time machine // database // travel guide
spacetime coordinates: 1985 > 1968 > 1932
the town of Nebelsbad / Lutz in the former Republic of Zubrowka (the farthest eastern boundary of the Europen continent)
The Grand Budapest Hotel is an 2014 comedy film written and directed by Wes Anderson, from a story by Anderson and Hugo Guinness, inspired by the writings of Stefan Zweig. The narrative takes the form of a story within a story within a story.
spacetime coordinates: San Juan, Puerto Rico, the 1960s
The Rum Diary is a 2011 American film based on the novel of the same name by Hunter S. Thompson. The film was written and directed by Bruce Robinson and stars Johnny Depp.
Paul Kemp: [Kemp and Sala are wandering down a pier late at night, high on hallucinogens] I thought I was losing grip in there. What did we take?
Sala: I don’t know.
Paul Kemp: We need to get some more. [stops to stare at a tank full of lobsters]
Paul Kemp: [quietly] That explains it… doesn’t it?
Sala: Explains what?
Paul Kemp: The world… and us. [he stares deep into the eyes of one particular lobster]
Paul Kemp: [voiceover] I wonder what it is you might think about our different worlds. He looked at me kinda sideways and said, “Human beings are the only creatures on Earth who claim a God, and the only living thing that behaves like it hasn’t got one. Does the world belong to no one but you?” And when he said it, I was taken aback. Not because of who was doing the talking. Because I finally understood the connection between children scavenging for food, and shiny brass plates on the front doors of banks.
Carol is a 2015 British-American dreamy romantic drama film directed by Todd Haynes. The screenplay, written by Phyllis Nagy, is based on the 1952 semi-autobiographical romance novel The Price of Salt (also known as Carol) by Patricia Highsmith. The film stars Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Sarah Paulson, Jake Lacy and Kyle Chandler. Set in New York City during the early 1950s, Carol tells the story of a forbidden affair between an aspiring female photographer and an older woman going through a difficult divorce.
Carol was shot on Super 16 millimeter film to resemble the look and feel of photographic film from the late 1940s/early 1950s. The cinematography was influenced by the photojournalism of Vivian Maier, Ruth Orkin, Helen Levitt, and Esther Bubley. Photography by Saul Leiter (known for shooting through windows and using reflection) was a key influence.
Prior to production, director Todd Haynes compiled a playlist of 79 songs and instrumental music that were popular during the period Carol is set in (including songs referenced in the novel “The Price of Salt”) to assist in further understanding the era and mood of the times.
Director Todd Haynes creates image books as a guide to the visual feel of his films, going back to his drama Safe (1995). The compendiums are culled from photographs, film stills, paintings, periodicals and other sources to generate ideas for the film’s style. They are meant initially for the cinematographer. (The books are not to be confused with storyboards, the shot-by-shot breakdowns he has made since his first feature, Poison(1991).) His image books are “a way of communicating beyond words that gets to the crux of what the mood, temperature and stylistic references would be.” For Carol “it becomes great reference for clothes, hair, makeup, the way women carry themselves in the period and the specificity of how they’re being created from the outside in.” The image book includes, for example, references to other films such as: Brief Encounter(1945) and Vertigo (1958) for their sense of period, and The Sugarland Express (1974) for its innovative cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond; Lovers and Lollipops (1956) for the locations and The Pumpkin Eater (1964) for the interiors; and urban photography by Ernst Haas, Helen Levitt and Vivian Maier. Haynes assembles his image books almost as a kind of visual mixtape, pulling photos and movie screen grabs of his inspirations and laying them out in pages of collages to create a kind of virtual movie. Haynes created more than 80 pages of photo collages for “Carol” that served as a road map through the production. It took him two months to compile. [from N.Y.Times 1/28/2016 “Todd Haynes Collects Images to Guide the Feel of His Films”]
The animated documentary Proteus explores the nineteenth century’s engagement with the undersea world through science, technology, painting, poetry and myth. The central figure of the film is biologist and artist Ernst Haeckel, who found in the depths of the sea an ecstatic and visionary fusion of science and art.
Selections from the the film Proteus:
spacetime coordinate: New York City, 2095
Immortal (French: Immortel, ad vitam) is a 2004 English language French live-action and animated science fiction film co-written and directed by Enki Bilal and starring Linda Hardy, Thomas Kretschmann and Charlotte Rampling. It is loosely based upon Bilal’s comic book La Foire aux immortels (The Carnival of Immortals).
Immortal was one of the first major films (along with Casshern and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow) to be shot entirely on a “digital backlot“, blending live actors with computer generated surroundings. The French video game studio Quantic Dream helped produce much of the cinematics.
The film takes place in New York City in the year 2095 where genetically altered humans live side by side with unaltered men and women, and where Central Park has been mysteriously encased in an “intrusion zone” where people who attempt to enter are instantly killed. A strange pyramid has appeared over the city; inside, the gods of ancient Egypt have judged Horus, one of their fellow gods, to cease his immortality.
In the city below, Jill, a young woman with blue hair is arrested…
The X-Men is an American superhero film series based on the superhero team of the same name, who originally appeared in a series of comic books created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and published by Marvel Comics.
timeline: http://xmenmovies.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline
spacetime coordinate: 1944, in a German concentration camp in occupied Poland , 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis
The story focuses on the relationship between Professor Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr / Magneto, and the origin of their groups—the X-Men and the Brotherhood of Mutants, respectively, as they deal with the Hellfire Club led by Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who is bent on world domination.
spacetime coordinate: 1845 > Vietnam War >70’s Canada (Wolverine’s lumberjack period) > Three Mile Island, 1979
The film is a prequel/spin-off focusing on the violent past of the mutant Wolverine and his relationship with his half-brother Victor Creed. The plot details Wolverine’s childhood as James Howlett (Troye Sivan), his early encounters with Major William Stryker, his time with Team X, a group of mutants including Agent Zero, Wade Wilson, John Wraith, Fred Dukes, and Chris Bradley. and the bonding of Wolverine’s skeleton with the indestructible metal adamantium during the Weapon X program.
Stryker activates Wade, now known as Weapon XI/Deadpool, a “mutant killer” with the powers of multiple mutants.
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
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.
The film’s script is loosely based on two X-Men comic book story arcs: “The Dark Phoenix Saga” by writer Chris Claremont and artist John Byrne, and “Gifted” by writer Joss Whedon and artist John Cassaday, with a plot that revolves around a “mutant cure” that causes serious repercussions among mutants and humans, and on the resurrection of Jean Grey.
based on the 1982 limited series Wolverine 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.
antihero Deadpool hunts Ajax, the man who nearly destroyed his life while also trying to reunite with his lost love. featuring Angel Dust, Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead
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.
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.
the twelfth installment of the X-Men film series, and the sequel to 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse.
imdb / rottentomatoes / wiki
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 Noir would 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)
A group of Boston-bred gangsters set up shop in balmy Florida during the Prohibition era, facing off against the Italian Mafia and the Ku Klux Klan.
TimeSpace Warps 