Episode 264 – Dark City (1998)

Max, Mike; Movies

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to today’s tour of Dark City, brought to you by Max, Mike; Movies, the podcast for your busy Dark City life, and their latest flavor . . . sorry, series, “Walk the Dark Street.” And how appropriate is that, folks, because all our streets are dark! Here. Because it’s Dark City . . . tough crowd. So, on your left, there’s a fine example of our city’s neo-classical architecture in the famous Sutherland Building, but you can’t see it . . . because it’s dark. Right now we’re going over the picturesque Connelly bridge which spans Sewell river but you can’t see either of those things . . . because it’s dark. Seriously, why does anyone shell out money for these tours? It’s dark here; that’s our whole thing! It’s in the name of city, for gosh sakes! No! Get off me! They have to know that these tours are a fraud! A fraud, I tell you!

But our podcast is not a fraud and is certainly not created by bizarre aliens wearing human forms, attempting to understand what is to be truly hu-man. What a silly idea. Or is it? This 1998 film is another non-standard choice as an example of film noir, as it’s science fiction (or fantasy, really; the science doesn’t bear a lot of scrutiny) and deals with the nature of the self and raises the question: are we nothing more than the sum of our memories? Whoa, deep! Does it work? Does the science fiction element help or hinder? And does this film belong in our Catalog of Noir? Give a listen to Mr. Max and Mr. Mike and find out!

Poll question:Is there still room for film noir in today’s cinema? Or has it all been said before? Is it still relevant?