1185 – Serenity (2005)

timespace coordinates: In the 26th century, humanity has left an overpopulated Earth to colonize a new solar system. The central planets formed the Alliance and won a war against the outer planet Independents—those who resisted joining the Alliance.

Serenity is a 2005 American science fiction action film written and directed by Joss Whedon and stars Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk, Adam Baldwin, Summer Glau and Chiwetel Ejiofor.

It is a continuation of Whedon’s short-lived 2002 Fox television series Firefly and stars the same cast, taking place after the events of the final episode. Set in 2517, Serenity is the story of the captain and crew of Serenity, a “Firefly-class” spaceship. The captain and first mate are veterans of the Unification War, having fought on the losing Independent side against the Alliance. Their lives of smuggling and cargo-running are interrupted by a psychic passenger who harbors a dangerous secret. (wiki)

Session 416   /  Cultural impact   /  Themes and cultural allusions   /  Cancelled sequel

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Fruity Oaty Bar! Commercial

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1183 – Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2019)

Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 2019 animated superhero film produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment in association with Nickelodeon. It is based on the six-issue intercompany crossover comic book miniseries, Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams II. It was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on June 4, 2019. In the film, Batman, Robin and Batgirl team up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to save Gotham City from the Shredder and Ra’s al Ghul. (wiki)

Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles CR: Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment

imdb   / rottentomatoes

1182 – City of Lies (2018)

spacetime coordinates: 1997 – 2015 Los Angeles

City of Lies is a 2018 American crime film directed by Brad Furman and written by Christian Contreras. It is based on the book LAbyrinth: A Detective Investigates the Murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G., the Implication of Death Row Records’ Suge Knight, and the Origins of the Los Angeles Police Scandal by Randall Sullivan, about the murder investigations of Tupac Shakur and The Notorious B.I.G. The film stars Johnny Depp as retired detective LAPD Russell Poole and Forest Whitaker as a journalist Jackson, with Rockmond Dunbar and Neil Brown Jr. also starring. (wiki)

release: reports surfaced that (…) the film may be being suppressed by the Los Angeles Police Department, who is implicated in the film, or other various players who do not want the film released.

imdb   /  Rampart_scandal   /   200

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(…) What do we think of when we hear the word “meaning ether?” Probably not nearly enough — myself included! — for it is difficult to grasp what the term “meaning” signifies here. With respect to the chemical ether we had to refer to the numerical laws and to the Harmony of the Spheres. To the meaning ether, however, belongs the general and great harmony of the universe (as Kepler has expressed it). It can help us yet further if we consider a word which was used by the profound translator of many works of Chinese literature, Richard Wilhelm. He has chosen to translate the word “tao,” as used in the “Tao te Ching,” (“Tao” is translated into English as “way.”) with the German word “Sinn” (sense, or meaning). He points out that it had something of the same meaning as did the Greek word “logos” at the turning point of time, the beginning of the Christian era. If you consult a Greek dictionary, you will find a long list of meanings for the term “logos” — word, speech, computation, relationship, reason, etc. The mathematicians of 400 B.C. used the word “logos” when they stated a ratio, as 3:4. And when in the time of Plato it was established that there was no “logos,” or integral proportionality, between the diagonal and the side of a square, that was called an “a-logon,” or something without logos. Translated into Latin, logos became “ratio,” and something without “ratio” (or proportion) was something “irrational.” The discovery of the irrational in the time of Plato consisted in the proof that “irrationality” exists in the world of measure. That gives a faint indication of the paradox inherent in the deepest “sense of the word ‘sense’.”

But now you must understand that the negative mirror image of a mastery of the world of meaning, of the logos, must appear in our time, and where this negative image appears it is today called “information.” The “Science of Information” can only measure the quantitative aspect of information, and not that which is its true meaning.

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On Nuclear Energy and the Occult Atom 

by Georg Unger, 1978 (online)

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many of the products of mankind — not only machines, but also cultural works (such as great works of art, ceremonial actions, and rituals) — attract elemental beings. “Out of the interaction between these creations of humanity and the elemental beings which live with man are formed the foundations of the kingdom of Future Jupiter. That, then, is comprised by the term the occult atom.”

(…) in that time in which the soul was not yet living in such substantiality (in the Polarean and Hyperborean times), the Spirit World, which is now our inner world, surrounded us as our outer environment; in the future, that which is now outer nature and that which is “constructed” by man will become our inner world. This again is a reference to one of the occult expressions connected with Freemasonry, and it was taken for granted that the listeners would understand what was meant. They knew that the old church builders constructed churches not for themselves, nor to bring their own names into the world, but rather for others. “It was the task of all secret brotherhoods to bring the spirit into the outer world.”

it was said in 1904: “We are approaching a time in which — as I have already indicated — comprehension can reach even as far as the atom. Even lay people will recognize that the atom is nothing other than coagulated electricity. Thought itself is of the same substance; even before the Fifth Cultural Epoch comes to an end, man will come so far that he will be capable of working right into the atom.”

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On Nuclear Energy and the Occult Atom 

by Georg Unger, 1978 (online)

1179 – The Atomic Cafe (1982)

timespace coordinates: 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s United States, the Marshall Islands

The Atomic Cafe is a 1982 American documentary film produced and directed by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty and Pierce Rafferty. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States’ National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

The film covers the beginnings of the era of nuclear warfare, created from a broad range of archival material from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s including newsreel clips, television news footage, U.S. government-produced films (including military training films), advertisements, television and radio programs. News footage reflected the prevailing understanding of the media and public.

Though the topic of atomic holocaust is a grave matter, The Atomic Cafe approaches it with black humor. Much of the humor derives from the modern audience’s reaction to the old training films, such as the Duck and Cover film shown in schools.

The Atomic Cafe was released at the height of nostalgia and cynicism in America. By 1982, Americans lost much of their faith in their government following the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the seemingly never-ending arms race with the Soviet Union. The Atomic Cafe reflects and reinforces this idea as it exposes how the atomic bomb’s dangers were downplayed and how the government used films to shape public opinion.

Bob Mielke, in “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Nuclear Test Documentary” (Film Quarterly) discusses the release of The Atomic Cafe: “This satire feature was released at the height of the nuclear freeze movement (which was in turn responding to the Reagan administration’s surreal handling of the arms race.)”

Patricia Aufderheide, in Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction touches on the significance of The Atomic Cafe as a window into the past of government propaganda and disinformation during the years following the advent of the Atomic Bomb. “Propaganda, also known as disinformation, public diplomacy, and strategic communication, continues to be an important tool for governments. But stand-alone documentary is no longer an important part of public relations campaigns aimed at the general public.” (wiki)

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Bikini Atoll

Because the site bears direct tangible evidence of the nuclear tests conducted there amid the paradoxical tropical location, UNESCO determined that the atoll symbolizes the dawn of the nuclear age and named it a World Heritage Site on 3 August 2010.

Bikini Atoll has conserved direct tangible evidence … conveying the power of … nuclear tests, i.e. the sunken ships sent to the bottom of the lagoon by the tests in 1946 and the gigantic Bravo crater. Equivalent to 7,000 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb, the tests had major consequences on the geology and natural environment of Bikini Atoll and on the health of those who were exposed to radiation. Through its history, the atoll symbolises the dawn of the nuclear age, despite its paradoxical image of peace and of earthly paradise.