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spacetime coordinates: 2010’s Lagrange, Ohio
Take Shelter is a 2011 American psychological thriller drama film, written and directed by Jeff Nichols and starring Michael Shannon and Jessica Chastain. The plot follows a young husband and father (Shannon) who is plagued by a series of apocalyptic visions, and questions whether to shelter his family from a coming storm, or from himself.
spacetime coordinates: underground city Ember 241 years after an apocalyptic war
City of Ember is a 2008 American science fiction film based on the 2003 novel The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau. It was directed by Gil Kenan,written by Caroline Thompson, and stars Saoirse Ronan, Harry Treadaway, Bill Murray, Mackenzie Crook, Martin Landau, Mary Kay Place, Toby Jones, and Tim Robbins.
“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”.
spacetime coordinates: 2000’s New York
Cloverfield is a 2008 American found footage science fiction monster horror film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk, and written by Drew Goddard. The film, which is presented as found footage shot with a home camcorder, follows six young New York City residents fleeing from a gigantic monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/
spacetime coordinates: 2010’s Louisiana
10 Cloverfield Lane is a 2016 American science fiction horror film directed by Dan Trachtenberg, produced by J. J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber and written by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken and Damien Chazelle. The film stars John Goodman, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and John Gallagher Jr. It is the second installment in the Cloverfield franchise. The film was developed from a script titled The Cellar, but under production by Bad Robot, it was turned into a spiritual successor of the 2008 film Cloverfield. The film follows a young woman who, after a car crash, wakes up in an underground bunker with two men who insist that an event has left the surface of Earth uninhabitable. The film is presented in a third-person narrative, in contrast to its predecessor’s found-footage style.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179933/
spacetime coordinates: 2028 Cloverfield Station
The Cloverfield Paradox is a 2018 American science fiction horror film directed by Julius Onah, written by Oren Uziel and Doug Jung, and produced by J. J. Abrams‘s Bad Robot Productions. It is the third installment in the Cloverfield franchise. The film stars Daniel Brühl, Elizabeth Debicki, Aksel Hennie, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Chris O’Dowd, John Ortiz, David Oyelowo, and Zhang Ziyi, and follows an international group of astronauts aboard a space station who, after using a particle accelerator to try to solve Earth’s energy crisis, must find a way home after accidentally traveling to an alternate dimension.
The film was based on God Particle, a spec script from Oren Uziel which had the main plot of the space station crew but unconnected to Cloverfield. The script was acquired by Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot in 2012. It had been initially planned as part of Paramount’s low-budget InSurge distribution label, but following the folding of that label, its production was expanded as a Paramount-distributed film. Only during production did Abrams decide to link the film to Cloverfield, adapting Uziel’s screenplay and adding scenes to establish this connection, following the same approach used by 10 Cloverfield Lane from its original script, The Cellar. Abrams saw the ability to use the particle accelerator accident as a means for future events to cause changes in the past, establishing a way to narratively link the Cloverfield franchise together.
Doomsday Book (Hangul: 인류멸망보고서; RR: Inryu myeongmang bogoseo; lit. “Report on the Destruction of Mankind”) is a 2012 South Korean science-fiction anthology film directed by Kim Jee-woon and Yim Pil-sung. It tells three unique stories of human self-destruction in the modern high-tech era, while displaying an alternative form of genuine humanity and compassion. A Brave New World is a political satire about a viral zombie outbreak; The Heavenly Creature philosophizes on whether a robot can achieve enlightenment; and in Happy Birthday a dysfunctional family bonds in the midst of an apocalypse.
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