movies

1126 – Black Hawk Down (2001)

timespace coordinates: 1993  Mogadishu amid the civil war in Somalia

“Only the dead have seen the end of war.”

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Black Hawk Down is a 2001 war film produced and directed by Ridley Scott from a screenplay by Ken Nolan. It is based on the 1999 non-fiction book of the same name by journalist Mark Bowden. As an embedded journalist, he covered the 1993 raid in Mogadishu by the U.S. military, aimed at capturing faction leader Mohamed Farrah Aidid. The ensuing firefight became known as the Battle of Mogadishu. The film features a large ensemble cast, including Josh HartnettEwan McGregorEric BanaTom SizemoreWilliam Fichtner, and Sam Shepard. (wiki)

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movies, Uncategorized

1123 – Twelve Monkeys (1995)

timespace coordinates:  2035,  subterranean compound / ruins of Philadelphia (after a deadly virus released in 1996 wipes out almost all of humanity, forcing survivors to live underground) > 1990 / 1996  Baltimore + battlefield during ww1

15065_12-MONKEYSVHSCover12 Monkeys, also known as Twelve Monkeys, is a 1995 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker‘s 1962 short film La Jetée, and starring Bruce WillisMadeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in supporting roles.

References to time, time travel, and monkeys are scattered throughout the film, including the Woody Woodpecker cartoon “Time Tunnel” playing on the TV in a hotel room, the Marx Brothers film Monkey Business (1931) on TV in the asylum, and the subplots involving monkeys (drug testing, news stories and animal rights). The film is also intended to be a study of people’s declining ability to communicate in modern civilization due to the interference of technology. (Memory,_time,_and_technology)

12 Monkeys is inspired by the French short film La Jetée (1962); as in La Jetée, characters are haunted by the images of their own deaths. Like La Jetée12 Monkeys contains references to Alfred Hitchcock‘s Vertigo (1958). Toward the end of the film, Cole and Railly hide in a theater showing a 24-hour Hitchcock marathon and watch a scene from Vertigo. Railly then transforms herself with a blonde wig, as Judy (Kim Novak) transforms herself into blonde Madeleine in Vertigo; Cole sees her emerge within a red light, as Scottie (James Stewart) saw Judy emerge within a green light. Brief notes of Bernard Herrmann‘s film score can also be heard. Railly also wears the same coat Novak wore in the first part of Vertigo. The scene at Muir Woods National Monument, where Judy (as Madeleine) looks at the growth rings of a felled redwood and traces back events in her past life, resonates with larger themes in 12 Monkeys. Cole and Railly later have a similar conversation while the same music from Vertigo is repeated. The Muir Woods scene in Vertigo is also reenacted in La Jetée. In a previous scene in the film, Cole wakes up in a hospital bed with the scientists talking to him in chorus. This is a direct homage to the “Dry Bones” scene in Dennis Potter‘s The Singing DetectiveJames Cole is a notable Christ figure in film. The film is significant in the genre of science-fiction film noir, and it alludes to various “canonical noir” films.

12-Monkeys-Movie-1995-Tech-Noir-PosterAfter the release of The Zero Theorem in 2013, claims were made that Gilliam had meant it as part of a trilogy. A 2013 review for The Guardian newspaper said, “Calling it [The Zero Theorem] the third part of a trilogy formed by earlier dystopian satires Brazil and Twelve Monkeys [sic]”; but in an interview with Alex Suskind for Indiewire in late 2014, Gilliam said, “Well, it’s funny, this trilogy was never something I ever said, but it’s been repeated so often it’s clearly true [laughs]. I don’t know who started it but once it started it never stopped”(wiki)

imdb   /  12 Monkeys (TV series)

movies

1121

Bad Boys for Life (2020)

timespace coordinates: 2020 Miami

Bad Boys for Life is a 2020 American action comedy film directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. The sequel to Bad Boys II (2003), it is the third installment in the Bad Boys franchise.

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The Other Guys (2010)

timespace coordinates: late 2000’s New York City

The Other Guys is a 2010 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Adam McKay. It stars Will FerrellMark WahlbergMichael KeatonEva MendesSteve CooganRay StevensonSamuel L. Jackson, and Dwayne Johnson.

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War on Everyone (2016)

timespace coordinates: 1990’s (?) Albuquerque, New Mexico / Iceland

War on Everyone is a 2016 British black comedy buddy cop film written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. The film stars Alexander SkarsgårdMichael Peña, and Theo James. (wiki)


The philosopher Thomas Hobbes foretold a future “war of all against all” in his book “Leviathan“.

imdb   /   Review

movies

1118 – Hardware (1990)

timespace coordinates: Christmastime in New York City  (21st century, a nuclear war has transformed the Earth into a radioactive wasteland where the sea has dried up leaving it as a post-apocalyptic desert.)

See these mighty buildings. It all shall
be thrown down and shattered to splinters.
The earth will shake, rattle and roll. The
masses will go hungry, their bellies bloat.
These are the birth pains.
No flesh shall be spared. MARK-13 (Read more)

Hardware is a 1990 British science fiction horror film starring Dylan McDermott and Stacey Travis. The film, which was written and directed by Richard Stanley, also features cameos from Iggy Pop and Lemmy. Since its release, it has become a cult film. The film is about a self-repairing robot that goes on a rampage in a post-apocalyptic slum. Fleetway Comics sued the film-makers over the screenplay because it plagiarised a short story entitled “SHOK!” that appeared in 1980 in the Judge Dredd Annual 1981, a spin-off publication of the popular British weekly anthology comic 2000 AD. (wiki)

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movies

1114 – Cube (1997)

MV5BNGIyZmEzODgtMGRlMi00Y2JhLThjZmYtNzY1MmU1NmQ3ZWQ5XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMjUyNDk2ODc@._V1_SY1000_CR0,0,1489,1000_AL_Cube is a 1997 Canadian science-fiction horror film directed and co-written by Vincenzo Natali. A product of the Canadian Film Centre’s First Feature Project, the film follows a group of people as they cross industrialized cube-shaped rooms, some rigged with various traps designed to kill.

Cube has gained notoriety and a cult following, for its surreal atmosphere and Kafkaesque setting and concept of industrial, cube-shaped rooms. The film received generally positive reviews, and was followed by two sequels. A remake is in development at Lionsgate. (wiki)

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movies, series, Uncategorized

1111 – Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight (1995)

timespace coordinates: 1990’s decommissioned church converted into a boarding house on a desert road in New Mexico

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Tales from the Crypt presents Demon Knight is a 1995 American religious horror comedy film directed by Ernest Dickerson based on Tales from the Crypt, an American horror anthology television series that ran from June 10, 1989 to July 19, 1996, / based on the 1950s EC Comics series of the same name, starring Billy ZaneWilliam Sadler and Jada PinkettBrenda BakkeC. C. H. PounderDick Miller and Thomas Haden Church co-star.

wiki   /   imdb