movies

1317 – The Death of Dick Long (2019)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s “warped Alabama backwoods narrative”

Y’all wanna get weird?

MV5BOTQ3ZjZhZjAtNWRkNy00NWQ3LWJlMDgtMTExYmY5NTc0MWY2XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyMTkxNjUyNQ@@._V1_SY1000_SX675_AL_The Death of Dick Long is a 2019 twisted awkward black comedydrama film directed and produced by Daniel Scheinert (Swiss Army Man) and written by Billy Chew. The film stars Michael Abbott Jr., Virginia NewcombAndre HylandSarah BakerJess WeixlerRoy Wood Jr., and Sunita Mani.


[I]t is probably best seen with zero foreknowledge. Ignatiy Vishnevetsky (AV Club)

You may not like where the movie takes you, but damn if you won’t enjoy the ride. Scott Marks  (San Diego Reader)

You can feel your brain melting away as you watch it, and that’s not always a bad sensation. Bilge Ebiri (New York Magazine/Vulture)

A Deep South crime story that evokes Fargo with different accents Pat Padua
(The DC Line)

It’s one of the year’s best oddities, a small film about hillbilly country folk that certainly won’t be for everyone. Justin Jones (CBR)


rottentomatoes   /   wiki   /   imdb
podcast, Uncategorized

1316

Dark crystals: the brutal reality behind a booming wellness craze – podcast

theluxuryspiritual.com

books, quotes

1314 – The Order of Time (2017 book)

“Sooner or later
the exact measurement of our time
will resume—
and we’ll be on the ship that’s bound
for the bitterest shore. (II, 9)


The Order of Time (Italian: L’ordine del tempo) is a book by Italian physicist Carlo Rovelli. It is about time in physics.

Time is a mystery that does not cease to puzzle us. Philosophers, artists and poets have long explored its meaning while scientists have found that its structure is different from the simple intuition we have of it. From Boltzmann to quantum theory, from Einstein to loop quantum gravity, our understanding of time has been undergoing radical transformations. Time flows at a different speed in different places, the past and the future differ far less than we might think, and the very notion of the present evaporates in the vast universe.

An audiobook, four hours and nineteen minutes long, was read by Benedict Cumberbatch. (wiki)

Carlo Rovelli on The Order of Time (youtube)


“For centuries, as long as travel was on horseback, on foot, or in carriages, there was no reason to synchronize clocks between one place and another. There was good reason for not doing so. Midday is, by definition, when the sun is at its highest. Every city and village had a sundial that registered the moment the sun was at its midpoint, allowing the clock on the bell tower to be regulated with it, for all to see.
But the sun does not reach midday at the same moment in Lecce as it does in Venice, or in Florence, or in Turin, because the sun moves from east to west. and for centuries the clocks in Venice were a good half hour ahead of those in Turin. Every small village had its own peculiar “hour.” A train station in Paris kept its own hour, a little behind the rest of the city, as a kind of courtesy toward travelers running late.

goodreads   /   penguin


Sadhguru on Yugas

animation, manga

1312 – 5 Centimeters per Second (2007)

timespace coordinates: early 1990s Tochigi (snow-filled Iwafune)/ 1999 Tanegashima/ 2008 Tokyo

kinopoisk.ru

5 Centimeters per Second (Japanese: 秒速5センチメートル Hepburn: Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru) is a 2007 Japanese animated coming-of-age romantic drama film produced, written and directed by Makoto Shinkai.

The film consists of three segments: “Cherry Blossom” (桜花抄 Ōkashō), “Cosmonaut” (コスモナウト Kosumonauto), and “5 Centimeters per Second” (秒速5センチメートル Byōsoku Go Senchimētoru), totaling about an hour of runtime.

