0593 – Batman Ninja (2018)

spacetime coordinates: Gotham City > feudal Japan

Batman Ninja (ニンジャバットマン Ninja Battoman) is a 2018 Japanese animated period martial arts superhero film directed by Junpei Mizusaki and produced by Warner Bros. Takashi Okazaki, the creator of Afro Samurai, is the character designer for the film.

IGN awarded Batman Ninja a score of 9.7 out of 10, saying “DC tried something new by bringing in visionary Japanese animators to offer a refreshing take on one of the company’s most beloved characters, and the finished product not only built upon the great adaptations that have come before, but surpassed them.”

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0588 – The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is a 2005 British-American science fiction comedy film directed by Garth Jennings, based upon previous works in the media franchise of the same name, created by Douglas Adams. It stars Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell, Mos Def, Zooey Deschanel and the voices of Stephen Fry and Alan Rickman. This is the ninth version of the “Hitchhiker’s Guide”. It has previously appeared as a radio series, two record albums, novels, a television series (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1981)), a computer game, a stage show, a comic book, a video game (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1984)) and a towel. (The game version is not, in fact, a video game, but was an Infocom “interactive fiction” {text only} game, plotted/scripted by Douglas Adams, programmed by Steve Meretzky, which has been available to play free on the BBC Radio 4 website since 2005.)

Flyer for the 1979 stage production at the ICA of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy.

The producers have stated that this film is not a literal translation of the books (just as the books were not a literal translation of the original radio show), but all of the new ideas and characters came from Douglas Adams himself. The hired writer simply came aboard to improve structure and make the screenplay more coherent.

Easter Egg: The DVD includes an “Improbability Drive” item on every menu. Clicking this leads to a random point in one of the bonus features. Used several times leads to a strange cartoon, which is the same one Deep Thought watches.

The Hitchiker’s Guide is a parody of “The Encyclopedia Galactica” from Isaac Asimov‘s Foundation novels.

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0580 – Watchmen (2009)

spacetime coordinates: 1985 New York City

Watchmen is a 2009 American superhero film directed by Zack Snyder, based on the 1986–87 DC Comics limited series of the same name by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. It stars an ensemble cast of Malin Åkerman, Billy Crudup, Matthew Goode, Carla Gugino, Jackie Earle Haley, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, and Patrick Wilson. A dark satirical and dystopian take on the superhero genre, the film is set in an alternate history in the year 1985 at the height of the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union, as a group of mostly retired American superheroes investigates the murder of one of their own before uncovering an elaborate and deadly conspiracy, while their moral limitations are challenged by the complex nature of the circumstances.

Minutemen 1940 from the mystery adventure “Watchmen,” a Warner Bros. Pictures and Paramount Pictures presentation, in association with Legendary Pictures. Pictured left-to-right are: APOLLONIA VANOVA as Silhouette, NIALL MATER as Mothman, DAN PAYNE as Dollar Bill, CLINT CARLETON as the original Nite Owl, DARYL SCHEELER as Captain Metropolis, CARLA GUGINO as the original Silk Spectre, GLENN ENNIS as Hooded Justice and (kneeling) JEFFREY DEAN MORGAN as The Comedian. PHOTOGRAPHS TO BE USED SOLELY FOR ADVERTISING, PROMOTION, PUBLICITY OR REVIEWS OF THIS SPECIFIC MOTION PICTURE AND TO REMAIN THE PROPERTY OF THE STUDIO. NOT FOR SALE OR REDISTRIBUTION.

The “Ultimate Cut” edition incorporated the animated comic Tales of the Black Freighter into the narrative as it was in the original graphic novel, lengthening the runtime to 3 hours and 35 minutes.

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579 – Dayu haitang / Big Fish & Begonia (2016)

“In ancient history there was a tree called Ta-khun, whose spring (Chun) was 8000 years, and its autumn (Qiu) the same.”

Big Fish & Begonia (original title: Da Yu Hai Tang), is a 2016 Chinese animated epic fantasy film written, produced and directed by Liang Xuan and Zhang Chun.

The story was inspired by a myth from the ancient Chinese Taoist classic Zhuangzi. The film also integrates many stories from other Chinese classics such as Classic of Mountains and Seas and In Search of the Supernatural.

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music video directed by Dutch digital artist Han Hoogerbrugge. The website Stereogum described it as a “horizontally scrolling animated video [that] is part Sonic The Hedgehog (dated video game reference!) and part Pac Man (chomping down on hearts, shamrocks, and cash money), with a lineup of Chrisses, Neils, and others shouting, flexing, unmasking, and turning into draculas.”

Love Etc.

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Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication [Official Music Video]

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directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, takes the form of a fictional 3D video game from the third-person point of view of each of the band members, all on some sort of adventure; this varies with each band member. The video itself contains many homages to video games of its time, such as Crazy Taxi in Kiedis’s sequences and Kiedis’s swimming scenes, and SSX in Chad’s snowboarding scenes. The music video is similar to some games that were mostly sandbox/open-world-based gameplay. The music video for “Californication” is the group’s most watched on YouTube, with over 626 million views.