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timespace coordinates: American financial crisis and presidential election campaign, the fall of 2008
Killing Them Softly is a 2012 American neo-noir crime film directed by Andrew Dominik and starring Brad Pitt, based on George V. Higgins‘ novel Cogan’s Trade (1974). The film is about three small-time crooks who rob a Mob-protected illegal gambling operation, which prompts the Mob to send in two hitmen, Jackie (Pitt) and Mickey (James Gandolfini), to deal with the perpetrators. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: the Galapagos island of Floreana 1929 – 1935
The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden is a 2013 feature-length documentary directed by Daniel Geller and Dayna Goldfine. It is about a series of unsolved disappearances on the Galapagos island of Floreana in the 1930s among the largely European expatriate residents at the time. The voice cast includes Cate Blanchett, Sebastian Koch, Thomas Kretschmann, Diane Kruger, Connie Nielsen, Josh Radnor and Gustaf Skarsgård.
It features the 1934 silent film The Empress of Floreana in its entirety, but the four-minute short is split into halves. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 2505 Washington, D.C.
Idiocracy is a 2006 American science fiction comedy film directed by Mike Judge and starring Luke Wilson, Maya Rudolph, and Dax Shepard.
The film tells the story of Joe Bauers (Wilson), an American soldier who takes part in a classified military human hibernation experiment, only to accidentally awaken 500 years later in a dystopian society where mankind has embraced anti-intellectualism and commercialism has run rampant, and which is devoid of intellectual curiosity, social responsibility, and coherent notions of justice and human rights.
The film was not screened for critics, and distributor 20th Century Fox was accused of abandoning the film. Despite its lack of a major theatrical release, which resulted in a mere $495,303 box office, the film received positive reviews from critics and has become a cult film. (wiki)
imdb / Themes / Commentary / Spin-offs
timespace coordinates: LA, 1964
The Loved One is a 1965 black and white comedy film about the funeral business in Los Angeles, which is based on The Loved One: An Anglo-American Tragedy (1948), a short satirical novel by Evelyn Waugh. It was directed by British filmmaker Tony Richardson and the screenplay—which also drew on Jessica Mitford‘s book The American Way of Death (1963) —was written by noted American satirical novelist Terry Southern and British author Christopher Isherwood.
The film stars Robert Morse, Jonathan Winters, Anjanette Comer and Rod Steiger. Among those making appearances in smaller roles are John Gielgud, Robert Morley, Roddy McDowall, James Coburn, Milton Berle, Dana Andrews and Liberace. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 18th century Europe / America
An Entertainment for Angels, rather than for Men, one observer called electricity, and it proved to be the most significant scientific discovery of the Enlightenment. Lecturers attracted huge audiences who marveled at sparkling fountains, flaming drinks, pirouetting dancers, and electrified boys. Flamboyant experimenters made chains of soldiers leap into the air, while wealthy women titillated their admirers with a sensational electric kiss. Optimists predicted that this strange power of nature would cure illnesses, improve crop production, even bring the dead back to life. An Entertainment for Angels tells the story of how electricity charged the eighteenth-century imagination. With contemporary illustrations and engaging prose, Patricia Fara vividly portrays the struggles to understand the unusual and exciting effects that electrical experiments were producing. (goodreads)
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