Dark City (1998) is Science Fiction, and is shot in a dark noire 40's style. I dislike dark films, and am not overly fond of Science Fiction in general. This film would have had to be very good to overcome my prejudices, and it was. Like Matrix, it is a film about a futuristic world, and people who are trying to figure out what the world is and why. Unlike Matrix, we discover the answers to these questions as the characters do, rather than having the story explained in expository dialogue, and the special effects are orders-of-magnitude better in Dark City. The mood is set by art direction, photography and acting, and is consistent from beginning to end. It is impossible to talk much about the plot without writing a spoiler, but this is a physical world inhabited by real people, not a mental cyber-creation as in Matrix. Nearly everyone loved this film including Ebert, Maltin and Berardinelli, and it is rare that those three agree.

An Australian production, it was written and directed by Alex Proyas, who also brought us The Crow. What he achieved here is a complete world that is believable even though some of what happens is improbable. It works because of the attention to consistency and detail. It is more of an experience than a plot, and, although the plot is interesting enough, it is experiencing this world first hand that makes the movie. The exposure is by Melinda George playing a prostitute who is murdered. If there was one flat note for me, it was the performance by John Hurt as a police detective. Why this film was not given some recognition by the Academy is a total mystery to me.

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Melissa George (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

"One Good Turn" (1996)

One Good Turn is a suspense thriller, but without much suspense. Each plot development is telegraphed long ahead of time. I wealthy owner of a video game company runs into a man who saved his life in Panema by dragging him out of a flaming car after a bomb explodes. He convinces the reluctant friend (James Remar) to accept a job with his company, and stay in his guest house. Remar is not what he first seems. This has all the class of a made for cable film, and the pace of a daytime soap. It is not a terrible film, it is just not a good one. There is a lot of exposure, however, from Audie England and Melanie Good, as well as some pokies from Suzy Amis.

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Audie England (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) Melanie Good (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) Suzy Amis (1, 2, 3, 4)

Not sure exactly how to describe this - a noir mystery with preternatural overtones, maybe? Here's the deal. Nick's second wife killed his first wife. She even confessed to it. But the first wife died two years before the second wife moved to town, and was killed with a weapon that wasn't invented until a year after she died. Say what? To make it more confusing, the first wife's diary is still being updated. And she has an identical twin, and ....

They added to the sense of mystery by having all the characters act really slippery and evasive and refuse to give any information to the second wife about her husband, themselves, or anything else. And I guess she hadn't seen enough noir thrillers to know that you're supposed to pull out a c-note, flash it on the bar, and say "maybe THIS will refresh your memory". Or maybe she tried that, and a c-note just doesn't buy what it used to buy in the thirties for Bogart. Especially when it's in Canadian money.

As for me, I didn't think it was too bad, but I really get kinda upset when I'm trying to figure out a mystery and the solution turns out to be any of the following: Divine intervention Supernatural occurrences A murderer who has never been introduced, or who was seen only briefly and insignificantly.

You know the drill. You're hanging out, trying to figure out why the jackhammer was there at the crime scene, and it turns out that it was left by Our Lady of Lourdes who appeared to the victim. Or it was deposited by a time-traveler, or it was all the guy in the window in the corner in scene one. Oh, poppycock!

The premise would have made a pretty good episode of The Outer Limits, but I don't know why they thought it would attract any attention in the theaters. It never found wide distribution. This movie, filmed in picturesque Quebec in January-February of 1999, was shopped at the Toronto Film Festival last fall, but ended up with only a few sporadic and half-hearted attempts at a theater run. It's now available on DVD.

It is acted by a decent, if uninspired, international cast, featuring Nastassia Kinski, Charlotte Gainsbourg, and Molly Parker. (Although some of the minor roles, policemen and lawyers, were obviously performed by somebody's cousins and brothers-in-law.) Gainsbourg got her skinny body naked, as she often does.

This obscure movie even has a web site! Not a good one, but it has one. Right Here

Gainsbourg (1, 2, 3)

Dennis Miller (2000)

No pics, but good stuff. Some of the Cynical One's rants for this season. Gore vs Bush Hillary Clinton Campaign Issues Miller's home page

"If These Walls Could Talk 2" (1962), from Johnny Web and TomCat

This is a made-for-cable film with several separate vignettes showing woman-woman sexual relationships throughout the last half-century. One vignette featured Sharon Stone and Ellen Degeneres. Another featured Michelle Williams and Chloe Sevigny.

I haven't seen it. The DVD comes out October 10th. These are TomCat's television captures.

Sevigny (1, 2) Williams (1, 2) Stone Degeneres. What a loss to us guys, eh? Just when I was about to ask her to become my personal love slave.

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