movies

1401 – Hobbs & Shaw (2019)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s LondonUkraineSamoa

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is a 2019 American action film directed by David Leitch starring Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham. It is a spin-off of the Fast & Furious film series and the ninth installment overall. The plot follows the unlikely pairing of the titular characters as they are forced to join with Shaw’s sister (Vanessa Kirby) to battle a cybernetically-enhanced terrorist (Idris Elba) and his organization threaten the world with a deadly virus. (wiki)

imdb

movies

1394 – Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)

timespace coordinates: 1969 Los Angeles

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is a 2019 comedy-drama film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino. It features a large ensemble cast led by Leonardo DiCaprioBrad PittMargot RobbieEmile HirschMargaret QualleyTimothy OlyphantAustin ButlerDakota FanningBruce Dern, and Al Pacino. The film follows an actor and his stunt double, as they navigate the changing film industry, and features “multiple storylines in a modern fairy tale tribute to the final moments of Hollywood’s golden age” (wiki)

imdb   /  Character background   /  Pop culture references   /  Historical accuracy   /  Controversy


animation, documentary, games, Uncategorized

1376 – Atari: Game Over (2014 documentary)

81o+xuDPMRL._RI_A crew digs up all of the old Atari 2600 game cartridges of “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” that were tossed into a landfill in the 1980s. (imdb)

Atari: Game Over is a 2014 documentary film directed by Zak Penn about the North American video game crash of 1983, using the Atari video game burial excavation as a starting point. Eurogamer called it “one of the best films about gaming this year and should be seen by anyone with an interest in the medium’s early wild west years.” (wiki)


A Psychological Exploration of Engagement in Geek Culture



movies

1370 – Phantasm (1979)

timespace coordinates: 70’s Oregon – Morningside Cemetery

Phantasm is a 1979 American science fantasy horror film directed, written, photographed, and edited by Don Coscarelli.  “a truly bizarre mix of outlandish horror, cheapo gore, and psychological mindgames that purposefully blur the line between waking and dreaming.” Marc Savlov

The first film in the Phantasm franchise, it introduces the Tall Man (Angus Scrimm), a supernatural and malevolent undertaker who turns the dead of Earth into dwarf zombies to be sent to his planet and used as slaves. He is opposed by a young boy, Mike (Michael Baldwin), who tries to convince his older brother Jody (Bill Thornbury) and family friend Reggie (Reggie Bannister) of the threat.

Phantasm was a locally financed independent film; the cast and crew were mostly amateurs and aspiring professionals. Though initial reviews were mixed in regards to the dream-like, surreal narrative and imagery, later reception was more positive and the film became a cult classic. (wiki)

Analysis   /   imdb

movies

1353 – Cosmos (2019)

Cosmos is the debut feature film for directing brothers Elliot & Zander Weaver, who were inspired to make a movie about space scientists after several years of producing broadcast documentaries on the Apollo Program. Cosmos had no funding or budget – all equipment was either owned prior to filming or borrowed, all locations were lent and all cast and crew worked on the project without a fee.

With the exception of scoring the film, directing brothers Elliot & Zander Weaver, took on all major production roles including: screenwriting, prop making, lighting and camerawork, sound recording, editing, sound designing and sound mixing, VFX, poster art and trailers creation. (imdb) – rt

books, quotes

1342 – The Divinity Student (1999 book by Michael Cisco)

“he is conscious of the Seminary expanding ancient and vast on all sides—the yawning cold hallways like caverns of stone, the dank subvestries and classrooms with bubbling peeling plaster walls and a mildewed smell, frosty choirs of icy wood polished to a dull luster by the chafing of nervous hands.”

“schooled exclusively in cold places, always rain and chill waiting outside the walls; he would anxiously look forward to the halfhearted springs and moist, wilted summers.”

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“A flat manylegged object exhaling odorless blue smoke scuttles over his left foot; he’s not disgusted, he doesn’t flinch.”

“Although he can’t see, there are shapes around him, darker shadows looming against the dark like cliffs and frothings like sea foam.There are things that seem like panels of transparence, windows, lightless as everything else but looking as if he’s peering through something, from one dark to another.”

“the streets buck and shift like the deck of a doomed ship, the air rises in hot transparent coils so that the city distorts, as if viewed through a window of wrinkled glass. The outlines of the buildings around him billow like smoke, they hide enormous roaring engines, legions of enemies.”

“his great coat is so black and terrible it’s almost leaking darkness, it smudges the air around him like a pall of coal smoke.”

“Passing the cemetery, he sees huge pulsing trees burrowing into graves with their roots, their branches forking like capillaries into fleshy clouds.”


Short but powerful, this neo-gothic novel, uses the crisp immediacy of the present tense to lead the reader on a hallucinatory journey from humanity to inhuman transcendence. After a miraculous recovery from near death, a young man known only as the Divinity Student is beset by strange dreams whose lingering effects further alienate him from his fellows. 

goodreads   /  weirdfictionreview   /  Michael Cisco

movies

1320 – The Collini Case (2019)

timespace coordinates: 1944 – 1968 – 2001 berlin germany / pisa / montecatini tuscany italy

The Collini Case (German: Der Fall Collini) is a 2019 German crime-drama-thriller film loosely based on the 2011 novel of the same name by Ferdinand von Schirach, a legal thriller that deals with Germany’s Nazi past and that was inspired by the author’s own family history. The film is directed by Marco Kreuzpaintner and stars Elyas M’Barek, Alexandra Maria Lara, Heiner Lauterbach, Manfred Zapatka and Franco Nero.

imdb