Status Updates From Dark City: The Lost World o...

The films still connect, even without dissertations on the men and women who made them, or classes on the social pressures that informed their creation. Of all the postures proffered by Hollywood in the twentieth century, noir has proven to be the most prescient. Sadly, we're nowhere near as stylish anymore-but the corruption is thicker than ever.

Film noirs were distress flares launched onto America's movie screens by artists working the night shift at the Dream Factory. Some shell-shocked craftsman dis- charged mortars, blasting their message with an urgency aimed at shaking up the status quo. Others were firecrackers-startling but playful diversions. Either way, the whiff of cordite carried the same warning: we're corrupt.