1568 – High-Rise (2015)

spacetime coordinates: luxury tower block during the 1970s. Featuring a wealth of modern conveniences, the building allows its residents to become gradually uninterested in the outside world. The infrastructure begins to fail and tensions between residents become apparent, and the building soon descends into chaos.

High-Rise is a 2015 British dystopian film directed by Ben Wheatley, starring Tom Hiddleston, Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Luke Evans, and Elisabeth Moss.

It was produced by Jeremy Thomas through his production company Recorded Picture Company. Its screenplay was written by Amy Jump and based on the 1975 novel High-Rise by British writer J. G. Ballard. Film scored by Clint Mansell. (wiki)

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1553 – The Old Guard (2020)

spacetime coordinates: 2019 (/2024?) South Sudan >  Afghanistan > France > England

The Old Guard is a 2020 American superhero film directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and written by Greg Rucka, based on his comic book of the same name. The film stars Charlize Theron, KiKi Layne, Matthias Schoenaerts, Marwan Kenzari, Luca Marinelli, and Chiwetel Ejiofor, and follows a team of immortal mercenaries that go on a revenge mission. (wiki)

The graphic novel that originated the film, The Old Guard: Force Multiplied, has four issues, so fans can expect this movie to have sequels. At least a second one is already in Netflix’s pipeline, with signed contracts by the main characters.

imdb   /   Scythians

1552 – Outbreak (1995)

spacetime coordinates: The film focuses on an outbreak of a fictional Ebola-like Motaba virus, in Zaire and later in a small town in the United States. It is primarily set in the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the fictional town of Cedar Creek, California. Outbreak‘s plot speculates how far military and civilian agencies might go to contain the spread of a deadly, contagious disease.

Outbreak is a 1995 American medical disaster film directed by Wolfgang Petersen and based on Richard Preston‘s 1994 nonfiction book The Hot Zone. The film stars Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo, Morgan Freeman and Donald Sutherland, and co-stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Kevin Spacey and Patrick Dempsey. (wiki)

Original Cinema Lobby Card

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The single biggest threat to man’s continued dominance on the planet is the virus.

— Joshua Lederberg, Ph.D., Nobel laureate, Film introduction: Outbreak (1995)

1549 – Flu (2013)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s district of Bundang in Seongnam (satellite city of Seoul)

Flu (Korean: 감기; RR: Gamgi; alternatively titled The Flu) is a 2013 South Korean disaster film written and directed by Kim Sung-su, about an outbreak of a deadly strain of H5N1 that kills its victims within 36 hours, throwing the district of Bundang in Seongnam, which has a population of nearly half a million people, into chaos. It stars Jang Hyuk and Soo Ae. (wiki)

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1547 – The Last Mimzy (2007)

spacetime coordinates: 2000’s Seattle

The Last Mimzy is a 2007 American science fiction adventure drama film directed by Robert Shaye and loosely adapted from the 1943 science fiction short story “Mimsy Were the Borogoves” by Lewis Padgett (the pseudonym of husband-and-wife team Henry Kuttner and C. L. Moore).

The film features Timothy Hutton, Joely Richardson, Rainn Wilson, Kathryn Hahn, Michael Clarke Duncan, and introducing Rhiannon Leigh Wryn as seven-year-old Emma Wilder and Chris O’Neil as ten-year-old Noah.

Presented as a story to a group of students by their teacher Lena in a field in the distant future, The Last Mimzy is the story of the attempt by humans in the distant future to avert a catastrophic ecological disaster that has destroyed their world. Humanity has become “isolated and warlike,” and one scientist is desperately working to save the earth and its people. A small assortment of High-tech devices disguised as toys are sent by him back in time, where they are found by Noah (Chris O’Neil) and Emma (Rhiannon Leigh Wryn) Wilder, children living in early-21st-century Seattle. (wiki)

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1545 – Yummy (2019)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s shady Eastern European hospital for plastic surgery

Yummy is a 2019 Belgian comedy/horror/zombie film directed by Lars Damoiseaux and starring Maaike Neuville, Bart Hollanders, Benjamin Ramon, Clara Cleymans, and Joshua Rubin.

The Eastern Europe language ‘Balkanese’ spoken by the hospital workers is a fictional language created by Lars Damoiseaux’s wife, Lana Macanovic.

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imdb   /   rottentomatoes

1541 – Pinocchio (2019)

spacetime coordinates: 19th century Tuscany, Italy (the city of Catchfools,  Toyland etc)

Pinocchio is a 2019 Italian fantasy film co-written and directed by Matteo Garrone (tale-of-tales-2015), based on the 1883 book The Adventures of Pinocchio by Italian author Carlo Collodi. (wiki)

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