I found Dark City very dull and repetitive. I wanted to like it -- stylistically, it's right up my alley -- but...no. Just didn't click.

And the various little tricks the filmmakers used are amazing. My personal favorite is that, until Jennifer Connelly's character "wakes up," she has no key light. She's lit entirely by fill (not counting her torch-singer segments, which are lit differently for different reasons).

I love learning the subtle filmmaking techniques that can be used to work the narrative. Like the intentional continuity errors in The Stunt Man or the way Phillip Kaufman did innovative sound mixes on The Right Stuff (locust chatter mixed in whenever the reporters surround the Astronaut's wives; the sound of the jets were mostly organic sounds like lion roars which were altered).

I found Dark City very dull and repetitive. I wanted to like it -- stylistically, it's right up my alley -- but...no. Just didn't click.

It's definitely one of those movies that either works for you or it doesn't, though I was sort of on the fence about it for a while, but a second viewing drew me into it.

It's definitely one of those movies that either works for you or it doesn't, though I was sort of on the fence about it for a while, but a second viewing drew me into it.

I liked it a LOT better the second time I saw it. There were a lot of details to pick up that you wouldn't have noticed the first time around, I think, where something in the background comes center-stage at a later point. Also, not having to figure out what's going on lets everything sink in a little better.

My biggest problem with the movie was that it basically wound up with a big fight scene - it was a little too conventional for a movie that otherwise kept pulling the rug out from under me.

If I remember right, there's a commentary where one of the writers says the climactic fight is hackneyed. Which, yup. It's a very pretty movie, though. And Kiefer is hilarious.

I do still want to know if the Cat People homage was intentional or all in my head.

My biggest problem with the movie was that it basically wound up with a big fight scene - it was a little too conventional for a movie that otherwise kept pulling the rug out from under me.

I have the same problem with the movie. All that great work and buildup for what could have been the ending to any action movie with a sci-fi bent.

I do still want to know if the Cat People homage was intentional or all in my head.

Homage to which version of Cat People?

Yeah. At least with The Matrix, there was action all the way through.

Casting news for Potter V: [link]

Oh, the original. I'm scared by the idea of an homage to the remake.

Anyway. There's a scene with Kiefer in the bath, and he's splashing about in a paranoid way while Mr. Hand lurks in the darkness. It always reminds me of the scene in Cat People where Alice is in the swimming pool. Which could just be me making weird associations, I dunno.

Hee. From the IMDB:

Craig Blames Nudity on Alcohol

New James Bond Daniel Craig has vowed never to drink alcohol around film directors, because he often finds himself agreeing to outrageous scenes while under the influence. The 37-year-old actor, who stripped down in his 2000 movie Some Voices, blames a heavy boozing session with director Simon Cellan Jones for his gratuitous nudity. Craig says, "The scene was written as me running down the road stripped to the waist covered in tomato juice. But then I got drunk at Simon's and said, 'I'll do it naked!' The lesson is never get drunk with directors."