The Falling Sky is a remarkable first-person account of the life story and cosmo-ecological thought of Davi Kopenawa, shaman and spokesman for the Yanomami of the Brazilian Amazon. Representing a people whose very existence is in jeopardy, Davi Kopenawa paints an unforgettable picture of Yanomami culture, past and present, in the heart of the rainforest–a world where ancient indigenous knowledge and shamanic traditions cope with the global geopolitics of an insatiable natural resources extraction industry.
In richly evocative language, Kopenawa recounts his initiation and experience as a shaman, as well as his first encounters with outsiders: government officials, missionaries, road workers, cattle ranchers, and gold prospectors. He vividly describes the ensuing cultural repression, environmental devastation, and deaths resulting from epidemics and violence. To counter these threats, Davi Kopenawa became a global ambassador for his endangered people. The Falling Sky follows him from his native village in the Northern Amazon to Brazilian cities and finally on transatlantic flights bound for European and American capitals. These travels constitute a shamanic critique of Western industrial society, whose endless material greed, mass violence, and ecological blindness contrast sharply with Yanomami cultural values.
Bruce Albert, a close friend since the 1970s, superbly captures Kopenawa’s intense, poetic voice. This collaborative work provides a unique reading experience that is at the same time a coming-of-age story, a historical account, and a shamanic philosophy, but most of all an impassioned plea to respect native rights and preserve the Amazon rainforest. (amazon)
“When I come back from a trip among the white people, the dizziness leaves my eyes after a while and my thought be-comes clear again. I no longer hear cars, machines, or airplanes. I only lend an ear to the tooro toads and krouma frogs that call the rain in the forest. I only hear the rustling of the leaves in the wind and the rumbling of the thunders in the sky. The ignorant words of the city politicians gradually vanish in the quiet of my sleep. I become calm again by going to hunt and making my spirits dance.
The forest is very beautiful to see. It is cool and aromatic. When you move through it to hunt or travel, you feel joyful and your mind is slow-paced. You listen to the chirping of the cicadas in the distance, or the cries of the curassows and the agami herons, and the clamor of the spider monkeys in the trees. Your worries are eased. Your thoughts can then follow one another without getting obscured.”
“City of Ember belongs to one of the best and most enduring genres of children’s films, in which smart kids stand up against the ignorant and aloof adult world and have a big adventure in the process. It also throws in a fantastical city, replete with whiz-bang inventions and secret societies. (…) Ember itself is fascinating, an intricately detailed set that, like Diagon Alley or the Star Wars cantina, you’d like to take a few hours to wander around in.” Katey Rich // Irv Slifkin for Video Business wrote, “this lavishly designed adventure saga from director Gil Kenan… plays like Terry Gilliam‘s Brazil — for beginners”. // TV Guide “A fun and moving family film with a subtly dark feel rarely seen in kids’ movies since the ’80s, City of Ember succeeds despite its shortcomings, not only because of its fun and inspiring story, but because most of its flaws are things kids won’t notice anyway… [T]he story spins into a classic fable; the ignorance that seemed so blissful shows it’s just one half of a coin, where the other side holds apathy and hopelessness. The moral might well be lost on kids, but for adults, it’s compelling — all the more so because we like the good people of this dying city”.
Doomsday is a 2008 science fiction action horror film written and directed by Neil Marshall. The film takes place in the future in Scotland, which has been quarantined because of a deadly virus.
When the virus is found in London, political leaders send a team led by Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra) to Scotland to find a possible cure. Sinclair’s team runs into two types of survivors: marauders and medieval knights. Doomsday was conceived by Marshall based on the idea of futuristic soldiers facing medieval knights.
The director intended Doomsday as a tribute to post-apocalyptic films from the 1970s and 1980s, (Conception)
spacetime coordinates: 1864 battle of the American Civil War// 2039 – 2045 International Space Station (ISS)
Love is a 2011 science fiction drama film produced and scored by the alternative rock band Angels & Airwaves. The film is the directorial debut of filmmaker William Eubank. The film was screened in 460 theatres across the United States on August 10, 2011, in the Love Live event.
