0747 – The Spiderwick Chronicles (2008)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Spiderwick Estate in New England

The Spiderwick Chronicles is a 2008 American fantasy adventure film based on the bestselling book series of the same name by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi. It was directed by Mark Waters and stars Freddie Highmore, Sarah Bolger, Mary-Louise Parker, Martin Short, Nick Nolte, and Seth Rogen. Set in the Spiderwick Estate in New England, it follows the adventures of Jared Grace and his family as they discover a field guide to fairies while battling goblins, mole trolls, and other magical creatures. (wiki)

imdb   game

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List of films featuring home invasions

0742 – LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE / Ruang rak noi nid mahasan (2003)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Thailand

Thai filmmaker Pen-ek Ratanaruang directs the character-driven drama Last Life in the Universe, co-written by first-time screenwriter Prabda Yoon. Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) is a Japanese man living in Bangkok. He lives a tidy, silent lifestyle fueled by the detached desire to kill himself. Meanwhile, Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) is a pot-smoking call girl who lives in a  shabby beachside home outside the city. She tries to teach herself to speak Japanese with hopes of moving to Osaka. One day, Kenji walks into his apartment as his brother Yukio (Yutaka Matsushige) is involved in a gun fight with gangster (yakuza) Takashi (Riki Takeuchi). Then Kenji accidentally witnesses the death of Noi’s lovely sister, Nid (Laila Boonyasak), with whom he first became smitten at the library. Having nowhere to go, Kenji goes to live with Noi for a few days, leading to the development of a strange and sensitive relationship. With cinematography by Hong Kong-based photographer Christopher Doyle. Last Life in the Universe won an Upstream Prize at the 2003 Venice Film Festival. (rottentomatoes)

Last Life in the Universe OST – Untitled [Are you alone? Are you lonely?]

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741 – Dealer (2004)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Budapest

imdb   youtube

731 – Nova the Film (2011 documentary)

An inspiring 75 min DIY documentary film on new art and the young artists behind it. It was all filmed on the heat of live action of the first NOVA Contemporary Culture Festival, July and August 2010 in São Paulo, Brazil.

imdb

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ROJO Magazine   NOVA festival

727 – The Dead Texan – The Dead Texan (2004)

“I like to think that my time toiling under buzzing fluorescent lighting in a giant sporting goods warehouse superstore during my teenage years helped me to understand pain and boredom a little better. I spent about a year at that particular pit stop, but it’s the summer days I remember most vividly—standing at my perch in the back in that gigantic refrigerated warehouse full of sneakers, exercise machines and spandex athletic wear, just able to make out the intense light from the sun reflecting off the cars in the parking lot through the automatic glass doors as it scattered in the front of the store, those echoes of light the only hint that it was in fact summer at all (not counting the occasional sweaty jock looking for Nike dry-fit jogging pants).

Anyway, the point of that protracted ramble into my scarred adolescence is that though angry punk rock songs sound tracked my discontent in those days, I can’t help but think that Adam Wiltzie’s ethereal solo debut under the moniker the Dead Texan fits my memories of that monotonous summer far better. The lush, slow chord progressions that cycle and cycle and build and build seem like the perfect expression of a lost summer afternoon, just out of reach. The warm, near-death, barely conscious songs like “La Ballade D’Alain Georgee” lend a sad weight to anything, though for some reason the connection to that empty warehouse, a cold box in the hot summer sun keeps coming to mind…(read more here)“

0719 – A Prayer Before Dawn (2017)

timespace coordinates:  late 2000’s Chiang Mai Prison, Klong Prem Central Prison aka “Bangkok Hilton,” Thailand.

A Prayer Before Dawn is a 2017 internationally co-produced prison-/boxing-/survival-drama film directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, from a screenplay written by Jonathan Hirschbein and Nick Saltrese, starring Joe Cole. It is based on the book A Prayer Before Dawn: My Nightmare in Thailand’s Prisons by Billy Moore.

The true story of an English boxer incarcerated in one of Thailand’s most notorious prisons as he fights in Muay Thai tournaments to earn his freedom.

The inmates in the film are all played by real ex-inmates who have served time in Thai prisons.

imdb

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Do psychedelics give access to a universal, mystical experience of reality, or is that just a culture-bound illusion?

https://aeon.co/essays/is-psychedelics-research-closer-to-theology-than-to-science

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“Silicon Valley billionaires are putting their blockchain millions into funding psychedelics research, and corporates are preparing for a juicy new market. The counterculture has gone mainstream. Turn on, tune in, sell out. ”

“Perennialists tend to rank religions and mystical experiences hierarchically. All religions are one, but some are more one than others. Unitive non-dual experiences are more true, while dualist experiences (ie, personal encounters with God or a spirit) are less true. Accordingly, Buddhism, Hindu mysticism and Taoism are more true, while Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Shamanism are less true. The psychedelic research at Johns Hopkins follows this theological ranking. It uses the Hood Mysticism Scale to rate people’s psychedelic experiences – unitive experiences are scored as higher and more ‘complete’ than dualist experiences.”

“Western spiritual tourists can have a culturally naive idea that their experience of ayahuasca is the same as indigenous people’s experience, that everyone goes to the same Magic Kingdom where we all meet the same entity: Mama Ayahuasca.”