Jennifer Connelly

Labyrinth

  • Title: Labyrinth
  • IMDb: link

Following the success of The Dark Crystal, Jim Henson turned his attention to bringing another dark fantasy to the big screen. Brian Froud, who provided the conceptual designs for the previous film was tasked with creating creatures for a new world within a labyrinth. And Monty Python’s Terry Jones signed on to write the screenplay based on a story from Henson and Dennis Lee heavily influenced by The Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, and Maurice Sendak‘s Outside Over There. The film is so closely related to the latter, it nearly prevented Labyrinth‘s release until legal complaints were settled.

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Dark City

  • Title: Dark City
  • IMDb: link

“That’s what Science Fiction and Fantasy is for, after all; to take one behind the scenes,
to force one to reinvent the paradigm. And Dark City does that in spades.”
—Neil Gaiman

I’m a big fan of The Matrix, but I’m a bigger fan of Dark City. Released more than a year before Neo took the red pill to the delight of audiences everywhere, writer/director Alex Proyas presented a similar tale of a man trapped in a world where nothing is quite what is seems. Although not as widely known (more than six times the number of people have taken the time to rate The Matrix on IMDb), it is a superior film in almost every conceivable way. Released in 1998 we mark the occasion by reviewing the DVD ten years later.

Back in the spring of 1998 I was in the middle of a particularly brutal college semester and looking for a few hours respite.  Checking the paper I discovered the local $1 movie theater was showing a film I had missed, Dark City.  Taking a chance, I went.  I went back the next night as well.  And the third night I dragged my two roommates and went back again.  I long ago lost track of the number of films I have seen over my lifetime, but I can count on one hand the films which have had this reaction on me.

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