Love portrays the personal-psychological effects of isolation and loneliness when an astronaut becomes stranded in space and through this, emphasizes the importance of human connection and love. Additionally, it touches on the fragility of humanity’s existence(explored through a dying Earth-apocalyptic doomsday scenario) inspired by the cautions of Carl Sagan in Pale Blue Dot and considers the importance of memories and stories as humanity’s legacy.
Intended to launch a film and television franchise, the first installment combines elements from several novels in the eight-volume series, and takes place in both modern-day New York City and in Mid-World, Roland’s Old West-style parallel universe. The film also serves as a canonical sequel to the novel series, which concludes with the revelation that Roland’s quest is a cyclical time loop; the presence of the Horn of Eld, which Roland carries in the film, indicates that this is the next cycle.
Stryker activates Wade, now known as Weapon XI/Deadpool, a “mutant killer” with the powers of multiple mutants.
X-Men (2000)
spacetime coordinate: usa, 2000
The film focuses on the mutants Wolverine and Rogue as they are brought into a conflict between two groups that have radically different approaches to bringing about the acceptance of mutant-kind
X2 (2003)
spacetime coordinate: usa, 2003
inspired by the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, pits the X-Men and their enemies, the Brotherhood, against the genocidal Colonel William Stryker . He leads an assault on Professor Xavier’s school to build his own version of Xavier’s mutant-tracking computer Cerebro, in order to destroy every mutant on Earth and to save the human race from them.
based on the 1982 limited seriesWolverine by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. In the film, which follows the events of X-Men: The Last Stand, Logan travels to Japan, where he engages an old acquaintance in a struggle that has lasting consequences. Stripped of his healing factor, Wolverine must battle deadly samurai while struggling with guilt.
The story, inspired by the 1981 Uncanny X-Men storyline “Days of Future Past” by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, focuses on two time periods, with Wolverine traveling back in time to 1973 to change history and prevent an event that results in doom for both humans and mutants.
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
spacetime coordinate:ancient Egypt, 1983 Cairo, East Berlin, New York, Communist Poland
The ancient mutant En Sabah Nur awakens in 1983 and plans to wipe out modern civilization and take over the world, leading the X-Men to try to stop him and defeat his team of renegade mutants.
Dark Phoenix (2019)
spacetime coordinates: 1992 New York
the twelfth installment of the X-Men film series, and the sequel to 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse.
spacetime coordinate: 2029 Texas, the Mexican border, Oklahoma City, North Dakota
It is the tenth installment in the X-Men film series, as well as the third and final Wolverine solo film following X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013). The film, which takes inspiration from “Old Man Logan” by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, based in an alternate bleak future, follows an aged Wolverine and an extremely ill Professor X defending a young mutant named Laura from the villainous Reavers and Alkali-Transigen led by Donald Pierce and Zander Rice, respectively.
The film takes visual, tonal and thematic inspiration from classic western and noir cinema, with director James Mangold having stated that Logan’s influences included “visual reference points” of cinema, citing Shane (1953), The Cowboys (1972), Paper Moon (1973), The Gauntlet (1977), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and The Wrestler (2008).
Mangold spoke of cinematography-based framing, while noting that he does not necessarily think about the “comic-book” related sort, instead highlighting the variety of stylistic influences that went into Logan. These influences include film noir framings and classic Hollywood filmmaking styles, as well as the Germanic expressionist filmmaking style of the early part of the last century, which Mangold stated has a commonality with comic-book art. Mangold highlighted “Strong foregrounds, playing things in depth: you have to make an image say more within that one image.” Using the image of Logan at a funeral as an example of his stylistic logic, Mangold concluded by mentioning the aspects within modern filmmaking, primarily everything in close-up format. For Logan, his aim was to set frames that are descriptive, and evocative of comic-book panels and classical filmmaking
On April 29, 2017, James Mangold announced via Twitter that a black-and-white version of the film entitled Logan Noirwould have a limited theatrical run in U.S. theaters, an event set to begin on May 16, 2017. Mangold stated that it was shot as a color film, with awareness that it would play well as a black and white film. The film was re-graded and timed shot by shot for the Noir edition. This version of the film is included on the Digital HD release and also included in the DVD and Blu-ray Combo Pack. (wiki)
TimeSpace Warps 