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And lo behold, I resurrect the thread of the unnoticed, the neglected and the summarily dismissed.

I humbly submit this entry to the ranks of the films that never really got their kudos publicly.

Dark City.

Now I'll grant you, the reviews were very good, the fans won't shut up about it (I'm talking, aren't I?) and Roger Ebert called it the film of the year.

So why is it here?

Like most good sci-fi, it was largely ignored when it came out. I myself never knew it existed until long after it came out on video. (Video, remember that? Oh, where do the years go?)

Like the great ones of sci-fi, it grew quietly, gathering it's loyal fanbase till everyone who deserved it found it. When the fans were ready, the film was made known to them.

Alas, it was cursed by timing. The matrix came out the following year. It used many of the same plot-devices, and several similar themes, it even used a lot of the same sets during filming. (Dark City just got there first and did it better)

The style is incredible, film noir done with a futurism twist, and both of them fit perfectly. This movie uses Sci-fi as a vehicle to explore ideas regarding memory, and human nature, and of all things, 'Last Thursday-ism' (The theory that the whole world could have been built last Thursday and nobody would realise it, because it was made to look older than that.)

It pulled it off in an unfolding mysery that made the plot and the ending inevitable and unexpected in equal measure.

So why, you may ask yourself, does this come up now? An old movie, an old thread, etc...

Like all movies that simply have that much quality, somebody somewhere made a Directors Cut. And unlike a lot of Director Cuts, this one is worth the extra investment.

If you've never seen it before, get the Directors cut first. Trust me, it's worth it.