551 – John Carter (2012)

spacetime coordinates: 1868 > 1881  Arizona Territory / dying planet of Barsoom – Red Martian city of Helium, predator Walking City of Zodanga

John Carter is a 2012 American science fiction action film directed by Andrew Stanton from a screenplay written by Stanton, Mark Andrews, and Michael Chabon.

The film is largely based on A Princess of Mars (1917), the first in a series of 11 novels by Edgar Rice Burroughs to feature the interplanetary hero John Carter (and in later volumes the adventures of his children with Dejah Thoris). The story was originally serialized in six monthly installments (from February through to July 1912) in the pulp magazine The All-Story; those chapters, originally titled “Under the Moons of Mars,” were then collected in hardcover five years later from publisher A. C. McClurg.

kinopoisk.ru

John Carter stars Taylor Kitsch in the title role, Lynn Collins, Samantha Morton, Mark Strong, Ciarán Hinds, Dominic West, James Purefoy, and Willem Dafoe. The film chronicles the first interplanetary adventure of John Carter and his attempts to mediate civil unrest amongst the warring kingdoms of Barsoom.

Image converted using ImgCvt

Conceptual Art of the moving City of Zodanga

“JOHN CARTER” In Burroughs’ books, massive airships sail on rays of light on Mars. ©Disney Enterprises, Inc. All rights reserved.

“JOHN CARTER” Airship ©2011 Disney. JOHN CARTER™ ERB, Inc.

“JOHN CARTER” ©2011 Disney. JOHN CARTER™ ERB, Inc.

Several developments on a theatrical film adaptation of the Barsoom series emerged throughout the 20th century from various major studios and producers, with the earliest attempt dating back to the 1930s. Most of these efforts, however, ultimately stalled in development hell. In the late-2000s, Walt Disney Pictures began a concerted effort to develop a film adaptation of Burroughs’ works, after a previously-abandoned venture by the studio in the 1980s. The project was driven by Stanton, who had pressed Disney to renew the screen rights from the Burroughs estate. Stanton became director in 2009; this was his live-action debut, as his previous directorial work for Disney included the Pixar animated films, Finding Nemo (2003) and WALL-E (2008).

Due to the film’s poor box office performance, Disney cancelled any plans for a sequel (titled John Carter: The Gods of Mars) and trilogy Stanton had planned.

Cancelled sequel   

concept art   imdb

549 – 12 Strong (2018)

spacetime coordinates: 2001 Afghanistan12 Strong (also known as 12 Strong: The Declassified True Story of the Horse Soldiers) is a 2018 American war drama film directed by Nicolai Fuglsig and written by Ted Tally and Peter Craig. The film is based on Doug Stanton‘s non-fiction book Horse Soldiers, which tells the story of CIA paramilitary officers and U.S. Special Forces, in addition to USAF Combat Controllers, sent to Afghanistan (to fight alongside the Northern Alliance leader, Abdul Rashid Dostum) immediately after the September 11 attacks. The film stars Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña, Navid Negahban, Trevante Rhodes, Geoff Stults, Thad Luckinbill, William Fichtner, and Rob Riggle.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1413492/

547 – Cosmopolis (2012)

spacetime coordinates:  near future Manhattan 

“There’s pain enough for everybody now,”Cosmopolis is a 2012 drama-thriller film written, produced, and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Robert Pattinson in the lead with Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Mathieu Amalric, Juliette Binoche, Jay Baruchel and Kevin Durand.

“A VAMPIRE CAPITALIST haunts New York in David Cronenberg’s film adaptation of Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo’s sci-finance novel that focuses on a Wall Street billionaire named Eric Packer who trades, converses, theorizes, kills and screws his way through New York in a single day.” (read more: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/cosmopolis-cronenberg-delillo/)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1480656/

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothko_Chapel

Movie Poster Design

0545 – Take Shelter (2011)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s  Lagrange, Ohio

Take Shelter is a 2011 American psychological thriller drama film, written and directed by Jeff Nichols and starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain. The plot follows a young husband and father (Shannon) who is plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, and questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1675192/

0544 – In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

spacetime coordinates: 1850 > 1820 Massachusetts / Atlantic / Pacific Ocean / Atacames, Ecuador /  Henderson Island

In the Heart of the Sea is a 2015 adventure-drama film directed and produced by Ron Howard and written by Charles Leavitt. It is based on Nathaniel Philbrick‘s non-fiction book of the same name, about the sinking of the American whaling ship Essex in 1820, an event that inspired the novel Moby-Dick. An international co-production between the United States and Spain, the film stars Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1390411/

0543 – Lucky (2017)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s Arizona, USA

The spiritual journey of a ninety-year-old atheist.

Lucky is a 2017 American drama / comedy film directed by John Carroll Lynch from a screenplay by Logan Sparks and Drago Sumonja. It stars Harry Dean Stanton in one of his final on-screen roles before his death on September 15, 2017 (aged 91).

imdb 

0540 – Naked Lunch (1991)

spacetime coordinates: 1951 – ’53 New York City –  Interzone, a city somewhere in North Africa

Naked Lunch is a 1991 science fiction drama film co-written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, and Roy Scheider. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs‘ 1959 novel of the same name, and an international co-production of Canada, Britain and Japan.

The screenplay for Naked Lunch is based not only on Burroughs’ novel, but also on other fiction by him, and autobiographical accounts of his life. It can be seen as a metatextual adaptation, in that it depicts the writing of the novel itself. Several characters are loosely based on people that Burroughs knew: Hank and Martin are based on Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (who assisted Burroughs in compiling the original novel), and Tom and Joan Frost on Paul and Jane Bowles whom Burroughs befriended in Tangier, Morocco.

The shooting of Joan Lee is based on the 1951 death of Joan Vollmer, Burroughs’ common-law wife.  Burroughs shot and killed Vollmer in a drunken game of “William Tell” at a party in Mexico City. He would later flee to the United States. Burroughs was convicted in absentia of homicide and sentenced to two years, which were suspended. Burroughs stated in the introduction to his book Queer that Joan’s death was the starting point of his literary career, saying: “I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would have never become a writer but for Joan’s death”. (wiki)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/