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timespace coordinates: Gotham City, 1981
Joker is a 2019 American psychological thriller film directed and produced by Todd Phillips. The film, based on DC Comics characters, stars Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker. Joker provides a possible origin story for the character.
social commentary / future / wiki / imdb
timespace coordinates: 2010’s London / Ukraine / Samoa
Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is a 2019 American action film directed by David Leitch starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. It is a spin-off of the Fast & Furious film series and the ninth installment overall. The plot follows the unlikely pairing of the titular characters as they are forced to join with Shaw’s sister (Vanessa Kirby) to battle a cybernetically-enhanced terrorist (Idris Elba) and his organization threaten the world with a deadly virus. (wiki)
Code 8 is a 2019 crowdfunded Canadian science fiction thriller film directed by Jeff Chan, Based on the 2016 short film of the same name. (wiki)
“Code 8 is an electrifying film featuring ordinary people with powers in a tough world. It’s a gritty and realistic take that’s a nice change of pace in the superhero genre.” John Nguyen / Nerd Reactor
In December 2019, a short-form spinoff series starring Robbie and Stephen Amell, written by Chris Pare, and directed by Jeff Chan was announced in development at Quibi.
timespace coordinates: 1969 Los Angeles
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It features a large ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, Emile Hirsch, Margaret Qualley, Timothy Olyphant, Austin Butler, Dakota Fanning, Bruce Dern, and Al Pacino. The film follows an actor and his stunt double, as they navigate the changing film industry, and features “multiple storylines in a modern fairy tale tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age” (wiki)
imdb / Character background / Pop culture references / Historical accuracy / Controversy
timespace coordinates: 1980’s – 1991 – 1993 Norway
Lords of Chaos is a 2018 horror-thriller film directed by Jonas Åkerlund and written by Dennis Magnusson and Åkerlund. Adapted from the 1998 book of the same name, the film is a semi-fictionalised account of the early 1990s Norwegian black metal scene told from the perspective of Mayhem co-founder Euronymous. It stars Rory Culkin as Euronymous, Emory Cohen as Varg Vikernes, Jack Kilmer as Dead, and Sky Ferreira as Ann-Marit (character invented for the movie). Music for the film is by sigur rós. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: “near future” (2050’s ?) commercial flight to the Moon > the ship Cepheus, bound for Mars > Norwegian biomedical research space station > underground SpaceCom base on Mars > the Lima Project (Neptune’s rings)
Ad Astra is a 2019 American science fiction adventure film produced, co-written, and directed by James Gray. Starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland, it follows an astronaut who goes into space in search of his lost father, whose experiment threatens the Solar System. + scored by Max Richter. +
Reviews out of the Venice Film Festival compared it to well-worn sci-fi touchstones “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Solaris,” and “Apocalypse Now,” in part due to its probing adventure narrative. Gray says he went straight to the urtext that inspired them, Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey.” (cnn)
The title means “to the stars” in Latin. It is often used as a shorthand for “Per Aspera Ad Astra” (Through the hardships to the Stars).
Freaks is a 2018 American-Canadian science fiction thriller film directed, written and produced by Zach Lipovsky and Adam B. Stein. It stars Emile Hirsch, Bruce Dern, Grace Park, Amanda Crew, and Lexy Kolker, who was seven years old at the time of filming.
The film tells the story of a 7-year-old girl named Chloe (Kolker) who is locked in an abandoned house by her disturbed father (Hirsch). The mysterious Mr. Snowcone (Dern) convinces her to escape for his own suspicious reasons. (wiki)
A promotional poster for the film features a street sign with a one eye logo and a phone number to call to report “abnormal activity”. The number is 1-800-517-5890 and when called, a recorded message with a woman’s voice would say, “Thank you for calling the abnormal defense hotline, provided by the Department of Homeland Security.” The recorded message at first urged others to be on the lookout for “freaks” and it said that you can leave a message to report any abnormal activity from freaks. A few days later, the recorded message was changed to warn others to stay away from an upcoming San Diego Comic Con “free underground prescreening of Freaks” on July 18, 2019.
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