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John Shepherd spent 30 years trying to contact extraterrestrials by broadcasting music millions of miles into space.
Netflix’s John Was Trying to Contact Aliens is amazing and moving
The man who tried to contact aliens from his grandma’s living room
timespace coordinates: early 2000s Los Angeles
One Hour Photo is a 2002 American psychological thriller film written and directed by Mark Romanek and starring Robin Williams, Connie Nielsen, Michael Vartan, Erin Daniels, Gary Cole, and Eriq La Salle.
In an interview, Romanek said that he was inspired to create this movie by films from the 1970s about “lonely men”, notably Taxi Driver (1976). (wiki)
timespace coordinates: Washington, D.C. 1984 (during the Cold War)
Wonder Woman 1984 (stylized as WW84) is a 2020 American superhero film based on the DC Comics character Wonder Woman. It is the sequel to 2017’s Wonder Woman and the ninth installment in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU).
The film is directed by Patty Jenkins from a script she wrote with Geoff Johns and David Callaham. Gal Gadot stars as Diana Prince / Wonder Woman, alongside Chris Pine, Kristen Wiig, Pedro Pascal, Robin Wright, Connie Nielsen and Lilly Aspell.
The film follows Diana and her past love Steve Trevor as they face off against Max Lord and Cheetah. (wiki)
In Greek mythology, the Amazon Asteria was one of those slain by Hercules when he came to Themyscira to take Hippolyta’s girdle as one of his famous Labors. Asteria is also the name of the Greek goddess of stars.
timespace coordinates: 2006 Chiba, Japan >> 1988 Hokkaido
Erased, known in Japan as Boku dake ga Inai Machi (僕だけがいない街, lit. “The Town Where Only I Am Missing”) is a 2016 anime mini-series by A-1 Pictures based on Kei Sanbe‘s manga series of the same title. The anime adapts the full story of the manga, though it condenses and alters the events that take place in volumes 6 to 8.
A live-action movie adaptation was released in Japan on March 19, 2016 which also featured an alternate ending. A live-action Netflix TV series was released on December 15, 2017. (myanimelist)
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”.
timespace coordinates: 1995 urban, nighttime Hong Kong
Fallen Angels is a 1995 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Leon Lai, Michelle Reis, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Charlie 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.
wiki / imdb / rottentomatoes
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