0485 – Mudbound (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  1940s  Mississippi

Mudbound is a 2017 American period drama film directed by Dee Rees and written by Rees and Virgil Williams, based on the novel of the same name by Hillary Jordan. It stars Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell, and Mary J. Blige. The film depicts two World War II veterans – one white, one black – who return to rural Mississippi each to address racism and PTSD in his own way.

Rachel’s term for the goal they tried to achieve is ‘subjective naturalism,’ ‘The period wasn’t a character in this film. The mud was a character, the weather was a character, the house was a character… we were trying to make more of a commentary about just how tough times were through experiences.’

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2396589/

0484 – Gran Torino (2008)

spacetime coordinates: 2000’s  Detroit, Michigan

Gran Torino is a 2008 American drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, who also starred in the film. It is the first mainstream American film to feature Hmong Americans. Many Lao Hmong war refugees resettled in the U.S. following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975.

cultural inaccuracies

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/

0479 – Human Flow (2017)

Human Flow is a 2017 German documentary film co-produced and directed by Ai Weiwei about the current global refugee crisis. Ai Weiwei also comes from a past of displacement; his entire family was exiled to an isolate village of Xinjiang in the Gobi desert due to his parents being writers in the midst of the Cultural Revolution in China.

Like Human Flow, Ai has created similar art installations such as the “Law of the Journey” that features a 200 foot inflatable boat carrying 258 refugee figures, “Laundromat” where he filled a New York City gallery with discarded clothing and personal notes left by refugees in a camp in Idomeni Greece, and the recreation of the captured image of Aylan Kurdi, the young Syrian who drowned off the coast of Turkey.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt6573444/

https://www.humanflow.com/

0461 – My Friend Dahmer (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  1974 – 1978  Bath, Ohio

My Friend Dahmer is a 2017 American biographical drama film written and directed by Marc Meyers about the American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. It is based on the 2012 graphic novel of the same name by cartoonist John “Derf” Backderf, who had been friends with Dahmer in high school in the 1970s, soon before Dahmer began his killing spree. The film stars Ross Lynch, Alex Wolff, Dallas Roberts, and Anne Heche.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2291540/

0440 – (desolate)

Sweet Virginia (2017)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s remote Alaska

“Set in murky Alaska, but filled with soft, southern accented characters, it takes place in a tiny, forgotten place, where people struggle for money, hide their histories, wear baseball caps, drive pickups, move at a snail’s pace, and settle their matters in a violent fashion. At the centre of a nifty noire tangle is an uncomfortable buddy-buddy relationship between an aw-shucks former rodeo star trying unsuccessfully to live a low-key life as a motel owner, and a troubled, snaky hit man. “ js-66130

imdb

---

Siberia (2018)

A world with no exit, indeed.

imdb

431 – Cowboys & Aliens (2011)

spacetime coordinates:  1873 New Mexico Territory

Cowboys & Aliens is a 2011 American western science fiction film directed by Jon Favreau and starring Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford, and Olivia Wilde. The film is based on the 2006 graphic novel of the same name created by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg. The plot revolves around an amnesiac outlaw (Craig), a wealthy cattleman (Ford), and a mysterious traveler (Wilde) who must ally to save a group of townspeople abducted by aliens.

Favreau chose to film traditionally and in anamorphic format (widescreen picture on standard 35 mm film) to further a “classic movie feel” Measures were taken to maintain a serious Western element despite the film’s “inherently comic” title and premise.

Roger Guyett about the aliens: “They’re frontiersmen in a way: traveling to another place and having to deal with all the adversities of the climate. And in our case, we played up the fact that they weren’t comfortable in our world. There are flies all around them; they don’t like the light; and when they were wounded and exposed, a strange fungus grows around them.”

wiki   imdb

415 – True Detective (TV Series 2014– )

True Detective is an American anthology crime drama television series created and written by Nic Pizzolatto. The series, broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States, premiered on January 12, 2014. Each season of the series is structured as a disparate, self-contained narrative, employing new cast ensembles and following various sets of characters and settings.

The first season, starring Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Michelle Monaghan, Michael Potts, and Tory Kittles, takes place in Louisiana and follows a pair of Louisiana State Police homicide detectives, and their pursuit of a serial killer over a 17-year period. True Detective‘s first season explores themes of philosophical pessimism, masculinity, and Christianity; critics have analyzed the show’s portrayal of women, its auteurist sensibility, and the influence of comics and weird horror fiction on its narrative. (read more here)

True_Detective#Opening_sequence

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2356777/