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timespace coordinates: 26 November 2008, the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in Mumbai, India
Hotel Mumbai is a 2018 biographical thriller film directed by Anthony Maras and written by John Collee and Maras. It is inspired by the 2009 documentary Surviving Mumbai about the Mumbai attacks in 2008 at the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel in India. The film stars Dev Patel, Armie Hammer, Nazanin Boniadi, Anupam Kher, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Jason Isaacs, Suhail Nayyar, and Natasha Liu Bordizzo. (wiki)
Batman vs Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is a 2019 animated superhero film produced by Warner Bros. Animation and DC Entertainment in association with Nickelodeon. It is based on the six-issue intercompany crossover comic book miniseries, Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by James Tynion IV and Freddie Williams II. It was released on Blu-ray and Digital HD on June 4, 2019. In the film, Batman, Robin and Batgirl team up with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to save Gotham City from the Shredder and Ra’s al Ghul. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s United States, the Marshall Islands
The Atomic Cafe is a 1982 American documentary film produced and directed by Jayne Loader, Kevin Rafferty and Pierce Rafferty. In 2016, the film was selected for preservation in the United States’ National Film Registry by the Library of Congress, being deemed “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
The film covers the beginnings of the era of nuclear warfare, created from a broad range of archival material from the 1940s, 1950s and early 1960s including newsreel clips, television news footage, U.S. government-produced films (including military training films), advertisements, television and radio programs. News footage reflected the prevailing understanding of the media and public.
Though the topic of atomic holocaust is a grave matter, The Atomic Cafe approaches it with black humor. Much of the humor derives from the modern audience’s reaction to the old training films, such as the Duck and Cover film shown in schools.
The Atomic Cafe was released at the height of nostalgia and cynicism in America. By 1982, Americans lost much of their faith in their government following the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the seemingly never-ending arms race with the Soviet Union. The Atomic Cafe reflects and reinforces this idea as it exposes how the atomic bomb’s dangers were downplayed and how the government used films to shape public opinion.
Bob Mielke, in “Rhetoric and Ideology in the Nuclear Test Documentary” (Film Quarterly) discusses the release of The Atomic Cafe: “This satire feature was released at the height of the nuclear freeze movement (which was in turn responding to the Reagan administration’s surreal handling of the arms race.)”
Patricia Aufderheide, in Documentary Film: A Very Short Introduction touches on the significance of The Atomic Cafe as a window into the past of government propaganda and disinformation during the years following the advent of the Atomic Bomb. “Propaganda, also known as disinformation, public diplomacy, and strategic communication, continues to be an important tool for governments. But stand-alone documentary is no longer an important part of public relations campaigns aimed at the general public.” (wiki)
Because the site bears direct tangible evidence of the nuclear tests conducted there amid the paradoxical tropical location, UNESCO determined that the atoll symbolizes the dawn of the nuclear age and named it a World Heritage Site on 3 August 2010.
Bikini Atoll has conserved direct tangible evidence … conveying the power of … nuclear tests, i.e. the sunken ships sent to the bottom of the lagoon by the tests in 1946 and the gigantic Bravo crater. Equivalent to 7,000 times the force of the Hiroshima bomb, the tests had major consequences on the geology and natural environment of Bikini Atoll and on the health of those who were exposed to radiation. Through its history, the atoll symbolises the dawn of the nuclear age, despite its paradoxical image of peace and of earthly paradise.
timespace coordinates: 1986 – 1987 Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic / Soviet Union
(DISTURBING CONTENT)
Chernobyl is a historical drama television miniseries created and written by Craig Mazin and directed by Johan Renck (Stakka Bo). The series a co-production of HBO and Sky UK depicting the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of April 1986 and the unprecedented cleanup efforts that followed. It features an ensemble cast led by Jared Harris, Stellan Skarsgård, Emily Watson, and Paul Ritter. The miniseries is based in large part on the recollections of Pripyat locals, as told by Belarusian Nobel laureate Svetlana Alexievich in her book Voices from Chernobyl. (wiki)
timespace coordinates: Boston-area, 2009
Knowing (stylized as KNOW1NG) is a 2009 science fiction thriller film directed by Alex Proyas and starring Nicolas Cage. (wiki)
M.I.T. professor John Koestler links a mysterious list of numbers from a time capsule to past and future disasters and sets out to prevent the ultimate catastrophe. (imdb)
(The video below may give away important plot points)
timespace coordinates: automated bunker designed to repopulate humanity 38 years after an extinction event
I Am Mother is a 2019 Australian science fiction thriller film directed by Grant Sputore, (feature film directorial debut) from a screenplay by Michael Lloyd Green. It stars Clara Rugaard, Rose Byrne, and Hilary Swank. It was released in several countries on June 7, 2019, by Netflix, (wiki)
timespace coordinates: 2072, Libria, a totalitarian city-state, was established by the survivors of World War III / the “Nether” – regions outside the city
Equilibrium is a 2002 American dystopian science fiction action film written and directed by Kurt Wimmer, and starring Christian Bale, Emily Watson, and Taye Diggs.
The film follows John Preston (Bale), an enforcement officer in a future in which both feelings and artistic expression are outlawed and citizens take daily injections of drugs to suppress their emotions. After accidentally missing a dose, Preston begins to experience emotions, which makes him question his own morality and moderate his actions while attempting to remain undetected by the suspicious society in which he lives. Ultimately, he aids a resistance movement using advanced martial arts (gun kata), which he was taught by the regime he is helping to overthrow. (wiki)
TimeSpace Warps 