movies

0433 – Il racconto dei racconti – Tale of Tales (2015)

spacetime coordinates:  17th-century. the kingdoms of Longtrellis / Highhills / Strongcliff

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Tale of Tales (Italian: Il racconto dei racconti) is a 2015 European dark fantasy film, directed by Matteo Garrone, starring Salma HayekVincent CasselToby Jones, and John C. Reilly. It is a screen adaptation based on collections of tales by Italian poet and courtier Giambattista Basile:  Pentamerone ( a 17th-century collection of fairytales) or Lo cunto de li cunti (Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones), which contains the earliest versions of famous fables like RapunzelSleeping Beauty and Cinderella.

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The Baroque stories manage to mix real and surreal with many metaphorical usages. The three tales are La Cerva Fatata (The Enchanted Doe), La Pulce (The Flea), La Vecchia Scorticata (The Flayed Old Lady), that have been freely adapted with elements of other tales by Giambattista Basile, as well as a touch of artistic license. All three stories are told in a mixed way, pieced in fragments through the whole film, with all three briefly joining for a royal funeral near the start and a royal coronation at the end.

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278330/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_Tales_(2015_film)

movies

0429 – The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)

spacetime coordinates: remote Cumbrian mountain village 1348 >> 1980s New Zealand

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The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey is a 1988 feature film, an official Australian-New Zealand co-production, directed by Vincent Ward.

Ward and his production team based the look of the film on extensive research into the Middle Ages, particularly the mining industry, although this was then rendered imaginatively.  The colours of the film are based on medieval art and, in particular, medieval and renaissance artists’ ideas about heaven and hell. The blues in many of the modern-day sequences are based on the inks in the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, while the reds and oranges of the motorway lights and furnace fires evoke images of hell in the works of Hieronymous BoschPieter Bruegel and Matthias Grünewald.  Ward later said he had not achieved what he wanted to with the colour of the modern-day scenes due to the film’s short shooting schedule. Ironically, the colour in the medieval scenes, which were turned into black and white, was far better than that in the 20th century scenes. Some of the mining scenes were inspired by engravings from the German mining manual De re metallica, although it dates from two centuries after the time of those scenes. The angel of death seen flying across the moon at one point is based on a medieval engraving in Paris’ Père Lachaise Cemetery.

See also: Middle Ages in film

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0095709/

movies

0427 – The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

spacetime coordinates: unnamed war-torn European city in “The Age of Reason” (late 18th century, Wednesday)

munchausen silkscreen movie poster artist Jeff Soto

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen is a 1988 adventure fantasy film co-written and directed by Terry Gilliam, starring John NevilleSarah PolleyEric IdleJonathan PryceOliver Reed, and Uma Thurman.

The film is based on the tall tales about the 18th-century German nobleman Baron Munchausen and his wartime exploits against the Ottoman Empire.

Background

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096764/

games

0424 – The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

the witcher 2 art-001

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings (Polish: Wiedźmin 2: Zabójcy królów) is an action role-playing hack and slash video game developed by CD Projekt Red for Microsoft Windows, Xbox 360, OS X, and Linux. The game was released for Microsoft Windows in May 2011, for Xbox 360 and OS X in 2012, and for Linux in 2014.

It is a sequel to the 2007 video game The Witcher. Like its predecessor, the game is based on The Witcher series of fantasy novels by Polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. The player directs the actions of Geralt of Rivia, a monster hunter known as a Witcher. The fantasy world in which his adventures take place owes much to Polish history and Slavic mythology.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (MINIMUM): OS: Windows XP/Vista/7 // Processor: Intel 2.2 GHz Dual-Core or AMD 2.5 GHz Dual-Core // Memory: 1.5 GB (Win XP), 2GB (Win Vista/Win 7) // Graphics: GeForce 8800 (512 MB) or Radeon HD3850 (512 MB). Resolution: 1280×720. // DirectX®: DirectX 9.29 has to be installed. // Hard Drive: 25GB

steam   wiki

series

415 – True Detective (TV Series 2014– )

true detectiveTrue Detective is an American anthology crime drama television series created and written by Nic Pizzolatto. The series, broadcast by the premium cable network HBO in the United States, premiered on January 12, 2014. Each season of the series is structured as a disparate, self-contained narrative, employing new cast ensembles and following various sets of characters and settings.

The first season, starring Matthew McConaugheyWoody HarrelsonMichelle MonaghanMichael Potts, and Tory Kittles, takes place in Louisiana and follows a pair of Louisiana State Police homicide detectives, and their pursuit of a serial killer over a 17-year period. True Detective‘s first season explores themes of philosophical pessimism, masculinity, and Christianity; critics have analyzed the show’s portrayal of women, its auteurist sensibility, and the influence of comics and weird horror fiction on its narrative. (read more here)

True_Detective#Opening_sequence

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2356777/

movies, quotes

0398 – office horror

Mayhem (2017)

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Mayhem is a 2017 American action horror comedy film directed by Joe Lynch.  Rotten Tomatoes‘s critical consensus reads, “Mayhem delivers stylish violence by the bloody bucketful — and grounds all the titular chaos in sharp humor and surprisingly effective real-world economic angst”

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Melanie Cross: My mother used to say that no one raindrop ever thought it caused the flood. I now know what she meant by that.


Office Uprising (2018)

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An employee at a weapons factory discovers that an energy drink turns his co-workers into zombies

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imdb


Bloodsucking Bastards (2015)

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Bloodsucking Bastards is a 2015 American comedy horror film directed by Brian James O’Connell, written by Ryan Mitts and Dr. God, O’Connell’s comedy group.

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