TheRetroCritic

Also known as Jet , Ground Control was a 1998 Kiefer Sutherland flick about a disgraced ex-air traffic controller called back in to help manage a particularly difficult situation. The film sounded like it could offer some cheap Airport 1975 or Die Hard 2 -style entertainment. Man did it not do that, like, at all. As it turns out, the entire film was made to show how difficult air traffic controllers' jobs are, having to monitor several aircrafts on several different paths just by looking at abstract Atari-style monitors. It's a fair enough endeavour but this was also meant to be a film and in terms of drama and excitement, Ground Control is about as fun as a night spent sleeping on one of those uncomfortable airport seats. If you close your eyes and listen to Kiefer Sutherland's voice speaking over the score, you could fool yourself into believing you were watching the worst season of 24 ever made but even that would have been miles better than what the film offer

So I'm watching Rainer Werner Fassbinder's World On A Wire , a German TV movie from the 70's fleshing the idea of a simulated reality and it's all well and good (and long) but in the back of my mind I'm thinkin' there surely  must be an easier way to tell that story. And that way, it turns out, is The Thirteenth Floor . Ok, the latter film may not exactly be quite as interesting as World On A Wire in terms of the subtle, surrealist way in which it depicts simulation and the fact the film came out about the same time as The Matrix makes it much less visionary than Fassbinder's ahead-of-its-time effort. That said, The Thirteenth Floor handles its big ideas very well fitting in nicely as a good companion piece to the likes of Blade Runner or Dark City with its "film noir-meets-the near future" vibe and as a good companion piece to the likes of The Matrix or even  eXistenZ . Basically, the film looks at familiar sci-fi ideas of simulation and hu