0276 – Pain & Gain (2013)

spacetime coordinates: 1994 – 1995  Miami, Florida

Pain & Gain is a 2013 American dark comedy crime film directed by Michael Bay and starring Mark Wahlberg, Dwayne Johnson, and Anthony Mackie. The film reunites wrestlers Dwayne Johnson and Kurt Angle. The film is loosely based on a story Pete Collins published in a 1999 series of Miami New Times articles and compiled in the book Pain & Gain: This Is a True Story (2013), which details the kidnapping, extortion, torture, and murder of several victims by an organized group of criminals comprising bodybuilders affiliated with the Sun Gym. The film’s title is a play on the common adage, frequently used in fitness: “No pain, no gain“.

Comparisons between the film and actual events

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1980209/

https://film.avclub.com/with-pain-gain-michael-bay-tackled-the-big-dumb-ame-1798246007

251 – Apocalypto (2006)

spacetime coordinates:  pre-Columbian Yucatan and Guatemala, 1502

Apocalypto is a 2006 American epic adventure film directed and produced by Mel Gibson and written by Gibson and Farhad Safinia.  Similar to Gibson’s earlier film The Passion of the Christ, all dialogue is in a modern approximation of the ancient language of the setting. Here, the Yucatec Maya language is used, with English and other language subtitles, which sometimes refer to the language as Mayan.

Themes

Historical Accuracy

imdb

 

247 – The Road (2009)

The Road is a 2009 American post-apocalyptic drama film directed by John Hillcoat from a screenplay written by Joe Penhall, based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 2006 novel of the same name by the American author Cormac McCarthy. Principal photography took place in Pennsylvania, Louisiana, West Virginia, and Oregon. The film stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee as a father and his son in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Hillcoat preferred to shoot in real locations, saying “We didn’t want to go the CGI world.” Pennsylvania, where most of the filming took place, was chosen for its tax breaks and its abundance of locations that looked abandoned or decayed: coalfields, dunes, and run-down parts of Pittsburgh and neighboring boroughs. Filming was also done at the 1892 amusement resort (Conneaut Lake Park) after one of the park’s buildings (the Dreamland Ballroom) was destroyed in a fire in February 2008. The beaches of Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania were also used. Hillcoat also said of using Pittsburgh as a practical location, “It’s a beautiful place in fall with the colors changing, but in winter, it can be very bleak. There are city blocks that are abandoned. The woods can be brutal.” Filmmakers also shot scenes in parts of New Orleans that had been ravaged by Hurricane Katrina and on Mount St. Helens in Washington. The Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike, a stretch of abandoned roadway between Hustontown and Breezewood, Pennsylvania, was used for much of the production.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Road_(2009_film)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0898367/

224 – Small Soldiers (1998)

spacetime coordinates: 1998 Ohio 

Small Soldiers is a 1998 American science fiction action film directed by Joe Dante. The film revolves around two adolescents who get caught in the middle of a war between two factions of sentient action figures, the Gorgonites and the Commando Elite.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Soldiers

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0122718/

203 – The Tree of Life (2011)

spacetime coordinates: Waco, Texas in 1956

The Tree of Life is a 2011 American experimental epic drama film written and directed by Terrence Malick and featuring a cast of Brad Pitt, Sean Penn, Hunter McCracken, Laramie Eppler, Jessica Chastain, and Tye Sheridan in his debut feature film role.

The film chronicles the origins and meaning of life by way of a middle-aged man’s childhood memories of his family living in 1950s Texas, interspersed with imagery of the origins of the known universe and the inception of life on Earth.

imdb     wikipedia

200

spacetime coordinates:  80’s – 90’s  Brooklyn New York City // Las Vegas, Baltimore, San Francisco, Los Angeles

Notorious (2009)

Notorious is a 2009 American biographical drama film directed by George Tillman Jr. that follows the life and murder of Christopher Wallace, an American rapper better known by the stage name “The Notorious B.I.G.”. The film stars Jamal Woolard, Angela Bassett, Derek Luke, and Anthony Mackie.

Criticism by Lil’ Kim

imdb

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All Eyez on Me (2017)

All Eyez on Me is a 2017 American biographical drama film about hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur, directed by Benny Boom and written by Jeremy Haft, Eddie Gonzalez and Steven Bagatourian. Titled after Shakur’s 1996 fourth studio album of the same name, the film stars Demetrius Shipp Jr. as Shakur with Kat Graham, Lauren Cohan, Hill Harper and Danai Gurira in supporting roles.

Historical accuracy

imdb

151 – American Gods TV Series (2017– )

spacetime coordinates: the last ice age > 813 A.D > 1697 > … > 21th century America //  1721 Ireland > 1979 Tehran

American Gods is an American television series based on the novel of the same name, written by Neil Gaiman and originally published in 2001. The television series was developed by Bryan Fuller and Michael Green for the premium cable network Starz. Fuller and Green are the showrunners for the series.

The series focuses on Shadow Moon, who meets a strange man named Mr. Wednesday after being released from prison, and soon becomes embroiled in a large-scale conflict between the Old Gods and the New Gods, who grow stronger each day.

imdb

Chernobog,  Zorya, Jinn, Anansi, Ēostre