0544 – In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

spacetime coordinates: 1850 > 1820 Massachusetts / Atlantic / Pacific Ocean / Atacames, Ecuador /  Henderson Island

In the Heart of the Sea is a 2015 adventure-drama film directed and produced by Ron Howard and written by Charles Leavitt. It is based on Nathaniel Philbrick‘s non-fiction book of the same name, about the sinking of the American whaling ship Essex in 1820, an event that inspired the novel Moby-Dick. An international co-production between the United States and Spain, the film stars Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy, Tom Holland, Ben Whishaw, and Brendan Gleeson.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1390411/

536 – Simon Stålenhag

Simon Stålenhag is an artist and designer specialising in futuristic artwork focused on stereotypical Swedish countryside environments. The settings of his work have been adapted into a range of art books and a tabletop game. (wiki)

http://www.simonstalenhag.se/index.html

0525 – Cold Skin (2017)

spacetime coordinates: desolate South Atlantic island the edge of the Antarctic Circle 1914, just after of Franz Ferdinand’s assassination that eventually caused World War I

Cold Skin is a 2017 French-Spanish fantasy adventure /  sci-fi horror film directed by Xavier Gens based on Albert Sánchez Piñol’s novel of the same name. The film owes a good deal to HP Lovecraft’s tales of Innsmouth folk.

“cinematographer Daniel Aranyó takes the pebble-strewn shores and grey skies of the island and fills them with uncertainty, finding in all that bleakness something that beguiles and something that chills. The waves that swirl up against the shore can be cool, clear turquoise or a deep, obscure blue-black, and either way they could be hiding something deadly just beneath the surface. Though at times we glimpse an awful tide of grey flesh like that once said to have pursued a man who stayed overnight in an Innsmouth hotel, there’s a sense that the real horror here is just out of sight – perhaps because we dare not look at it. And still, when morning comes, we can almost taste the salt air and the sweet fresh water from the fountain by the shore: the island is undeniably beautiful.”  Review by Jennie Kermode

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034385/

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The Shadow Over Innsmouth – read by Mike Bennett (YouTube)

517 – “The Posthuman”

online course in the Philosophy of “The Posthuman”  – Dr. Ferrando (NYU)

www.theposthuman.org

454

spacetime coordinates: 18th – 19th century Easter Island

Language at the End of the World

“According to one early commentator, Rapanui songs expressed ‘the surprise of being alive and also the sadness of life.’”

452 – Dinosaur Island (2014)

Dinosaur Island is a 2014 British-Australian adventure film. The film is written and directed by Emmy Winner, Matt Drummond and co-produced by Jason Moody and Megan Williams. The film stars Kate Rasmussen and  Darius Williams. It focuses on an island where a special kind of crystal acts as a portal that can bring different things from different times on the island. The film was inspired by a conversation between Drummond and American film producer Paul Mason while both were living on the South Pacific Island of Vanuatu. Journey to Dinosaur Island has been called the first feature film to depict a feathered Tyrannosaurus.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3261302/

0435 – The Eagle (2011)

spacetime coordinates: AD 140  Roman Britain > estate near Calleva (modern Silchester) in southern Britain > territory of the Picts north of Hadrian’s Wall

The Eagle is a 2011 epic historical drama film set in Roman Britain directed by Kevin Macdonald, and starring Channing Tatum, Jamie Bell and Donald Sutherland. Adapted by Jeremy Brock from Rosemary Sutcliff‘s historical adventure novel The Eagle of the Ninth(1954), the film tells the story of a young Roman officer attempting to recover the lost Roman eagle standard of his father’s legion in Scotland. The story is based on the Ninth Spanish Legion‘s supposed disappearance in Britain.

The film was an Anglo-American co-production. It may be considered a sequel to the film Centurion, written and directed by Neil Marshall, because Channing Tatum’s character in The Eagle is Marcus Flavius Aquila, the son of Titus Flavius Virilus who led the Ninth Legion that was lost in the far north of Britannia, and who was therefore the same person as Dominic West‘s character Titus Flavius Virilus in Centurion. Historically, the purported disappearance of the Ninth Legion in Northern Britain is a subject of debate and dispute

Macdonald intended the film to be historically authentic, but as little is certain about the tribes that the Romans encountered—they were generally Celtic peoples, though some may have been Picts—he made concessions. For example, the tribespeople spoke Gaelic, even though the language probably did not enter widespread use in the region until the 5th century AD;  Pictish is the more likely language to have been spoken at the time. “It’s the best we can do,” Macdonald said. “All you can do is build on a few clues and trust your own instincts. That way, no one can tell you you were wrong.”

Macdonald described his view of the Seal people: “They were a more indigenous folk than the Celts, who were from farther south … They were probably small and dark, like the Inouit [sic], living off seals and dressed in sealskins. We are going to create a culture about which no one knows much, but which we will make as convincing as possible. We are basing it on clues gained from places like Skara Brae and the Tomb of the Eagles in Orkney, so that we will have them worshipping pagan symbols, like the seal and the eagle. The reason they have seized the emblem of the Roman eagle from the legion is because to them it [was] a sacred symbol.” (wiki)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1034389/