As in Shinkai’s previous works, Tenmon composed this film’s soundtrack.

novelization of 5 Centimeters per Second was released in November 2007, expanding on the film (Novel). In the July 2010 issue of the manga anthology Afternoon, a manga adaptation started serialization, illustrated by Seike Yukiko (Manga). (wiki)

poster

imdb

movies, music, Uncategorized

1311 – Southland Tales (2006)

Southland Tales is a 2006 science fiction comedy-drama thriller film and the second film written and directed by Richard Kelly. The title refers to the Southland, a name used by locals to refer to Southern California and Greater Los Angeles. Set in the then-near future of 2008, as part of an alternate history, the film is a portrait of Los Angeles, and a satiric commentary on the military–industrial complex and the infotainment industry. The film features an ensemble cast including Dwayne JohnsonSeann William ScottSarah Michelle GellarMandy Moore, and Justin Timberlake. Original music was provided by Moby. The film is an international co-production of the United States, Germany and France.

Southland Tales postertimespace coordinates: On July 4th, 2005, in a fictionalized United States alternate history reality, two towns in Texas (El Paso and Abilene) were destroyed by twin nuclear attacks, killing thousands and triggering a catastrophe of unimaginable proportions, sending America into a state of anarchy and hysteria, as well as a Third World War (a fictionalized version of what the nation may have become under the War on Terror), with the US government re-introducing the draft. The PATRIOT Act has extended authority to a new agency known as US-IDent, which keeps constant surveillance on citizens—even to the extent of censoring the Internet and requiring fingerprints to access computers and bank accounts. In response to the recent fuel shortage in the wake of global warfare, the German company Treer designs a generator of inexhaustible energy, which is propelled by the perpetual motion of ocean currents, called “Fluid Karma”. However, its inventor Baron von Westphalen and his associates are hiding the fact that the generators alter the ocean’s currents and cause the Earth to slow its rotation, and that the transmission of Fluid Karma to portable receivers (via quantum entanglement) is ripping holes in the fabric of space and time.

In near-future 2008, Los Angeles (referred to as “The Southland” by locals) is a city on the brink of chaos overshadowed by the growth of an underground neo-Marxist organization. The film follows the criss-crossed destinies of Boxer Santaros, an action film actor stricken with amnesia; Krysta Now, a psychic ex-porn star in the midst of creating a reality TV show; and twin brothers Roland and Ronald Taverner, whose destinies become intertwined with that of all mankind.

Southland Tales was initially planned to be a nine-part “interactive experience”, with the first six parts published in six 100-page graphic novels that would be released in a six-month period up to the film’s release. The feature film comprises the final three parts of the experience. A website was also developed to intertwine with the graphic novels and the film itself.  The idea of six graphic novels was later narrowed down to three. The novels were written by Kelly and illustrated by Brett Weldele. Kelly wrote them while making the film and found it very difficult as it pushed him “to the edge of my own sanity”, as he remarked in an interview. 

They have been collected together into one single volume:

The titles of the parts in the film are:

  • Part Four: Temptation Waits
  • Part Five: Memory Gospel
  • Part Six: Wave of Mutilation

The film remains enigmatic to many viewers and even some of its makers. In a 2011 interview, Justin Timberlake himself said, “To me, Southland Tales is performance art. I still don’t know what that movie is about [laughs].”

In a 2013 interview, Kelly said he considered this work as “the thing that I’m most proud of, and I feel like it’s sort of the misunderstood child or the banished child.” (wiki)

imdb


[Southland Tales Soundtrack] tracks Aerial/Snowball -Moby / Southland Tales – Full Soundtrack (Score & Songs)   /   Sarah Michelle Gellar – Teen Horniness is Not a Crime

movies

1308 – The Painted Veil (2006)

timespace coordinates: 1920s London >  Shanghai >  small village in a remote area of China (Huangyao Ancient Town (黄姚古镇, huángyáo gǔzhèn) in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region)The-Painted-Veil-movie-posterThe Painted Veil is a 2006 American drama film directed by John Curran. The screenplay by Ron Nyswaner is based on the 1925 novel of the same title by W. Somerset MaughamEdward NortonNaomi WattsToby Jones, Lü YanAnthony Wong Chau Sang and Liev Schreiber appear in the leading roles.

This is the third film adaptation of the Maugham book, following a 1934 film starring Greta Garbo and Herbert Marshall and a 1957 version called The Seventh Sin with Bill Travers and Eleanor Parker. (wiki)

imdb