books, series

1640 – Tales from the Loop (TV Series 2020-)

timespace coordinates: 1955 > early 1980s Mercer, Ohio. Mercer is home to the Mercer Center for Experimental Physics, an underground facility known as the Loop. It is there where researchers attempt to “make the impossible possible”.

Tales from the Loop is an American science fiction drama web television series based on the art book of the same name by Swedish artist Simon Stålenhag (536). The series premiered on Amazon Prime Video on April 3, 2020. All eight episodes of the first season were released simultaneously. (wiki)

David Baird from the B.C. Catholic characterizes the series as “a set of loosely interrelated meditations upon ephemerality, the impact of technology, and human vulnerability infused with a mild science fiction savour” and considers it “a beguiling fusion of forward-looking nostalgia”.

imdb   /   rottentomatoes

series, Uncategorized

1623 – Raised by Wolves (TV Series 2020-)

timespace coordinates: 22nd century. two androids — Father and Mother — are tasked with raising human children on Kepler-22b after the Earth was destroyed by a great war.

Raised_by_Wolves_TV_Series-773997417-largeRaised by Wolves is an American science fiction drama television series created by Aaron Guzikowski that premiered on HBO Max on September 3, 2020. The first two episodes were directed by Ridley Scott, who also serves as an executive producer for the show. In September 2020, the series was renewed for a second season. (wiki)

Scott responded to a question about the link between Alien and Raised By Wolves during a Reddit Ask Me Anything: “Interesting question but, no, the first Alien story feels like it may be some time before Raised By Wolves, in that the Nostromo was probably financed by an organized global economy. Wolves is about post-global war chaos.” (newsweek)

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imdb   /   Podcast

movies

1595 – Fallen Angels (1995)

timespace coordinates: 1995 urban, nighttime Hong Kong

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Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon LaiMichelle ReisTakeshi KaneshiroCharlie Yeung, and Karen Mok. As with the filmmaker’s other features, plot takes a back seat to mood.

Originally conceived by Wong as the third story for 1994’s Chungking Express, it was cut after he decided that it was complete without it. He instead decided to develop the story further into its own feature film and borrowed elements of Chungking Express, such as themes, locations and methods of filming. Wanting to also try to differentiate it from Chungking and to try something new, Wong decided along with cinematographer Christopher Doyle to shoot mainly at night and using extreme wide-angle lenses, keeping the camera as close to the talents as possible to give a detached effect from the world around them.

In an interview, Wong had this to say:

…To me, Chungking Express and Fallen Angels are one film that should be three hours long. I always think these two films should be seen together as a double bill. In fact, people asked me during an interview for Chungking Express: “You’ve made these two stories which have no relationship at all to each other, how can you connect them?” And I said, ‘The main characters of Chungking Express are not Faye Wong or Takeshi Kaneshiro, but the city itself, the night and day of Hong Kong. Chungking Express and Fallen Angels together are the bright and dark of Hong Kong.” I see the films as inter-reversible, the character of Faye Wong could be the character of Takeshi in Fallen Angels; Brigitte Lin in Chungking could be Leon Lai in Fallen Angels. All of their characters are inter-reversible. Also, in Chungking we were shooting from a very long distance with long lenses, but the characters seem close to us.

In the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote:

The acme of neo-new-wavism, the ultimate in MTV alienation, the most visually voluptuous flick of the fin de siècle, a pyrotechnical wonder about mystery, solitude, and the irrational love of movies that pushes Wong’s style to the brink of self-parody.

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wiki   /   imdb   /   rottentomatoes

movies, Uncategorized

1581 – Project Power (2020)

spacetime coordinates: near-future New Orleans

Project Power is a 2020 American superhero film directed by Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost. It stars Jamie FoxxJoseph Gordon-Levitt, and Dominique Fishback, alongside Colson BakerRodrigo SantoroAmy Landecker and Allen Maldonado, and follows a drug dealer, a police officer, and a former soldier who team up to stop the distribution of a pill that gives the user superpowers for five minutes. (wiki)

imdb

animation

1580 – Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons: The Movie (2020)

Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons: The Movie is a 2020 American direct-to-video animated superhero film based on the CW Seed series Deathstroke: Knights & Dragons, produced by Warner Bros. Animation, and distributed by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment.

It was released digitally on August 4, 2020 and will be on Blu-ray on August 18, 2020. (wiki)

games

1575 – Lara Croft Go (2015 video game)

Lara Croft Go is a turn-based puzzle video game in the Tomb Raider series.

The player moves Lara Croft as a puzzle piece through a board game while avoiding obstacles and manipulating the environment. The developers distilled major series motifs, such as boulder chases and reaction-based gameplay, to suit Lara Croft Go‘s time-independent gameplay.

Square Enix Montreal developed the game as a spiritual successor to its 2014 Hitman Go, based on another Square Enix franchise. The company released Lara Croft Go in August 2015 for Android, iOS, Windows, and Windows Phone devices. A version for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita was unveiled in November 2016, It was released on Steam on 4 December 2016. (wiki)




SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (Windows – MINIMUM): OS: Windows 7 / Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Quad CPU    Q6600  @ 2.40GHz (4 CPUs), ~2.4GHz / Memory: 1 GB RAM / Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce 310 / DirectX: Version 11 / Storage: 2 GB available space

steam   /   App Store   /   google play