movies, quotes

0473 – Borgman (2013)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s Netherlands

“and they descended upon the earth to strengthen their ranks”

borgmen

Borgman is a 2013 Dutch psychological thriller drama film directed by Alex van Warmerdam.

A vagrant enters the lives of an upper-class family, turning their lives into a psychological nightmare in the process. Although never stated in the film, the behavior of Borgman resembles that of an “alp“, a nightmare demon from German folklore.

borgman-2

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1954315/

movies

0469 – The Limehouse Golem (2016)

spacetime coordinates:  Limehouse in Victorian London  (1880)

limehouse golem poster

The Limehouse Golem is a 2016 British horror-mystery film directed by Juan Carlos Medina from a screenplay by Jane Goldman. The film, an adaptation of Peter Ackroyd‘s 1994 murder mystery novel Dan Leno and the Limehouse Golem, it stars Olivia CookeBill Nighy, and Douglas Booth.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4733640/

movies, series

0467 – Cloverfield franchise

Cloverfield (2008)

spacetime coordinates: 2000’s New York

Cloverfield_poster

Cloverfield is a 2008 American found footage science fiction monster horror film directed by Matt Reeves, produced by J. J. Abrams and Bryan Burk, and written by Drew Goddard. The film, which is presented as found footage shot with a home camcorder, follows six young New York City residents fleeing from a gigantic monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1060277/

cloverfield_2_by_fauxster

10 Cloverfield Lane (2016)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s Louisiana

poster_zoom

10 Cloverfield Lane is a 2016 American science fiction horror film directed by Dan Trachtenberg, produced by J. J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber and written by Josh Campbell, Matthew Stuecken and Damien Chazelle. The film stars John GoodmanMary Elizabeth Winstead, and John Gallagher Jr. It is the second installment in the Cloverfield franchise. The film was developed from a script titled The Cellar, but under production by Bad Robot, it was turned into a spiritual successor of the 2008 film Cloverfield. The film follows a young woman who, after a car crash, wakes up in an underground bunker with two men who insist that an event has left the surface of Earth uninhabitable. The film is presented in a third-person narrative, in contrast to its predecessor’s found-footage style.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1179933/

The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)

spacetime coordinates: 2028  Cloverfield Station

cloverfield-3-poster-xl

The Cloverfield Paradox is a 2018 American science fiction horror film directed by Julius Onah, written by Oren Uziel and Doug Jung, and produced by J. J. Abramss Bad Robot Productions. It is the third installment in the Cloverfield franchise. The film stars Daniel BrühlElizabeth DebickiAksel HennieGugu Mbatha-RawChris O’DowdJohn OrtizDavid Oyelowo, and Zhang Ziyi, and follows an international group of astronauts aboard a space station who, after using a particle accelerator to try to solve Earth’s energy crisis, must find a way home after accidentally traveling to an alternate dimension.

The film was based on God Particle, a spec script from Oren Uziel which had the main plot of the space station crew but unconnected to Cloverfield. The script was acquired by Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot in 2012. It had been initially planned as part of Paramount’s low-budget InSurge distribution label, but following the folding of that label, its production was expanded as a Paramount-distributed film. Only during production did Abrams decide to link the film to Cloverfield, adapting Uziel’s screenplay and adding scenes to establish this connection, following the same approach used by 10 Cloverfield Lane from its original script, The Cellar. Abrams saw the ability to use the particle accelerator accident as a means for future events to cause changes in the past, establishing a way to narratively link the Cloverfield franchise together.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2548396/

Cloverfield Monster Attacks Tagruato Oil Rig

movies

0465 – The Handmaiden / Ah-ga-ssi (2016)

spacetime coordinates:  1930s South Korea / Japan

The Handmaiden (Hangul아가씨RRAgassilit. ”Lady”) is a 2016 South Korean erotic psychological thriller film directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Kim Min-heeKim Tae-riHa Jung-woo and Cho Jin-woong.  It is inspired from the novel Fingersmith by Welsh writer Sarah Waters, with the setting changed from Victorian era Britain to Korea under Japanese colonial rule.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt4016934/

movies, music

0459 – Murder on the Orient Express (2017)

spacetime coordinates: the Orient Express,  winter of 1934

murder-orient-express-poster-2

Murder on the Orient Express is a 2017 American mystery drama film directed by Kenneth Branagh with a screenplay by Michael Green, based on the 1934 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie. The film stars Branagh as Hercule Poirot, with Penélope CruzWillem DafoeJudi DenchJohnny DeppJosh GadDerek JacobiLeslie Odom Jr.Michelle Pfeiffer, and Daisy Ridley in supporting roles.

murder_on_the_orient_express

The film is the fourth adaptation of Christie’s novel, following the 1974 filma 2001 TV film version, and a 2010 episode of the television series Agatha Christie’s Poirot.  The plot follows Poirot, a world-renowned detective, as he seeks to solve a murder on the famous trans-European train in the 1930s.

Sequel

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3402236/


movies

0429 – The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey (1988)

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

navigator_xlg

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

422 – Midnight Special (2016)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s  San Antonio Texas > Louisiana Florida midnight-special

Midnight Special is a 2016 American science fiction film written and directed by Jeff Nichols, and produced by Sarah Green and Brian Kavanaugh-Jones. The film stars Michael ShannonJoel EdgertonKirsten DunstAdam DriverJaeden Lieberher, and Sam Shepard.midnight_special_one_sheetThe story revolves around Roy Tomlin and his biological son, Alton Meyer, escaping from both the government and a cult, after discovering that Alton has special powers.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2649554/