#Oh yes and Peter Lorre was mentioned as an answer to one question too

[karloff-the-uncanny]

A very rare video of Boris Karloff on an episode of “Information Please” in 1941.

I was absolutely delighted to discover this video by chance! And the quality is pretty decent too.

Here are some GIFs to entice you in:

And a slow version of this one, because it’s my favourite 😝

[therealkn]

David’s Resolution - Day 9

Day 9 (January 9, 2019)

Dark City (1998)

“Hey, you happen to know the way to Shell Beach?”

A man wakes up in a bathtub in a dingy apartment. He has no memory of who he is, where is he, or how he got there. Soon after he wakes up, the phone rings and he picks up, receiving a message telling him to flee before a group of people start coming after him. The man, as he leaves, learns that he is apparently “John Murdoch”, and he may or may not be a serial killer targeting prostitutes. And in his search for answers, he’ll come across a variety of interesting characters - a woman who says she’s his wife, a detective who think he’s the killer, a doctor who may or may not be trustworthy - while also questioning the reality he lives in and what the truth is.

Yep. Another movie I don’t want to go into details on regarding the plot because of spoilers. And trust me, you don’t want to spoil this movie for yourself. Go in as blind as you can. ...With that said, time to gush about this movie because this is a big favorite movie. Easily a top 10 favorite.

You know what, let’s get this out of the way. Yes, Dark City has quite a few similarities to The Matrix, even though The Matrix came out a year later. Similar themes of identity, distorting reality and such are in both films, plus lots of people in leather. although how they present themselves are very different. While the Wachowskis explored philosophical and religious themes in their cyberpunk action movie, writer/director Alex Proyas was more into telling an interesting and compelling mystery within a unique world influenced by film noir and German expressionism. Don’t get me wrong, both films are great, but if you feel The Matrix is too pretentious for you, then you may like Dark City more.

You know what both films do have that can’t be disputed? Rad-as-fuck visual design. The titular city is very dark and almost a character in itself, creating a sense of isolation, paranoia and confusion that good expressionism always invokes. It feels familiar and at the same time alien, even more when you The design feels reminiscent of Batman: The Animated Series in that it goes for a “timeless” setting that mixes modern and old settings and ideas. Actually, in a way, it does kind of feel like a comic book, as the city owes not only to classic film like Fritz Lang’s M, but also to the depiction of Gotham City in Tim Burton’s Batman, and the way the story unfolds and how scenes are framed and shot looks like comic book panels come to life. The world of this movie and the ideas present in it are absolutely fascinating, such as the concept of how memories work in this city and how tuning works and the nature of the overseers of this world.

The cast of the movie is great. On the human side, Rufus Sewell is excellent as John Murdoch, the man desperate to understand who he really is and what the hell is going on. Kiefer Sutherland’s Dr. Schreber is a hobbling, Peter Lorre-esque character whose motives are cloudy and whose allegiance is questionable... is he on the level, or is there something more sinister about him? You’ll have to watch to find out. Jennifer Connelly’s performance as John’s wife and a singer is intriguing, though it’s irritating that the theatrical cut overdubbed her singing voice. (The director’s cut rectifies this by giving us her original voice, which is pretty good.) And William Hurt’s Frank Bumstead, the police inspector investigating the murders and by extension John, comes off like a world-weary veteran similar to Morgan Freeman in Seven, who himself slowly realizes that the ramblings that both John and a former detective are saying may have some merit...

Then you get to the “Strangers”, the mysterious trenchcoated people in white who seemingly run the city, literally reshaping it however they seem fit. They act like a race based around Riff Raff from The Rocky Horror Picture Show, which is fitting since not only did Alex Proyas base the Strangers on Riff Raff, but Riff Raff himself - Richard O’Brien - plays the lead Stranger character, Mr. Hand, a sinister figure tasked with hunting down John however he can. Also, all of the Strangers going by “Mr. (whatever)”, combined with the way they speak, reminded me of the henchmen from Diamonds Are Forever (or, alternately, think those two lifeguards from Codename: Kids Next Door.)

Also, Bruce Spence is in it, who to me is in the category of “hey, it’s that guy!” actors. He’s been in plenty of films: he’s the Gyro Captain in Mad Max 2 (a.k.a. The Road Warrior to us Americans), a similar character in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, the Trainman in The Matrix Revolutions, one of the sharks in Finding Nemo, an alien in Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith who helped Obi-Wan on Utapau, and the Mouth of Sauron in the extended edition of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. He’s a cool guy and I like seeing him in things, and I just wanted to point it out. He’s Mr. Wall in this film, by the way, the tall Stranger who ended up- wait, what was I on about again?

Oh yeah, Strangers. The Strangers are sinister motherfuckers who run the city, using a psychic power called “tuning” to play The Sims: The Real Game, literally reshaping the city and giving people different identities and memories as they see fit. Why? They have their reasons. And their leader, known as Mr. Book (Ian Richardson), organizes a mass tuning every 12 hours where they put all the humans to sleep so they can screw with the city however they will before waking everyone up. The full extent of how this goes is disturbing and creepy, and you will see for yourself how creepy it is. But in a way, it reminds me of one of my favorite anime, The Big O, in that both stories took place in cities seemingly isolated from the world, use heavy noir elements, feature a mixture of old and new in their designs, and which explore memories and loss of memory as central themes.

Actually, a thought I had on the movie was that one could read it as some metaphor or symbolism or whatever about making movies and having people play different roles in stories and etc., but #1, that could be me reading too deep into something and #2, I can’t go into further detail without spoilers.

I’ll mention that this movie had an interesting release. It barely broke even in the box office, and some critics liked it while others had more lukewarm reactions. But there was one person in particular who absolutely loved the movie, and it was none other than Roger Ebert. “Love” is a strong word, and it applies to his glowing review of the film, but it goes further than that: he called it the best film of 1998, he put it on his list of “Great Movies” in 2005, he would use the film in his teaching about movies, and he contributed audio commentary for both versions of the film on its DVD release. This doesn’t really have anything to do with the review, but I find it interesting to mention. And it’s why I mentioned Roger Ebert in the “Next time” message for this review that makes sense only to the guy who writes this. (Boy, two bits of rambling...)

This movie does have a director’s cut, and while the theatrical cut is still a great film, the director’s cut is even better. What’s most interesting is that it not only changes scenes from the theatrical cut and adds some more scenes to make the film feel even more fleshed out, it also makes minor changes that apply to the entire film. The theatrical cut has largely blue and grey coloring that gives the film a colder and more detached feeling, while the director’s cut uses more yellows and greens, which I feel gives it a more disorienting and sickening feeling, like there’s something just underneath that doesn’t sit well and could represent how John sees the world. The effects used for John’s tuning are also tweaked: the theatrical cut’s effects looked a lot like when Mr. Freeze fired his freeze gun in Batman & Robin, while the director’s cut uses more subtle effects. Point goes to the director’s cut there. But really, you should watch both versions. I watched the theatrical cut first, even with that opening monologue (which I feel isn’t really a big spoiler since you learn what it mentions pretty early in the movie, plus, does it really spoil anything that major?) and it’s still good.

You know how people say they instantly love a movie the first time they see it? That’s this movie for me. I highly recommend it. If you like The Big O, film noir, expressionism, mystery thrillers, or just want something like The Matrix without perceived intellectual posturing, then here you go. Everyone go see this movie, it’s great.

Next time: Four people, one camera, and a lot of neuroses.