1385 – Ad Astra (2019)

timespace coordinates: “near future” (2050’s ?) commercial flight to the Moon > the ship Cepheus, bound for Mars > Norwegian biomedical research space station >  underground SpaceCom base on Mars > the Lima Project (Neptune’s rings)

Ad Astra is a 2019 American science fiction adventure film produced, co-written, and directed by James Gray. Starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Ruth Negga, Liv Tyler, and Donald Sutherland, it follows an astronaut who goes into space in search of his lost father, whose experiment threatens the Solar System. + scored by Max Richter. +

Reviews out of the Venice Film Festival compared it to well-worn sci-fi touchstones “2001: A Space Odyssey” and “Solaris,” and “Apocalypse Now,” in part due to its probing adventure narrative. Gray says he went straight to the urtext that inspired them, Homer’s epic poem “The Odyssey.” (cnn)

The title means “to the stars” in Latin. It is often used as a shorthand for “Per Aspera Ad Astra” (Through the hardships to the Stars).

wiki   /   imdb   /   rt

1377 – Indie Game: The Movie (2012)

Indie Game: The Movie is a 2012 documentary film made by Canadian filmmakers Lisanne Pajot and James Swirsky. The film is about the struggles of independent game developers Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes during the development of Super Meat Boy, Phil Fish during the development of Fez, and also Jonathan Blow, who reflects on the success of Braid.

After two successful Kickstarter funds, interviews were conducted with prominent indie developers within the community. After recording over 300 hours of footage, Swirsky and Pajot decided to cut the movie down to follow the four developers selected. Their reasoning behind this was to show game development in the “past, present and future” tenses through each individual’s story. (wiki)

imdb   /   rottentomatoes

1375 – The Wolf Hour (2019)

timespace coordinates: It’s July 1977, and New York City is awash with escalating violence.

June was once a known counter-culture figure, but that was a decade ago. She now lives alone in her South Bronx apartment, having all but cut herself off from the outside world. It’s the notorious “Summer of Sam” and June only has to look out of her window to see the violence escalating with the brutal summer heat. The city is on a knife’s edge, a pressure-cooker about to explode into the incendiary 1977 New York blackout riots. (imdb)

The Wolf Hour is a 2019 thriller drama film written and directed by Alistair Banks Griffin. It stars Naomi Watts, Emory Cohen, Jennifer Ehle, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Jeremy Bobb and Brennan Brown.

wiki   /   rt

1374 – The Peanut Butter Falcon (2019)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s North Carolina > Florida

The Peanut Butter Falcon is a 2019 American comedy-drama film directed and written by Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz, and starring Shia LaBeouf, Zack Gottsagen, Dakota Johnson, John Hawkes, Bruce Dern, Jon Bernthal and Thomas Haden Church with professional wrestlers Mick Foley and Jake Roberts and rapper Yelawolf making appearances in the film.

The film is a modern retelling of the Huckleberry Finn story, which takes Gottsagen’s own desire to be an actor and changes it into a quest to become a wrestler.

Its plot follows a young man with Down syndrome (Gottsagen) who escapes from an assisted living facility and befriends a wayward fisherman on the run (LaBeouf); as the two men form a rapid bond, a social worker (Johnson) attempts to track them. The film was given a limited theatrical release in the United States on August 9, 2019, by Roadside Attractions. The film went on to become a sleeper hit, earning a gross of over $20 million. (wiki)

imdb   /   rt

1371 – In the Fog (2012)

timespace coordinates: Western frontiers of the USSR, 1942. the territory of Belarus (under German occupation)

In the Fog (Russian: В тумане) is a 2012 period drama/ war film directed by Sergei Loznitsa adapted from Vasil’ Bykaw‘s short story. In the Fog is a Germany | Netherlands | Belarus | Russia | Latvia co-production. 

“Even when the pace wanes, the images are still gripping.” Farran Smith Nehme / New York Post / rt

imdb   /   wiki

1364 – TempleOS | Down the Rabbit Hole (2018 documentary)

1350 – The Art of Self-Defense (2019)

The Art of Self-Defense is a 2019 black comedy thriller film written and directed by Riley Stearns. It stars Jesse Eisenberg, Alessandro Nivola and Imogen Poots. (wiki)

After he’s attacked on the street at night by a roving motorcycle gang, timid bookkeeper Casey (Jesse Eisenberg) joins a neighborhood karate studio to learn how to protect himself. Under the watchful eye of a charismatic instructor, Sensei (Alessandro Nivola), and hardcore brown belt Anna (Imogen Poots), Casey gains a newfound sense of confidence for the first time in his life. But when he attends Sensei’s mysterious night classes, he discovers a sinister world of fraternity, brutality and hyper-masculinity, presenting a journey that places him squarely in the sights of his enigmatic new mentor. Audacious and offbeat, The Art of Self-Defense is an original dark comedy that takes toxic masculinity to absurd extremes. (rottentomatoes)

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imdb