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Alex Proyas’s Dark City (1998) is one of the most distinctive science fiction films of the 1990s, a noir infused puzzle about a man accused of murder in a city where time never reaches daylight. It blends German Expressionist visuals, detective fiction, and philosophical science fiction to ask a quietly disturbing question: if your memories can be rewritten, what does “you” even mean? Beneath its shadowed rooftops and shifting buildings, Dark City is ultimately about identity, control, and the human urge to define ourselves in a world that will not stay still. The story follows John Murdoch, played by Rufus Sewell, who wakes in a bathtub in a strange hotel room with no memory of who he is. A dead woman lies nearby. A phone rings and a voice warns him that he is in danger. Soon he learns he is being hunted both by the police, led by Inspector Bumstead, and by pale, otherworldly beings called the Strangers. As John runs through the perpetual night of the city, he encounters his supposed ...

Vanilla Sky (2001), directed by Cameron Crowe and adapted from Alejandro Amenábar’s Spanish film Open Your Eyes , is at once a love story, a science-fiction mystery, and a psychological character study. It follows a charming, privileged protagonist whose life collapses after a disfiguring accident—and then folds into a surreal puzzle that blurs dream and reality. Rather than delivering a simple twist ending, the film invites viewers to question how memory, desire, guilt, and technology shape our perception of the world and of ourselves. The story centers on David Aames (Tom Cruise), a wealthy publishing heir whose life is defined by pleasure and possibility. He floats through parties and relationships, protected by money and charisma. His casual affair with Julie Gianni (Cameron Diaz) coexists with a growing attraction to Sofia Serrano (Penélope Cruz), whose warmth and groundedness seem to offer David something deeper than his usual escapism. Julie, however, feels discarded. In a sho...

  Adrian Lyne’s Jacob’s Ladder (1990) is one of the defining psychological horror films of the late twentieth century, not because of jump scares, but because of the way it turns grief, war trauma, and the fear of dying into a vivid and fractured reality. It follows Jacob Singer, a Vietnam veteran haunted by hallucinations and fragmented memories, as he tries to make sense of what is happening to him. The movie blends supernatural imagery with psychological realism, producing a story that is at once a mystery, a horror film, and a philosophical meditation on how people confront death. At the surface level, the film tracks Jacob after his return from Vietnam. He works as a postal clerk in New York City, lives with his girlfriend Jezzie after separating from his wife, and is grieving the death of his young son. Soon, however, his world becomes unstable. He sees grotesque figures in the subway and on city streets. Faces flicker and distort. People around him seem possessed or replace...

Shane Carruth’s Primer (2004) is infamous for being one of the most complex time travel films ever made. Its budget was tiny, its cast largely nonprofessional, and its aesthetic stripped of Hollywood gloss. Yet it has become a cult classic precisely because it treats time travel not as spectacle, but as a messy, improvised engineering accident, one that corrodes friendships, multiplies ethical dilemmas, and fractures identity. Rather than pausing to explain itself in simple terms, the film drops viewers directly into the minds and conversations of engineers who discover more power than they are prepared to handle. On the surface, the plot is straightforward enough. Aaron and Abe are two engineers who spend their days at corporate jobs and their nights in a garage, building devices in hopes of launching a startup. While experimenting with reducing an object’s weight, they accidentally discover that a sealed box allows time to behave strangely inside. An object placed in the box experien...

David Lynch’s Inland Empire (2006) is one of the most challenging works in contemporary cinema, and deliberately so. Shot largely on consumer-grade digital video and running nearly three hours, it abandons conventional plot structure in favor of overlapping identities, dream logic, and free-associative imagery. For many viewers it feels like being dropped into a maze without a map; for others, that mystery is exactly the point. Understanding Inland Empire doesn’t mean decoding it into a single “solution,” but recognizing how its form, themes, and textures work together to evoke the psychological states it depicts. At the simplest level, the film follows actress Nikki Grace (Laura Dern), who is cast in a romantic drama called On High in Blue Tomorrows . As she prepares for the role, she learns the production is rumored to be cursed: an earlier version of the film was abandoned after the leads were murdered. As Nikki sinks into the part, the boundaries between her life and that of her...

T eenage Mutant Ninja Turtles  (1990) occupies a fascinating spot in pop-culture history. It arrived at a moment when the ninja turtle craze was at full commercial saturation, cartoons, toys, arcade games, and yet it chose, somewhat boldly, not to simply replicate the candy-colored tone of the Saturday morning series. Instead, director Steve Barron and the filmmaking team looked back toward Eastman and Laird’s original Mirage comics, blending grit and humor into a film that was darker, moodier, and more grounded than most viewers, especially parents, expected. That unexpected tonal mix is precisely why the film still holds up more than three decades later. Visually, the movie is immediately defined by its practical effects. Jim Henson’s Creature Shop created the turtle suits, and they remain one of the film’s greatest strengths. These suits could so easily have slipped into camp or awkward immobility, but instead they manage a delicate magic trick: the turtles look tactile, weight...

“Snakes on a Plane” has always lived at the intersection of joke and movie, meme and text. Released in 2006 and instantly absorbed into internet culture, it’s a film whose title seemed to do all the work in advance: there are snakes, and they are on a plane. The promise is both absurdly high-concept and blatantly literal. Yet within that simplicity lies the reason the film remains oddly enduring: it is fully aware of its own ridiculousness and leans into it with gusto. The premise is straightforward pulp. An FBI agent, played with relaxed authority and winking intensity by Samuel L. Jackson, escorts a key witness on a commercial airliner. A crime lord, unwilling to let justice unfold through ordinary legal channels, arranges to sabotage the flight by releasing a cargo hold full of venomous snakes midair. Chaos ensues, bodies pile up, oxygen masks drop, and the laws of herpetology bend to the needs of cinema. What follows is part disaster movie, part creature feature, and part meta-come...

Under Siege occupies an interesting and now rather nostalgic place in the action-movie landscape. Released in 1992 and directed by Andrew Davis, the film is both a quintessential product of its era and a surprisingly polished entry in the “Die Hard-on-a-[insert location here]” subgenre. It stars Steven Seagal at the height of his box-office popularity as Casey Ryback, a Navy cook who is, of course, not merely a cook, but a former elite operative demoted for insubordination. When terrorists take control of the battleship USS Missouri, Ryback becomes the only person aboard capable of stopping them. The result is a tight, contained thriller that pairs efficient action mechanics with memorable villains and an earnest, slightly self-serious tone that oddly works in its favor. At its core, Under Siege succeeds because of its simplicity. The premise is clear, stakes are straightforward, and the geography of the story, a massive battleship, creates a sense of claustrophobic escalation. Unlike ...

  Welcome back to the Following Films Podcast. I’m your host, Chris Maynard, and today I’m joined by writer-director Ali Cook to talk about his Oscar-shortlisted new short film, The Pearl Comb. Starring Beatie Edney (Highlander) and Ali Cook (Kajaki), The Pearl Comb follows the wife of a fisherman whose miraculous healing powers draw the scrutiny of the medical establishment. When she becomes the first person known to cure tuberculosis, a skeptical doctor is sent to investigate. Set in a time when women were barred from practicing medicine, the film explores power, belief, and the limits society places on women—what begins as an attempt to expose her becomes a journey that challenges long-held scientific and gender-based assumptions. Inspired by the true story of the Edinburgh Seven, the first women to study medicine in the UK, The Pearl Comb blends historical drama with mysticism.  We also discuss Ali's remarkable career as both a magician and stand-up comedian and dig into h...