time machine // database // travel guide
timespace coordinates: 1988 – 1994 – 1997 Japan
JU-ON: Origins is a Japanese horror web television series based on the Ju-On franchise. The series premiered on Netflix on July 3, 2020. (wiki)
A paranormal researcher searches obsessively for a cursed home where something terrible happened to a mother and her child long ago. The J-horror classic franchise Ju-On was actually based on real events that occurred over four decades — and the truth is even more terrifying. (rt)
A Lovecraftian Sci-Fi Thriller
A group of young Miskatonic University scientists invent a time machine, only to learn that they are being manipulated by mysterious, unseen forces from another dimension. – intersectthemovie.com
timespace coordinates: The film is partially presented in a found footage format by featuring fictional interviews, news footage, and video from surveillance cameras. The story, which explores themes of humanity, xenophobia and social segregation, begins in an alternate 1982, when an alien spaceship appears over Johannesburg, South Africa. When a population of sick and malnourished insectoid aliens are discovered on the ship, the South African government confines them to an internment camp called District 9. Twenty years later, during the government’s relocation of the aliens to another camp, one of the confined aliens named Christopher Johnson, who is about to try to escape from Earth with his son and return home, crosses paths with a bureaucrat leading the relocation named Wikus van der Merwe. The title and premise of District 9 were inspired by events in Cape Town‘s District Six, during the apartheid era.
District 9 is a 2009 science fiction action film directed by Neill Blomkamp in his feature film debut. It is a co-production of New Zealand, the United States and South Africa. The film stars Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, and David James, and was adapted from Blomkamp’s 2006 short film Alive in Joburg. (wiki)
imdb / rt / Future / the-art-of-district-9
timespace coordinates: In 1990, Johannesburg is home to a number of extraterrestrial refugees, whose large spaceships (estimated to be nearly one kilometre in length) can be seen hovering above the city. When the visitors first arrived, the human population was enamored with, among other aspects, the aliens’ advanced “bio-suits”, and welcomed them with open arms. However, the aliens later began moving into other areas of the city, committing crimes in order to survive and frequently clashing with police. Playing as a documentary, the film continues with interviews and footage taken from handheld cameras, which highlight the growing tension between Earth’s civilian population and the extraterrestrial visitors.
According to individuals “interviewed” in the film, the aliens were captive labour (slaves or indentured servants), forced to live in “conditions that were not good” and had escaped to Earth. Because the film takes place in 1990, while apartheid was still in effect in South Africa, the aliens were forced to live amongst the already-oppressed black population, causing conflict with them as well as the non-white and white populations.
All of the interview statements which do not explicitly mention extraterrestrials were taken from authentic interviews with many South Africans who had been asked their opinions of Zimbabwean refugees. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 1123 > 1992 northern France
Les Visiteurs (French pronunciation: [le vizitœʁ]; English: The Visitors) is a French fantasy comedy film directed by Jean-Marie Poiré and released in 1993. In this comedy, a 12th-century knight (Jean Reno) and his squire (Christian Clavier) travel in time to the end of the 20th century and find themselves adrift in modern society.
timespace coordinates: 1123 / 1998 northern France
Les Couloirs du temps : Les Visiteurs II (French pronunciation: [lɛ vizitœːʁ kulwaːʁ dy tɑ̃]; English: The Visitors II: The Corridors of Time) is a sequel to the original French film, Les Visiteurs.
timespace coordinates: time-traveling medieval knight Godefroy de Montmirail and his servant Jacquouille la Fripouille arrive in 1793, in the middle of the French revolution, and find themselves caught up in the Reign of Terror.
The Visitors: Bastille Day (original title: Les Visiteurs: La Révolution) is a 2016 French-Belgian-Czech comedy film directed by Jean-Marie Poiré.
timespace coordinates: 1995 urban, nighttime Hong Kong
Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie Yeung, and Karen Mok. As with the filmmaker’s other features, plot takes a back seat to mood.
Originally conceived by Wong as the third story for 1994’s Chungking Express, it was cut after he decided that it was complete without it. He instead decided to develop the story further into its own feature film and borrowed elements of Chungking Express, such as themes, locations and methods of filming. Wanting to also try to differentiate it from Chungking and to try something new, Wong decided along with cinematographer Christopher Doyle to shoot mainly at night and using extreme wide-angle lenses, keeping the camera as close to the talents as possible to give a detached effect from the world around them.
In an interview, Wong had this to say:
…To me, Chungking Express and Fallen Angels are one film that should be three hours long. I always think these two films should be seen together as a double bill. In fact, people asked me during an interview for Chungking Express: “You’ve made these two stories which have no relationship at all to each other, how can you connect them?” And I said, ‘The main characters of Chungking Express are not Faye Wong or Takeshi Kaneshiro, but the city itself, the night and day of Hong Kong. Chungking Express and Fallen Angels together are the bright and dark of Hong Kong.” I see the films as inter-reversible, the character of Faye Wong could be the character of Takeshi in Fallen Angels; Brigitte Lin in Chungking could be Leon Lai in Fallen Angels. All of their characters are inter-reversible. Also, in Chungking we were shooting from a very long distance with long lenses, but the characters seem close to us.
In the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote:
The acme of neo-new-wavism, the ultimate in MTV alienation, the most visually voluptuous flick of the fin de siècle, a pyrotechnical wonder about mystery, solitude, and the irrational love of movies that pushes Wong’s style to the brink of self-parody.
wiki / imdb / rottentomatoes
Nirvana is a 1997 Italian cyberpunk science fiction film directed by Gabriele Salvatores. The film stars Christopher Lambert, Diego Abatantuono, Sergio Rubini, and Stefania Rocca. (wiki)
The movie and the in-movie game are named after the Nirvana, a religious and philosophical concept used in religions of India (Hinduism, Buddhism, etc.) to describe the peace of mind, body and soul one reaches after all desires are extinguished. Many believe that this is accomplished through reincarnations, where every time you “come back” you get slightly more world-weary and closer to the Nirvana. This has some similarities to what happens to Solo in his game.
The blue woman with many hands, an image that features throughout the movie (and is supposedly the cover art for the game) is Kali, the Hindu goddess of power, time, change, destruction and death. (imdb)
spacetime coordinates: 1990’s Los Angeles, California
Species is a 1995 American science fiction horror film directed by Roger Donaldson and written by Dennis Feldman. It stars Natasha Henstridge (in her film debut role), Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker and Marg Helgenberger. The film’s plot concerns a motley crew of scientists and government agents who try to track down Sil (Henstridge), a seductive extraterrestrial-human hybrid, before she successfully mates with a human male.
The extraterrestrial aspect of Sil’s character was created by H. R. Giger, who was also responsible for the beings from the Alien franchise. The effects combined practical models designed by Giger collaborator Steve Johnson and XFX, with computer-generated imagery done by Richard Edlund‘s Boss Film Studios. (wiki)
TimeSpace Warps 