Tag: 1980s
0402 – Drowning by Numbers (1988)
Drowning by Numbers is a 1988 British-Dutch film directed by Peter Greenaway.
The film’s plot centres on three married women — a grandmother, her daughter, and her niece — each named Cissie Colpitts. As the story progresses, each woman successively drowns her husband. The three Cissie Colpittses are played by Joan Plowright, Juliet Stevenson and Joely Richardson, while Bernard Hill plays the coroner, Madgett, who is cajoled into covering up the three crimes.
The structure, with similar stories repeated three times, is reminiscent of a fairy tale, most specifically ‘The Billy Goats Gruff‘, because Madgett is constantly promised greater rewards as he tries his luck with each of the Cissies in turn. The link to folklore is further established by Madgett’s son Smut, who recites the rules of various unusual games played by the characters as if they were ancient traditions. Many of these games are invented for the film, including:
- Bees in the Trees
- Dawn Card Castles
- Deadman’s Catch
- Flights of Fancy (or Reverse Strip Jump)
- The Great Death Game
- Hangman’s Cricket
- The Hare and Hounds
- Sheep and Tides
In Drowning by Numbers, number-counting, the rules of games and the repetitions of the plot are all devices which emphasise structure and symmetry. Through the course of the film each of the numbers 1 to 100 appear, the large majority in sequence, often seen in the background, sometimes spoken by the characters.
The film is set and was shot in and around Southwold, Suffolk, England, with key landmarks such as the Victorian water tower, Southwold Lighthouse, and the estuary of the River Blyth clearly identifiable.
Music
0384 – The Mystery of the Third Planet (1981)
At the end of the 22nd century Alisa Seleznyova, her father Professor Seleznyov and pilot Zeleny go on a space expedition to find rare animals for Moscow Zoo.

The Mystery of the Third Planet (Russian: Тайна третьей планеты, Tayna tretyey planety), aka The Secret of the Third Planet is a 1981 Soviet traditionally animated feature film directed by Roman Kachanov and produced by the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow. It is based on a children’s science fiction novella “Alice’s Travel” by Kir Bulychov, from Alisa (Alice) Selezneva book series.
The movie is considered a cult classic in Russia, a diafilm and a number of video games were based on The Mystery of the Third Planet, and spiritual successor film Alice’s Birthday was released in 2009.
0378 – Experimenter (2015)
Experimenter is a 2015 American biographical drama film written and directed by Michael Almereyda, based on the 1961 Milgram experiment.

The film is based on the true story of famed social psychologist Stanley Milgram, who in 1961 conducted a series of radical behavior experiments at Yale University that tested the willingness of ordinary humans to obey an authority figure while administering electric shocks to strangers.
0359 – The Farthest (2017 documentary)

” 12 billion miles away a tiny spaceship is leaving our Solar System and entering the void of deep space. It is the first human-made object ever to do so. Slowly dying within its heart is a plutonium generator that will beat for perhaps another decade before the lights on Voyager finally go out. But this little craft will travel on for millions of years, carrying a Golden Record bearing recordings and images of life on Earth. In all likelihood Voyager will outlive humanity and all our creations. It could be the only thing to mark our existence. Perhaps some day an alien will find it and wonder.


The story of Voyager is an epic of human achievement, personal drama and almost miraculous success. Launched 16 days apart in Autumn 1977, the twin Voyager space probes have defied all the odds, survived countless near misses and almost 40 years later continue to beam revolutionary information across unimaginable distances. ”
0358 – It (2017)
spacetime coordinates: summer of 1989, small town Derry

It (also known as It: Chapter One) is a 2017 American supernatural horror film directed by Andy Muschietti, based on the 1986 novel of the same name by Stephen King. The screenplay is by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman. A second installment is planned. The film tells the story of seven children in Derry, Maine, who are terrorized by the eponymous being, only to face their own personal demons in the process. The novel was previously adapted into a 1990 miniseries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It_(2017_film)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1396484/

0355 – Pupendo (2003)
spacetime coordinates: Czechoslovakia during the 1980s

Pupendo is a 2003 Czech comedy / drama film directed by Jan Hřebejk. A bittersweet comedy set just prior to 1984, during the era of ‘practical socialism’. For political reasons, Bedrich Mára (Bolek Polívka) has had to give up teaching at Prague’s Academy of Art. He is not allowed to exhibit and has been pushed to the sidelines of interest and lucrative commissions. He and his ceramicist wife (Eva Holubová) and two sons live in a small apartment on the outskirts of Prague.