time machine // database // travel guide
spacetime coordinates: pre-Columbian Yucatan and Guatemala, 1502
Apocalypto is a 2006 American epic adventure film directed and produced by Mel Gibson and written by Gibson and Farhad Safinia. Similar to Gibson’s earlier film The Passion of the Christ, all dialogue is in a modern approximation of the ancient language of the setting. Here, the Yucatec Maya language is used, with English and other language subtitles, which sometimes refer to the language as Mayan.
spacetime coordinates: 17th century Madrid
The Monk (French: Le Moine) is a 2011 French-Spanish thriller-drama film directed by Dominik Moll. It is an adaptation of Matthew Lewis‘s The Monk: A Romance published in 1796.
the Way Back is a 2010 survival drama film directed by Peter Weir, from a screenplay by Weir and Keith Clarke. The film is inspired by The Long Walk (1956), the memoir by former Polish prisoner of war Sławomir Rawicz, who claimed to have escaped from a Soviet Gulag and walked 4,000 miles to freedom in World War II. The film stars Jim Sturgess, Colin Farrell, Ed Harris, and Saoirse Ronan, with Alexandru Potocean, Sebastian Urzendowsky, Gustaf Skarsgård, Dragoş Bucur and Mark Strong.
Regardless of whether or not this particular “long walk” really took place, during World War II other Poles undertook difficult journeys attempting to leave the Soviet Union. Accounts of their escapes can be found in the archives of the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum in London, and in the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, in California. Also, several relatively verifiable and believable escapee autobiographies have been published in English, e.g., Michael Krupa’s Shallow Graves in Siberia.
Many of the events that happen in the gulag scenes come from Varlam Shalamov’s The Kolyma Tales. (read/download PDF here)
spacetime coordinates: Villach in the year 1235 // 14th-century Holy Roman Empire// Styria // Wormwood forest
Season of the Witch is a 2011 American fantasy adventure film directed by Dominic Sena. starring Nicolas Cage, Ron Perlman and Claire Foy. The film draws inspiration from the 1957 film The Seventh Seal.
In the 14th century, Teutonic Knights Behmen von Bleibruck (Cage) and Felson (Perlman) are engaged on a crusade, taking part in several different battles throughout the 1330’s (1332 Gulf of Edremit, 1334 Siege of Tripoli, 1337 Imbros & 1339 Artah) and eventually in the Smyrniote crusades. After witnessing the massacre of civilians during the 1344 capture of Smyrna, the two knights desert the Order and the crusade and return to Austria.
Wormwood, the name of the forest where blood is shed, is also the name of a destructive entity in the Bible. This entity, a star whose name also translates as Bitterness, appears to cause widespread illness. According to Revelation 8:10-11, “The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water–the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.”
Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim is a real-time strategy video game developed by Cyberlore Studios, and published by MicroProse for Windows in March 2000. MacPlay released a Mac OS port in December 2000. Infogrames released the expansion pack Majesty: The Northern Expansion for Windows in March 2001, and Majesty Gold Edition, a compilation for Windows bundling Majesty and The Northern Expansion, in January 2002. Linux Game Publishing released a Linux port of Majesty Gold Edition in April 2003. (wikipedia)
The High Definition edition of Majesty Gold contains main game, the Northern Expansion Pack as well as 2 new quests and several other graphics and gameplay updates. Majesty is a Real-time strategy game with indirect control – your heroes have a will of their own! Your rule is not absolute, as you face subjects that are independent, stubborn – and greedy. They will need a great deal of persuasion (ok, gold) before they carry out your wishes…
Night on Earth is a 1991 film written and directed by Jim Jarmusch. It is a collection of five vignettes, taking place during the same night, concerning the temporary bond formed between taxi driver and passenger in five cities. Jarmusch wrote the screenplay in about eight days, and the choice of certain cities was largely based on the actors with whom he wanted to work. The soundtrack of the same name is by Tom Waits.
Directed by Jean-Baptiste Mondino
TimeSpace Warps 