130: Dark City (1998)
We round out our month of weird dystopian cities with the darkest dystopian city of them all: the one literally called Dark City. Join us as we try to find the way to Shell Beach, and along the way finally answer the question of what makes a man: his memory, or his power level. CHAPTERS: (00:00:00) - The Nextlander Watchcast Episode 130: Dark City (1998) (00:00:25) - Intro. (00:01:10) - Getting into our histories (or non-histories) with our movie this week: Dark City! (00:07:54) - What is a man? What is real? Is this The Matrix? (00:11:52) - Talking about the city design and its mishmash of eras and architectures. (00:15:00) - How this movie got made, and how it differs structurally between the theatrical and director's cuts. (00:27:30) - Kicking off the movie with Kiefer's Capital A Acting. (00:33:34) - John Murdoch has no idea what's going on. (00:40:40) - The Strangers. (00:48:30) - Emma, you may not have a future in lounge singing. (00:54:15) - Break! (00:55:02) - We're back, and we're taking a trip to the Automat. (00:59:39) - Meeting Inspector Bumstead. (01:04:26) - The Strangers first make contact with Murdoch. (01:12:58) - A brief divergence into Star Trek lore. (01:15:04) - John and Emma meet (for the first time?) (01:18:30) - Mr. Hand reveals his, er, hand. (01:23:23) - Spiral man's crazy apartment, and The Tuning begins. (01:35:22) - Mr. Hand takes the mind juice, and John (briefly) meets a kindred spirit. (01:40:07) - Mr. Hand accosts Emma. (01:44:20) - Visiting Uncle Karl. (01:48:09) - Bumstead's accordian. (01:53:23) - A building sandwich, and John is...under arrest? (02:00:09) - Schreber's big dumps, and what's on the other side of that wall. (02:10:36) - John is dragged to the subsurface city, and Dragon Ball Z happens. (02:18:53) - A terrific epilogue. (02:25:54) - Final thoughts. (02:32:55) - Some foward looking talk for the Watchcast.