movies

1159 – The Ninth Gate (1999)

timespace coordinates: 1990’s New York City >  Toledo, Spain >  SintraPortugal > France

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The Ninth Gate is a 1999 mystery thriller film directed, produced, and co-written by Roman Polanski. An international co-production between the United States, Portugal, France, and Spain, the film is loosely based upon Arturo Pérez-Reverte‘s 1993 novel The Club Dumas. The plot involves the search for a rare and ancient book that purportedly contains a magical secret for summoning the Devil. (wiki)

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1157 – End of Days (1999)

timespace coordinates:  New Year’s Eve, 1999  New YorkCity

end of days

End of Days is a 1999 American supernatural action horror film directed by Peter Hyams and starring Arnold SchwarzeneggerGabriel ByrneRobin TunneyKevin PollakRod SteigerCCH Pounder, and Udo Kier.  The film follows former New York Police Department detective Jericho Cane (Schwarzenegger) after he saves a banker (Byrne) from an assassin, finds himself embroiled in a religious conflict, and must protect an innocent young woman (Tunney) who is chosen by evil forces to conceive the Antichrist with Satan. (wiki)

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documentary, Uncategorized

1146 – Baraka (1992)

Baraka is a 1992 non-narrative documentary film directed by Ron Fricke. The film is often compared to Koyaanisqatsi, the first of the Qatsi films by Godfrey Reggio for which Fricke served as the cinematographer. It is also the most recent film to be photographed in the 70mm Todd-AO format, and the first film ever to be restored and scanned at 8K resolution. (wiki)

Named after a Sufi word that translates roughly as “breath of life” or “blessing,” Baraka is Ron Fricke‘s impressive follow-up to Godfrey Reggio‘s non-verbal documentary film Koyaanisqatsi. Fricke was cinematographer and collaborator on Reggio’s film, and for Baraka he struck out on his own to polish and expand the photographic techniques used on Koyaanisqatsi. The result is a tour-de-force in 70mm: a cinematic “guided meditation” (Fricke’s own description) shot in 24 countries on six continents over a 14-month period that unites religious ritual, the phenomena of nature, and man’s own destructive powers into a web of moving images. Fricke’s camera ranges, in meditative slow motion or bewildering time-lapse, over the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem, the Ryoan-Ji temple in Kyoto, Lake Natron in Tanzania, burning oil fields in Kuwait, the smoldering precipice of an active volcano, a busy subway terminal, tribal celebrations of the Maasai in Kenya, chanting monks in the Dip Tse Chok Ling monastery…and on and on, through locales across the globe. To execute the film’s time-lapse sequences, Fricke had a special camera built that combined time-lapse photography with perfectly controlled movements of the camera. In one evening sequence a desert sky turns black, and the stars roll by, as the camera moves slowly forward under the trees. The feeling is like that of viewing the universe through a powerful telescope: that we are indeed on a tiny orb hurtling through a star-filled void. The film is complemented by the hybrid world-music of Michael Stearns. ~ Anthony Reed, Rovi (rottentomatoes)

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music, Uncategorized

1144 – Ambient 1: Music for Airports (1978)

Ambient 1: Music for Airports is the sixth studio album by Brian Eno, released by Polydor Records in 1978. The album consists of four compositions created by layering tape loops of differing lengths, and was designed to be continuously looped as a sound installation, with the intent of defusing the tense, anxious atmosphere of an airport terminal.

Music for Airports was the first of four albums released in Eno’s Ambient series, a term which he coined to describe music “as ignorable as it is interesting” that would “induce calm and a space to think.” Although it is not the earliest entry in the genre, it was the first album ever to be explicitly created under the label “ambient music“.

The album was installed at the Marine Air Terminal of New York’s LaGuardia Airport in mid-1980. (wiki)

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movies

1122 – Real Steel (2011)

timespace coordinates: 2020, Detroit / Georgia / New York City / Texas

real-steel-uk-poster

Real Steel is a 2011 American science fiction sports film starring Hugh Jackman and Dakota Goyo and co-produced and directed by Shawn Levy for DreamWorks Pictures. The film is based on the short story “Steel”, written by Richard Matheson, which was originally published in the May 1956 edition of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, and later adapted into a 1963 Twilight Zone episodeReal Steel was in development for several years before production began on June 24, 2010. Filming took place primarily in the U.S. state of MichiganAnimatronic robots were built for the film, and motion capture technology was used to depict the brawling of computer-generated robots and animatronics. (wiki)

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movies

1121

Bad Boys for Life (2020)

timespace coordinates: 2020 Miami

Bad Boys for Life is a 2020 American action comedy film directed by Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah. The sequel to Bad Boys II (2003), it is the third installment in the Bad Boys franchise.

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The Other Guys (2010)

timespace coordinates: late 2000’s New York City

The Other Guys is a 2010 American buddy cop action comedy film directed by Adam McKay. It stars Will FerrellMark WahlbergMichael KeatonEva MendesSteve CooganRay StevensonSamuel L. Jackson, and Dwayne Johnson.

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War on Everyone (2016)

timespace coordinates: 1990’s (?) Albuquerque, New Mexico / Iceland

War on Everyone is a 2016 British black comedy buddy cop film written and directed by John Michael McDonagh. The film stars Alexander SkarsgårdMichael Peña, and Theo James. (wiki)


The philosopher Thomas Hobbes foretold a future “war of all against all” in his book “Leviathan“.

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