0629 – 2046 (2004)

spacetime coordinates: 2046 –  1960s Hong Kong – Singapore

Paragraph 201 in the Passengers’ Guide warns that Area 1224- 1225 is especially cold. The train heating won’t be strong enough. Passengers are advised to hug each other to keep warm.

2046 is a 2004 Hong Kong romantic drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai. It is a loose sequel to Wong’s films Days of Being Wild (1990) and In the Mood for Love (2000). It follows the aftermath of Chow Mo-wan’s unconsummated affair with Su Li-zhen in 1960s Hong Kong but also includes some science fiction elements and makes frequent references to the date of December 24 or Christmas Eve, on which many significant events in the film occur.

The main character (Tony Leung) writes science fiction stories, in which 2046 is a popular year and place to which people travel through time. The stories are titled 2046 and later 2047 (a collaboration with Faye Wong’s character). The year 2046 has its own significance for Hong Kong. It is 49 years after the handover of Hong Kong by the British on 1 July 1997. At the time of handover, the Mainland government promised fifty years of self-regulation for the former British colony. The year 2046 references the moment before Hong Kong’s special, self-regulated status ends.

The title may also be a reference to the Twilight Zone episode “The Lonely“, about a man sentenced to solitary confinement on a distant asteroid beginning in the year 2046. The isolated inmate falls in love with a gynoid that was delivered to keep him company. This plot structure parallels some of the science fiction motifs in Wong’s 2046. (wiki)

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0628 – Gattaca (1997)

Gattaca is a 1997 American science fiction film written and directed by Andrew Niccol. It stars Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, with Jude Law, Loren Dean, Ernest Borgnine, Gore Vidal, and Alan Arkin appearing in supporting roles. The film presents a biopunk vision of a future society driven by eugenics where potential children are conceived through genetic selection to ensure they possess the best hereditary traits of their parents. The film centers on Vincent Freeman, played by Hawke, who was conceived outside the eugenics program and struggles to overcome genetic discrimination to realize his dream of traveling into space.

The movie draws on concerns over reproductive technologies which facilitate eugenics, and the possible consequences of such technological developments for society. It also explores the idea of destiny and the ways in which it can and does govern lives. Characters in Gattaca continually battle both with society and with themselves to find their place in the world and who they are destined to be according to their genes.

The film’s title is based on the letters G, A, T, and C, which stand for guanine, adenine, thymine, and cytosine, the four nucleobases of DNA. The movie uses a swimming treadmill in the opening minutes to punctuate the swimming and futuristic themes. The futuristic turbine cars are based on 1960s car models like Rover P6, Citroën DS19 and Studebaker Avanti, and futuristic buildings represent modern architecture of the 1950s. (wiki)

Political_references   imdb

627 – The Running Man (1987)

spacetime coordinates: 2017 – 2019 Los Angeles

The Running Man is a 1987 American science fiction action film directed by Paul Michael Glaser and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, María Conchita Alonso, Yaphet Kotto, and Richard Dawson. It is very loosely based on the 1982 novel of the same name written by Stephen King and published under the pseudonym Richard Bachman. The film’s story, set in a dystopian United States between 2017 and 2019, is about a television show called The Running Man, where convicted criminal “runners” must escape death at the hands of professional killers.

Original director Andrew Davis was fired one week into filming and replaced by Glaser. Schwarzenegger has stated this was a “terrible decision”, as Glaser “shot the movie like it was a television show, losing all the deeper themes”.  (wiki)

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0626 – The Rover (2014)

spacetime coordinates: Australian outback, ten years after a global economic collapse.

The Rover is a 2014 Australian dystopian drama film written and directed by David Michôd and based on a story by Michôd and Joel Edgerton. It is a contemporary western taking place in the Australian outback, ten years after a global economic collapse. The film features Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, and Scoot McNairy with Anthony Hayes, Gillian Jones, Susan Prior, Nash Edgerton, David Field and Tawanda Manyimo.

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625 – The Cured (2017)

The Cured is a 2017 Irish horror drama film written and directed by David Freyne.

What happens when the undead return to life? In a world ravaged for years by a virus that turns the infected into zombie-like cannibals, a cure is at last found and the wrenching process of reintegrating the survivors back into society begins. Among the formerly afflicted is Senan (Sam Keeley), a young man haunted by the horrific acts he committed while infected. Welcomed back into the family of his widowed sister-in-law (Ellen Page), Senan attempts to restart his life-but is society ready to forgive him and those like him? Or will fear and prejudice once again tear the world apart? Pulsing with provocative parallels to our troubled times, The Cured is a smart, scary, and hauntingly human tale of guilt and redemption. ( rottentomatoes )

imdb   teaser-trailer.com

624 – The Crazies (2010)

The Crazies is a 2010 American science fiction horror film directed by Breck Eisner, with a screenplay by Scott Kosar and Ray Wright. The film is a remake of the 1973 film of the same name by George A. Romero, who is an executive producer of the remake. The original film follows two stories, one about the civilians and soldiers in the town and the other following politicians and military leaders away from the town. The remake focuses on a family that lives in the town and has to survive the outbreak.

The Crazies stars Timothy Olyphant and Radha Mitchell. The film takes place in the fictional town of Ogden Marsh, Pierce County, Iowa, “friendliest place on Earth,” whose town water supply is accidentally infected with the “Trixie” virus. After an incubation period of 48 hours, this virus gradually transforms the mental state of the infected into that of cold, calculating, depraved, bloodthirsty killers, who then prey on family and neighbors alike.

comic_book   imdb

623 – Contagion (2011)

Contagion is a 2011 U.S. medical thriller-disaster film directed by Steven Soderbergh. The film features an ensemble cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Bryan Cranston, Matt Damon, Laurence Fishburne, Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, Kate Winslet, and Jennifer Ehle. The plot of Contagion documents the spread of a virus transmitted by fomites, attempts by medical researchers and public health officials to identify and contain the disease, the loss of social order in a pandemic, and finally the introduction of a vaccine to halt its spread. To follow several interacting plot lines, the film makes use of the multi-narrative “hyperlink cinema” style, popularized in several of Soderbergh’s films.

H1N1

Steven Soderbergh was motivated to make an “ultra-realistic” film about the public health and scientific response to a pandemic. The movie touches on a variety of themes, including the factors which drive mass panic and collapse of social order, the scientific process for characterizing and containing a novel pathogen, balancing personal motives against professional responsibilities and rules in the face of an existential threat, the limitations and consequences of public health responses, and the pervasiveness of interpersonal connections which can serve as vectors to spread disease. Soderbergh acknowledged the salience of these post-apocalyptic themes is heightened by reactions to the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina. The movie was intended to realistically convey the “intense” and “unnerving” social and scientific reactions to a pandemic. The recent real-life epidemics such as the 2003 SARS epidemic and the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1) have been inspirations and influences in the film. The chain of contagion involving bats and pigs is reminiscent of the trail of the Nipah virus (which infects cells in the respiratory and nervous systems, the same cells as the virus in the movie) that originated in Malaysia in 1997, which similarly involved the disturbance of a bat colony by deforestation. (read more – themes – wiki)

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