theater was showing a film I had missed, Dark City.  Taking a chance, I went.  I went back the next night as well.  And the third night I dragged my two roommates and went back again.  I long ago lost track of the number of films I have seen over my lifetime, but I can count on one hand the films which have had this reaction on me.

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The Sentinel

  • Title: The Sentinel
  • IMDb: link

Remember when it seemed like every other film was about the President of the United States?  What happened to that trend? Oh yeah, Clinton left office.  It’s telling when the only time Hollywood looks to the White House for material it’s either damning (see American Dreamz) or focusing on the underlings who make things run.  One would think that In the Line of Fire closed the book on Secret Service films, but apparently that was not to be.  Are we better off for having reopened the veiled windows of what goes on with the President’s bodyguards once more?  Let’s find out, shall we?

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