0850 – The Meg (2018)

timespace coordinates: near future Mariana Trench,  the Pacific Ocean/ Hainan, China, Thailand, Japan

The Meg is a 2018 US–Chinese science fiction action thriller film directed by Jon Turteltaub, loosely based on the 1997 book Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror by Steve Alten. The film stars Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, Ruby Rose, Winston Chao, and Cliff Curtis. the film follows a group of scientists who encounter a 75-foot-long (23 m) megalodon shark while on a rescue mission at the floor of the Pacific Ocean. (wiki)

imdb / trivia

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Sequel

0848 – New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future by James Bridle (2018 book)

As the world around us increases in technological complexity, our understanding of it diminishes. Underlying this trend is a single idea: the belief that our existence is understandable through computation, and more data is enough to help us build a better world.
In reality, we are lost in a sea of information, increasingly divided by fundamentalism, simplistic narratives, conspiracy theories, and post-factual politics. Meanwhile, those in power use our lack of understanding to further their own interests. Despite the apparent accessibility of information, we’re living in a new Dark Age.

From rogue financial systems to shopping algorithms, from artificial intelligence to state secrecy, we no longer understand how our world is governed or presented to us. The media is filled with unverifiable speculation, much of it generated by anonymous software, while companies dominate their employees through surveillance and the threat of automation.
In his brilliant new work, leading artist and writer James Bridle surveys the history of art, technology, and information systems, and reveals the dark clouds that gather over our dreams of the digital sublime. (VERSO)

James Bridle on New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future

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man always makes it clear to himself: “You are using things which have the intention of not being penetrable.” 1180

841 – Kin (2018)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s Detroit, Michigan > NevadaKin is a 2018 American science fiction action film directed by Jonathan and Josh Baker and written by Daniel Casey, based on the 2014 short film Bag Man. It stars Jack Reynor, Myles Truitt, Zoë Kravitz, Carrie Coon, Dennis Quaid and James Franco. The story follows a young boy who find a strange weapon and his newly paroled brother. Mogwai composed the score for the film. (wiki)

imdb

840 – Savages – The Story of Human Zoos (2017 documentary)

https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/067797-000-A/savages-the-story-of-human-zoos/

(available from 29/09/2018 to 28/11/2018)

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For more than a century the great colonial powers put human beings, taken by force from their native lands, on show as entertainment just like animals in zoos. The story of the savage treatment of people who were considered sub-human.

Director : Bruno Victor-Pujebet, Pascal Blanchard

imdb

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human zoo (wiki)

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0839 – Gauguin – Voyage de Tahiti (2017)

timespace coordinates: 1891 – 1893 France – Tahiti / French Polynesia

Gauguin – Voyage de Tahiti is a 2017 biopic / period drama directed by Edouard Deluc  The film stars  Vincent Cassel and Tuheï Adams,

In 1891 Gauguin settles down in Tahiti, where he hopes to find inspiration for his work as an artist and live as a free man in the wild, far from all the moral, political and aesthetic codes of civilized Europe. In the jungle, he faces loneliness, poverty and disease, and he meets Tehura. She eventually becomes his wife and the main subject of his greatest paintings.

imdb

838 – BlacKkKlansman (2018)

timespace coordinates: 1972 Colorado Springs, Colorado

BlacKkKlansman is a 2018 American biographical comedy-drama film directed by Spike Lee and written by Charlie Wachtel, David Rabinowitz, Kevin Willmott, and Lee, based on the 2014 memoir Black Klansman by Ron Stallworth. The film stars John David Washington as Stallworth, along with Adam Driver, Laura Harrier, and Topher Grace. Set in 1970s Colorado Springs, the plot follows the first African-American detective in the Colorado Springs police department, who sets out to infiltrate and expose the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The film was theatrically released in the United States on August 10, 2018, coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the white supremacist Unite the Right rally. (wiki)

historical accuracy   /   Blaxploitation   /   imdb

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This film contains clips from D. W. Griffith‘s silent movie The Birth of a Nation. While Spike Lee was a student at NYU Film School, he was so outraged that his NYU Film School professors taught The Birth of a Nation (1915) with no mention of its racist message or role in the Klan’s twentieth-century rebirth that he made a student short film titled The Answer (1980) as a response. The film so offended many of his professors that Lee was nearly expelled from NYU. He was ultimately saved by a faculty vote. (read more: trivia)

1915

836 – American Gangster (2007)

timespace coordinates: 1968 – 1975 Harlem / Golden Triangle

American Gangster is a 2007 American biographical crime film directed and produced by Ridley Scott and written by Steven Zaillian. The film is fictionally based on the criminal career of Frank Lucas, a gangster from La Grange, North Carolina who smuggled heroin into the United States on American service planes returning from the Vietnam War, before being detained by a task force led by detective Richie Roberts. The film stars Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe in their first lead acting roles together since 1995’s Virtuosity. The film also co-stars Ted Levine, John Ortiz, Josh Brolin, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Norman Reedus, Ruby Dee, Lymari Nadal and Cuba Gooding Jr. Frank Lucas and Richie Roberts were on-set consultants to director Ridley Scott and the crew throughout filming.

accuracy of the film   /   imdb

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“I wanted to be rich. I wanted to be Donald Trump rich, and so help me God, I made it.” Frank Lucas