movies

1151 – Captive State (2019)

timespace coordinates: 2019 / 2028 Chicago

captive_state_xlgCaptive State is a 2019 American science fiction thriller film directed by Rupert Wyatt and co-written by Wyatt and Erica Beeney. The film stars John GoodmanAshton SandersJonathan MajorsMachine Gun Kelly, and Vera Farmiga, and follows a young man who participates in a conspiracy to rebel against an alien race that has invaded Earth, and enforced strict martial law on all humans. (wiki)

imdb


Chicago is the real star of the surprisingly powerful Captive State  – For those of us who love the city, more than just the plot is familiar in this sly takedown of gentrification and authoritarianism.  review by Dmitry Samarov

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(Trivia) In one of the early shots of the Chicago skyline the Ryugyong Hotel was added. The Ryugyong Hotel isn’t in Chicago, it’s in Pyongyang, North Korea. It was started in 1987 and still sits unfinished. It’s in the Guinness Book of World Records as the tallest unused building.

animation

1145 – ParaNorman (2012)

timespace coordinates: 1710s – 2012 small town of Blithe Hollow, Massachusetts

ParaNorman is a 2012 American stop-motion animated dark fantasy comedy horror film, produced by Laika and distributed by Focus Features. Directed by Sam Fell and Chris Butler, from a screenplay by Butler, it stars the voices of Kodi Smit-McPheeTucker AlbrizziAnna KendrickCasey AffleckChristopher Mintz-PlasseLeslie MannJeff GarlinElaine StritchBernard HillJodelle FerlandTempestt BledsoeAlex Borstein and John Goodman.

It is the first stop-motion film to use a 3D color printer to create character faces, and only the second to be shot in 3D. In the film, Norman, a young boy who can communicate with ghosts, is given the task of ending a 300 year-old witch’s curse on his Massachusetts town, despite being grounded by his father. (wiki)

imdb

movies, music

1135 – Us (2019)

timespace coordinates: 1986 – 2019 Santa CruzCalifornia

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Us is a 2019 American psychological horror thriller film written and directed by Jordan Peele, starring  Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker. The film follows a family who are confronted by murderous doppelgangers known as “the Tethered”.


themes and interpretations

Critic Jim Vejvoda related the Tethered to “urban legends” and “xenophobic paranoia about the Other”, (…) Journalist Noel Ransome viewed the film as being about “the effects of classism and marginalization”, writing “the Tethered are effigies of this same situational classism. They’re trapped—mentally and physically—and ignored”. Joel Meares of Rotten Tomatoes also noted that the Tethered, referencing the “we’re Americans” line, are representatives of the duality of American society, how some citizens can afford to live on top of the class system, while others are stuck in illiterate poverty. He also noted the title Us could mean “U.S.”, or United States.

The Tethered’s red jump suits and single glove were an allusion to Michael Jackson along with the “Thriller” shirt seen on young Adelaide, and Peele has stated that Jackson was “the patron saint of duality”. Peele referenced many other instances of 1980s culture, including allusions to The Lost Boys and Hands Across America, stating “Everything in this movie was deliberate, that is one thing I can guarantee you. Unless you didn’t like something and that was a complete accident”.

The film contains numerous references to Jeremiah 11:11, which reads: “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them'” (NIV). Critic Rosie Fletcher commented on the context, with Jeremiah warning Jerusalem was facing destruction due to false idols, and expressed the opinion that the film’s characters also “worshiped the wrong things”…  (wiki)

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music, Uncategorized

1129 – Jacaszek

Michał Jacaszek (born 1972) is a Polish electroacoustic musician, often credited on albums simply as Jacaszek.

663-november-2017


“Penteal (2009) is an attempt to describe a gothic church interior by means of sounds. A temple owes its special atmosphere not only to visual elements but also to characteristic acoustics – reverb, enhancing and prolonging a slightest whisper into infinity. i spent several days in three Gdańsk historic churches (Oliwa Cathedral, St. Nicolas’ church, St. Mary’s Basilica) recording chanting, organs, and also a broad spectrum of accidental noises. Source sounds were used only as a stimulus which releases the sound of the whole inside, and as such, they were consequently retouched in the post production process. Studio work and also the atmosphere of melody and arrangements were subordinate to the idea of portraying the church as a place filled with distant mysteries, a huge music instrument.”

books, movies, quotes

1119 – Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

timespace coordinates: dystopian 1984. war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate

“Under the spreading chestnut tree / I sold you and you sold me”

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Nineteen Eighty-Four, also known as 1984, is a 1984 British dystopian science fiction film written and directed by Michael Radford, based upon George Orwell‘s novel of the same name (published in June 1949). Starring John HurtRichard BurtonSuzanna Hamilton, and Cyril Cusack,

the film follows the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. Smith (Hurt) struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime’s overwhelming power and influence persecutes individualism and individual thinking on both a political and personal level. The film, which features Burton’s last screen appearance, is dedicated to him. (wiki)

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