1053 – True Detective (season 3 – 2019)

timespace coordinates: 1980 – 1990 – 2015, the Ozarks –  Arkansas

The third season of True Detective, an American anthology crime drama television series created by Nic Pizzolatto, was confirmed by HBO on August 31, 2017, and premiered on January 13, 2019. The story takes place in the Ozarks over three separate time periods, as partner detectives investigate a macabre crime involving two missing children. 

Mahershala Ali plays the lead role of detective Wayne Hays, while Stephen Dorff plays his partner detective Roland West. The season marks Pizzolatto’s directorial debut, with the series creator dividing up directing assignments with Jeremy Saulnier and Daniel Sackheim. Pizzolatto also serves as the showrunner and sole writer of the season, with the exception of the fourth and sixth episode, which he co-wrote with David Milch and Graham Gordy respectively. (wiki)

imdb

1047 – Out of Blue (2018)

timespace coordinates: (?) new orleans, louisiana

Out of Blue is a 2018 mystery thriller from writer-director Carol Morley with Patricia Clarkson playing the lead role. The film is loosely based on the Martin Amis novel Night Train.

imdb

1032 – The Last Samurai (2003)

timespace coordinates: 1876 – 1877 California > JapanThe Last Samurai is a 2003 American period action drama film directed and co-produced by Edward Zwick, who also co-wrote the screenplay with John Logan and Marshall Herskovitz. The film stars Tom Cruise, who also co-produced, with Timothy Spall, Ken Watanabe, Billy Connolly, Tony Goldwyn, Hiroyuki Sanada, Koyuki, and Shin Koyamada in supporting roles.

SONY DSC

Tom Cruise portrays a United States Captain of the 7th Cavalry Regiment, whose personal and emotional conflicts bring him into contact with samurai warriors in the wake of the Meiji Restoration in 19th Century Japan.

1877 — In 1877, nine years after the Meiji Restoratin, a major rebellion in Kyushu concentrated the opposition of conservative elements to the westernization of Japan. The traditional forces, including for example samurai infuriated at no longer being allowed to carry swords, were defeated by the new conscript army. Thousands were executed. Here the brave new officers in their western-style uniforms accept the surrender of un-uniformed rebels. — Image by © Asian Art & Archaeology, Inc./CORBIS

The film’s plot was inspired by the 1877 Satsuma Rebellion led by Saigō Takamori, and the westernization of Japan by foreign powers, though in the film the United States is portrayed as the primary force behind the push for westernization. To a lesser extent it is also influenced by the stories of Jules Brunet, a French army captain who fought alongside Enomoto Takeaki in the earlier Boshin War and Frederick Townsend Ward, an American mercenary who helped Westernize the Chinese army by forming the Ever Victorious Army. (wiki)

imdb   /  Criticism and debate

0991 – The Adventures of Tintin (2011)

timespace coordinates: 1955 Belgium > Morocco

The Adventures of Tintin (also known as The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn outside North America) is a 2011 3D computer-animated mystery adventure comedy film based on the comics series of the same name by Belgian cartoonist Hergé. Co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, produced by Peter Jackson and Kathleen Kennedy and written by Steven Moffat, Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, the film is inspired by three of Hergé’s albums: The Crab with the Golden Claws (1941), The Secret of the Unicorn (1943) and Red Rackham’s Treasure (1944). Starring the voices of Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig, Nick Frost and Simon Pegg, the film features human characters animated primarily using live-action motion capture animation. (wiki)

imdb   /   Video game

Sequels

0924 – The Sisters Brothers (2018)

timespace coordinates: Oregon and California in 1851

The Sisters Brothers is a 2018 revisionist western directed by Jacques Audiard from a screenplay he co-wrote with Thomas Bidegain, based on the novel of the same name by Patrick deWitt. The film stars John C. Reilly and Joaquin Phoenix as the two notorious assassin brothers Eli and Charlie Sisters, and together they get caught up in the California Gold Rush. (wiki)

imdb

882 – The Minds of Men (2018 Documentary)

“The Minds of Men” is a 3+ year investigation into the experimentation, art, and practice of social engineering and mind control during the Cold War – a mind-bending journey into the past that gives startling insight into the world we are living in today.

---

(Directors: Aaron & Melissa Dykes Runtime: 3h 43min)  imdb

---

Project MKUltra / The Human Use of Human Beings / Teleology / Cybernetics / Rockefeller Foundation / Bioelectronics / BSR / Sensory deprivation

---

---

 

758 – Wake in Fright (1971)

timespace coordinates: 1970’s mining town of Bundanyabba – known by the locals as “The Yabba” – outback Australia

Wake in Fright (initially released as Outback outside Australia) is a 1971 psychological thriller film directed by Ted Kotcheff, written by Evan Jones and starring Gary Bond, Donald Pleasence, Chips Rafferty, Sylvia Kay and Jack Thompson. Based on Kenneth Cook‘s 1961 novel of the same name, the film follows a young schoolteacher from Sydney who descends into personal moral degradation after finding himself stranded in a brutal, menacing town in outback Australia.

Filmed on location in Broken Hill and Sydney, Wake in Fright was an Australian-American co-production between NLT Productions and Westinghouse Broadcasting. Alongside Walkabout, it was one of two Australian films to be nominated for the Grand Prix du Festival at the 24th Cannes Film Festival. Despite attracting positive reviews, the film was a commercial failure in Australia, in part due to minimal promotion by United Artists, as well as audiences being uncomfortable with its portrayal of outback life, including a controversial hunting scene involving real kangaroos being shot.

By the 1990s, Wake in Fright had developed a cult reputation as Australia’s great “lost film” because its master negative had gone missing, resulting in censored prints of degraded quality being used for its few television broadcasts and VHS releases. After the original film and sound elements were rescued by editor Anthony Buckley in 2004, the film was digitally remastered and given a 2009 re-release at Cannes and in Australian theatres to widespread acclaim; it was issued commercially on DVD and Blu-ray later that year. Praised by critics for its direction and performances, Wake in Fright is now considered a pivotal film of the Australian New Wave and has earned a rare 100% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes.

A televised miniseries remake of Wake in Fright premiered in 2017. (wiki)

imdb