The Nextlander Watchcast Episode 130: Dark City (1998)
Added 2025-03-24 23:21:24 +0000 UTCWe 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.
Comments
As a broke kiddo I always bought the soundtrack to movies I loved, but never the movies. This was one of them. Only saw it in theaters, but listened to the score over and over - it sadly had another woman singing the musical numbers in place of Jennifer Connolly, who I rather preferred. Her versions were haunting. Great job on the podcasts, guys! Always delighted when I see that orange and purple pop up in my feed!
Eden Carnes
2025-04-05 10:42:35 +0000 UTCMy Myspace url was /darkcityowns for a good reason.
csl316
2025-03-31 20:37:28 +0000 UTCAlso as a case of fortunate timing of release, today (March 25th) is Richard O'Brien's 82nd birthday. Happy Birthday Riff Raff.
WulfBane
2025-03-25 16:48:47 +0000 UTCThis Movie was a huge miss for me. The lead performance is so weak and Jennifer Connolly and Kiefer Sutherland are so wooden in this
Muldawg
2025-03-25 13:17:54 +0000 UTCFYI for Alex, Richard O Brian also wrote the Rocky Horror Picture Show. My mate who is a joiner was renovating a town house in London and there were glass cases in the property with spiked lingerie and whips and all manner of weird shit. My mate asked what it was all about and the guy said, "Oh it's from the RHPS." "Why have you got it?" "Ah I wrote the bloody thing" Turns out it was Richard O Brians house.
Stephen Beattie
2025-03-25 12:24:06 +0000 UTCThis movie is one of my favorites
Pantalones Johnson
2025-03-25 02:05:49 +0000 UTC
