movies, music

200

spacetime coordinates:  80’s – 90’s  Brooklyn New York City // Las Vegas, Baltimore, San Francisco, Los Angeles

Notorious (2009)

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Notorious is a 2009 American biographical drama film directed by George Tillman Jr. that follows the life and murder of Christopher Wallace, an American rapper better known by the stage name “The Notorious B.I.G.”. The film stars Jamal WoolardAngela BassettDerek Luke, and Anthony Mackie.

Criticism by Lil’ Kim

imdb


All Eyez on Me (2017)

All-Eyez-on-me-New-poster

All Eyez on Me is a 2017 American biographical drama film about hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur, directed by Benny Boom and written by Jeremy Haft, Eddie Gonzalez and Steven Bagatourian. Titled after Shakur’s 1996 fourth studio album of the same name, the film stars Demetrius Shipp Jr. as Shakur with Kat GrahamLauren CohanHill Harper and Danai Gurira in supporting roles.

Historical accuracy

imdb

movies

0199 – Wittgenstein (1993)

Wittgenstein is a 1993 film by the English director Derek Jarman. It is loosely based on the life story as well as the philosophical thinking of the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein. The adult Wittgenstein is played by Karl Johnson.

The original screenplay was by the literary critic Terry Eagleton. Jarman heavily rewrote the script during pre-production and shooting, radically altering the style and structure, although retaining much of Eagleton’s dialogue. The story is not played out in a traditional setting, but rather against a black backdrop within which the actors and key props are placed, as if in a theatre setting.

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A dramatization, in modern theatrical style, of the life and thought of the Viennese-born, Cambridge-educated philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), whose principal interest was the nature and limits of language. A series of sketches depict the unfolding of his life from boyhood, through the era of the first World War, to his eventual Cambridge professorship and association with Bertrand Russell and John Maynard Keynes. The emphasis in these sketches is on the exposition of the ideas of Wittgenstein, a homosexual, and an intuitive, moody, proud, and perfectionistic thinker generally regarded as a genius.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108583/

movies

197 – The Name of the Rose (1986)

spacetime coordinates: 1327 northern Italy

The Name of the Rose (Der Name der Rose) is a 1986 Italian-French-German drama mystery film directed by Jean-Jacques Annaud, based on the book of the same name by Umberto Eco. Sean Connery stars as the Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Christian Slater is his apprentice Adso of Melk, who are called upon to solve a deadly mystery in a Benedictine abbey.

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The exterior and some of the interiors of the monastery seen in the film were constructed as a replica on a hilltop outside Rome, and ended up being the biggest exterior set built in Europe since Cleopatra. Many of the interiors were shot at Eberbach Abbey, Germany. Most props, including period illuminated manuscripts, were produced specifically for the film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0091605/

movies, music

0196 – Turbo Kid (2015)

spacetime coordinates: 1997 Wastelands

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Turbo Kid is a 2015 post-apocalyptic action-adventure comedy superhero film written and directed by François Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell. The film stars Munro ChambersLaurence LeboeufMichael Ironside, Edwin Wright, Aaron Jeffery, and Romano Orzari. The film follows the adventures of The Kid, a teenage boy turned superhero in the “Wastelands”, an alternate 1997 Earth where water is scarce. He teams up with a mysterious girl named Apple and an arm-wrestling cowboy named Frederic to stop the tyrannical warlord Zeus.

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On September 28, 2016, a sequel to the film was officially announced. One day before the announcement, Le Matos released the official music video for their track “No Tomorrow”, which serves as a prequel to the original film:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3672742/

movies, music

195 – Hugo (2011)

spacetime coordinates: Paris in the 1930s

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Hugo is a 2011 historical adventure drama film directed and co-produced by Martin Scorsese and adapted for the screen by John Logan. Based on Brian Selznick‘s book The Invention of Hugo Cabret, it is about a boy who lives alone in the Gare Montparnasse railway station in Paris in the 1930s.

The backstory and primary features of Georges Méliès‘ life as depicted in the film are largely accurate: He became interested in film after seeing a demonstration of the Lumière brothers‘ camera; he was a magician and toymaker; he experimented with automata; he owned a theatre (Theatre Robert-Houdin); he was forced into bankruptcy; his film stock was reportedly melted down for its celluloid; he became a toy salesman at the Montparnasse station, and he was eventually awarded the Légion d’honneur medal after a period of terrible neglect. Many of the early silent films shown in the movie are Méliès’s actual works, such as Le voyage dans la lune (1902). However, the film does not mention Méliès’ two children, his brother Gaston (who worked with Méliès during his film-making career), or his first wife Eugénie, who was married to Méliès during the time he made films (and who died in 1913). The film shows Méliès married to Jeanne d’Alcy during their filmmaking period, when in reality they did not marry until 1925. (read more here: Historical references)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0970179/

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movies

193 – The Ottoman Lieutenant (2017)

spacetime coordinates: World War I Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Lieutenant is a Turkish-American World War I drama film directed by Joseph Ruben and written by Jeff Stockwell. The film stars Michiel HuismanHera HilmarJosh Hartnett and Ben Kingsley.

Several critics criticized the film for perpetuating the denial of the Armenian Genocide. In his review for Variety Dennis Harvey writes, “[In] this primarily Turkish-funded production, the historical, political, ethnic and other intricacies — not to mention that perpetual elephant in the room, the Armenian Genocide, which commenced in 1915 — are glossed over in favor of a generalized ‘Whattaya gonna do… war is bad’ aura that implies conscience without actually saying anything.”

In his review of the film for Slant Magazine, Keith Watson writes, “More conspicuous than The Ottoman Lieutenant’s rote melodrama is the way the film elides the concurrent genocide of ethnic Armenians by Ottoman forces, a historical reality which the Turkish government continues to deny to this day.”, while critic Roger Moore called The Ottoman Lieutenant “a botched love-triangle romance set against a revisionist account of the Turkish Armenian Genocide.”

WIKI   IMDB