books, movies

0540 – Naked Lunch (1991)

spacetime coordinates: 1951 – ’53 New York City –  Interzone, a city somewhere in North Africa

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Naked Lunch is a 1991 science fiction drama film co-written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Peter WellerJudy DavisIan Holm, and Roy Scheider. It is an adaptation of William S. Burroughs‘ 1959 novel of the same name, and an international co-production of Canada, Britain and Japan.

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The screenplay for Naked Lunch is based not only on Burroughs’ novel, but also on other fiction by him, and autobiographical accounts of his life. It can be seen as a metatextual adaptation, in that it depicts the writing of the novel itself. Several characters are loosely based on people that Burroughs knew: Hank and Martin are based on Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg (who assisted Burroughs in compiling the original novel), and Tom and Joan Frost on Paul and Jane Bowles whom Burroughs befriended in TangierMorocco.

The shooting of Joan Lee is based on the 1951 death of Joan Vollmer, Burroughs’ common-law wife.  Burroughs shot and killed Vollmer in a drunken game of “William Tell” at a party in Mexico City. He would later flee to the United States. Burroughs was convicted in absentia of homicide and sentenced to two years, which were suspended. Burroughs stated in the introduction to his book Queer that Joan’s death was the starting point of his literary career, saying: “I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would have never become a writer but for Joan’s death”. (wiki)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0102511/

animation, games, music

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music video directed by Dutch digital artist Han Hoogerbrugge. The website Stereogum described it as a “horizontally scrolling animated video [that] is part Sonic The Hedgehog (dated video game reference!) and part Pac Man (chomping down on hearts, shamrocks, and cash money), with a lineup of Chrisses, Neils, and others shouting, flexing, unmasking, and turning into draculas.”

Love Etc.


Red Hot Chili Peppers – Californication [Official Music Video]


directed by Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Faris, takes the form of a fictional 3D video game from the third-person point of view of each of the band members, all on some sort of adventure; this varies with each band member. The video itself contains many homages to video games of its time, such as Crazy Taxi in Kiedis’s sequences and Kiedis’s swimming scenes, and SSX in Chad’s snowboarding scenes. The music video is similar to some games that were mostly sandbox/open-world-based gameplay. The music video for “Californication” is the group’s most watched on YouTube, with over 626 million views.

movies

0493 – The Shape of Water (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  Baltimore during the Cold War  in 1962

The Shape of Water is a 2017 American fantasy drama film directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor. It stars Sally HawkinsMichael ShannonRichard JenkinsDoug JonesMichael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer. Set in Baltimore in 1962, the plot follows a mute custodian at a high-security government laboratory who falls in love with a captured humanoid-amphibian creature.

the film was primarily inspired by del Toro’s childhood memories of seeing Creature from the Black Lagoon and wanting to see Gill-man and Kay Lawrence (played by Julie Adams) succeed in their romance.

In an interview with IndieWire about the film, del Toro said, “This movie is a healing movie for me. … For nine movies I rephrased the fears of my childhood, the dreams of my childhood, and this is the first time I speak as an adult, about something that worries me as an adult. I speak about trust, otherness, sex, love, where we’re going. These are not concerns that I had when I was nine or seven.”

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580390/

movies

0461 – My Friend Dahmer (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  1974 – 1978  Bath, Ohio

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My Friend Dahmer is a 2017 American biographical drama film written and directed by Marc Meyers about the American serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer. It is based on the 2012 graphic novel of the same name by cartoonist John “Derf” Backderf, who had been friends with Dahmer in high school in the 1970s, soon before Dahmer began his killing spree. The film stars Ross LynchAlex WolffDallas Roberts, and Anne Heche.

Dahmer 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2291540/

animation

0364 – Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

spacetime coordinates: 2000’s Tokyo

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Tokyo Godfathers (東京ゴッドファーザーズ Tōkyō Goddofāzāzu) is a 2003 Japanese anime comedy-drama film directed by Satoshi Kon loosely based on Peter B. Kyne‘s novel Three Godfathers.

tokyo-godfathers poster

On Christmas Eve, three homeless people living on the streets of Tokyo find a newborn baby among the trash and set out to find its parents.

Themes

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388473/

series

343 – The Handmaid’s Tale (TV Series 2017– )

spacetime coordinates:  near future. Gilead (former United States)

(DISTURBING CONTENT)

The Handmaid’s Tale is an American television series created by Bruce Miller based on the 1985 novel of the same name by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5834204/

movies, Uncategorized

0324 – Gummo (1997)

spacetime coordinates:   summer of 1996  Xenia, Ohio

Harmony Korine's Gummo posterGummo is a 1997 American dystopian art film written and directed by Harmony Korine, starring Jacob Reynolds, Nick Sutton, Jacob Sewell, and Chloë Sevigny. The film is set in Xenia, Ohio, a small, poor Midwestern American town that had been previously struck by a devastating tornado. The loose narrative follows several main characters who find odd and destructive ways to pass time, interrupted by vignettes depicting other inhabitants of the town. Instead of using standard movie lights, the production was lit with fluorescent lights to give the movie a haunting, yellowish look. “Gummo” is considered to be a cult film.

Trailer

Themes

The Diary of Anne Frank II

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119237/