0823 – Crash (2004)

timespace coordinates: 2000’s Los Angeles

Crash is a 2004 American drama film produced, directed, and co-written by Paul Haggis. The film features racial and social tensions in Los Angeles. A self-described “passion piece” for Haggis, Crash was inspired by a real-life incident, in which his Porsche was carjacked in 1991 outside a video store on Wilshire Boulevard.  (read more: wiki)

[first lines]
Graham: It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.

imdb   /   365-magnolia-1999/

0693 – Sweet Country (2017)

timespace coordinates: Australia’s Northern Territory frontier in the 1920’s

Sweet Country is a 2017 Australian film directed by Warwick Thornton. It is set in 1929 in the outback of the Northern Territory, Australia.

imdb   rottentomatoes

605 – The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution (2015)

The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution is a 2015 American documentary film directed and written by Stanley Nelson Jr. The film combines archival footage and interviews with surviving Panthers and FBI agents to tell the story of the revolutionary black organization Black Panther Party. It is Nelson Jr.’s eighth film to premiere at Sundance. The film is the first of a three-part series of documentary films about African-American history America Revisited. It will be followed by Tell Them We Are Rising: The Story of Historically Black Colleges and Universities and The Slave Trade: Creating a New World.

imdb

0596 – Jupiter’s Moon / Jupiter holdja (2017)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s Hungary / Budapest

The juxtaposition of supernatural thriller tropes and urgent socio-political issues in Kornél Mundruczó’s latest movie — an original take on the superhero origin story set to the backdrop of the refugee crisis — might prove a delicate one for some viewers to take. Those unperturbed, however, should find much to relish in Jupiter’s Moon, a film that somewhat lightly plays with themes of religion and immigration as it rumbles, crashes, and ultimately soars through the streets of the Hungarian capitol. It’s a tricky balance and Mundruczó (who had a break-out with his canine revolt film White God in 2014) strikes it with style and confidence (even going so far as to signpost it in an opening prologue that reminds the audience that the titular gas giant’s largest orbiting body is called Europa, and that many believe that large oceans rest beneath its icy surface where a “cradle of life” might exist). The hero of Jupiter’s Moon, a young Syrian refugee with the connotation heavy name of Aryan (played by Majd Asmi), does not find a cradle of life in his Europa. To the contrary, in fact, he’s gunned down in the opening minutes… (read more)

imdb

0485 – Mudbound (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  1940s  Mississippi

Mudbound is a 2017 American period drama film directed by Dee Rees and written by Rees and Virgil Williams, based on the novel of the same name by Hillary Jordan. It stars Carey Mulligan, Garrett Hedlund, Jason Clarke, Jason Mitchell, and Mary J. Blige. The film depicts two World War II veterans – one white, one black – who return to rural Mississippi each to address racism and PTSD in his own way.

Rachel’s term for the goal they tried to achieve is ‘subjective naturalism,’ ‘The period wasn’t a character in this film. The mud was a character, the weather was a character, the house was a character… we were trying to make more of a commentary about just how tough times were through experiences.’

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2396589/

0484 – Gran Torino (2008)

spacetime coordinates: 2000’s  Detroit, Michigan

Gran Torino is a 2008 American drama film directed and produced by Clint Eastwood, who also starred in the film. It is the first mainstream American film to feature Hmong Americans. Many Lao Hmong war refugees resettled in the U.S. following the communist takeover of Laos in 1975.

cultural inaccuracies

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205489/

0391 – Bright (2017)

spacetime coordinates: 2010’s Los Angeles

Bright is a 2017 American urban fantasy action crime film directed by David Ayer and written by Max Landis. The film stars Will Smith as a Los Angeles Police Department police officer who teams up with an Orc rookie police officer (Joel Edgerton) in a world of both human and mythical creatures. The film also stars Noomi Rapace, Lucy Fry, Édgar Ramírez and Ike Barinholtz, and was released worldwide on Netflix on December 22, 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright_(film)#Sequel

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5519340/