329 – Contact (1997)

spacetime coordinates: 1990s New Mexico // Florida //  Puerto Rico // Washington, D.C. // Wisconsin // Hokkaido

Contact is a 1997 American science fiction drama film directed by Robert Zemeckis. It is a film adaptation of Carl Sagan‘s 1985 novel of the same name; Sagan and his wife Ann Druyan wrote the story outline for the film.

Jodie Foster portrays the film’s protagonist, Dr. Eleanor “Ellie” Arroway, a SETI scientist who finds strong evidence of extraterrestrial life and is chosen to make first contact.

imdb        wiki

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What Happens If China Makes First Contact?

As America has turned away from searching for extraterrestrial intelligence, China has built the world’s largest radio dish for precisely that purpose. (read more)

“No civilization should ever announce its presence to the cosmos. Any other civilization that learns of its existence will perceive it as a threat to expand—as all civilizations do, eliminating their competitors until they encounter one with superior technology and are themselves eliminated. This grim cosmic outlook is called “dark-forest theory,” because it conceives of every civilization in the universe as a hunter hiding in a moonless woodland, listening for the first rustlings of a rival.”

0326 – The Andromeda Strain (1971)

spacetime coordinates: 1971  Wildfire, underground laboratory in Nevada // Piedmont, New Mexico

The Andromeda Strain is a 1971 American science fiction film produced and directed by Robert Wise. Based on Michael Crichton‘s 1969 novel of the same name and adapted by Nelson Gidding, the film stars Arthur Hill, James Olson, Kate Reid, and David Wayne as a team of scientists who investigate a deadly organism of extraterrestrial origin. With a few exceptions, the film follows the book closely. The special effects were designed by Douglas Trumbull. The film is notable for its use of split screen in certain scenes.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0066769/

0320 – Mr. Turner (2014)

spacetime coordinates: 19th century London

Mr. Turner is a 2014 biographical drama film based around the last twenty-five years of the life and career of painter J. M. W. Turner (1775–1851). Written and directed by Mike Leigh, the film stars Timothy Spall in the title role with Dorothy Atkinson, Paul Jesson, Marion Bailey, Lesley Manville and Martin Savage.

Self-Portrait c.1799 Joseph Mallord William Turner 1775-1851 Accepted by the nation as part of the Turner Bequest 1856 http://www.tate.org.uk/art/work/N00458

Describing Turner as “a great artist: a radical, revolutionary painter”, writer/director Leigh explained, “I felt there was scope for a film examining the tension between this very mortal, flawed individual, and the epic work, the spiritual way he had of distilling the world”.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2473794/

0314 – BioShock (2007 video game)

spacetime coordinates: 1960, the underwater city of Rapture

BioShock is a first-person shooter video game developed by 2K Boston (later Irrational Games) and 2K Australia, and published by 2K Games.

The game’s concept was developed by Irrational’s creative lead, Ken Levine, and incorporates ideas by 20th century dystopian and utopian thinkers such as Ayn Rand, George Orwell, and Aldous Huxley, as well as historical figures such as John D. Rockefeller. The game is considered a spiritual successor to the System Shock series, on which many of Irrational’s team including Levine had worked previously.

BioShock is set in 1960. The player guides the protagonist, Jack, after his airplane crashes in the ocean near the bathysphere terminus that leads to the underwater city of Rapture. Built by the business magnate Andrew Ryan, the city was intended to be an isolated utopia, but the discovery of ADAM, a genetic material which can be used to grant superhuman powers, initiated the city’s turbulent decline. Jack tries to find a way to escape, fighting through hordes of ADAM-obsessed enemies, and the iconic, deadly Big Daddies, while engaging with the few sane humans that remain and eventually learning of Rapture’s past. The player, as Jack, is able to defeat foes in a number of ways by using weapons, utilizing plasmids that give unique powers, and by turning Rapture’s own defenses against them. BioShockincludes elements of role-playing games, giving the player different approaches in engaging enemies such as by stealth, as well as moral choices of saving or killing characters; additionally, the game and biopunk theme borrow concepts from the survival horror genre.

Bioshock Trailer

BioShock received critical acclaim and was particularly praised by critics for its morality-based storyline, immersive environments, and its unique setting, and is considered to be one of the greatest video games of all time and a demonstration of video game as an art form.

pc requirements (MINIMUM): Operating System: Windows XP (with Service Pack 2) or Windows Vista. CPU: Intel single-core Pentium 4 processor at 2.4GHz. RAM: 1 GB, Video Card:Direct X 9.0c compliant video card with 128MB RAM and Pixel Shader 3.0 (NVIDIA 6600 or better/ATI X1300 or better, excluding ATI X1550)

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steam

0309 – The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing (2013 video game)

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is an action role-playing video game developed by the Hungarian independent development studio NeocoreGames. Based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker, the game focuses on the trials of young Van Helsing, son of the legendary vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing from the book. The game is set in a gothic-noir 19th-century Eastern Europe and contains “intentionally anachronistic humor and gadgetry”.

system requirements (minimum): OS:Windows XP SP3, Windows 7, Windows 8. / Processor:Dual Core CPU 2.0 GHz. / Memory:2 GB RAM. / Graphics:GeForce 8800, Radeon HD4000, Intel HD4000 (min. 512 MB VRAM) / DirectX®:9.0c. / Hard Drive:20 GB HD space. / Sound:DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card.

REVIEW   /   steam

294 – Maximum Overdrive (1986)

spacetime coordinates: June 1987. at the Dixie Boy Truck Stop just outside Wilmington, North Carolina. as the Earth crosses the tail of a comet, previously inanimate machines suddenly spring to life.

Maximum Overdrive is a 1986 American comedy horror film written and directed by Stephen King. The film stars Emilio Estevez, Pat Hingle, Laura Harrington, and Yeardley Smith. The screenplay was inspired by and loosely based on King’s short story “Trucks“, which was included in the author’s first collection of short stories, Night Shift.

Maximum Overdrive is King’s only directorial effort, though dozens of films have been based on his novels or short stories. The film contained black humor elements and a generally campy tone, which contrasts with King’s sombre subject matter in books. The film has a mid-1980s hard rock soundtrack composed entirely by the group AC/DC, King’s favorite band. AC/DC’s album Who Made Who was released as the Maximum Overdrive soundtrack. (wiki)

imdb

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1922 (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  1922  Hemingford Home, Nebraska

1922 is a 2017 American horror-drama film written and directed by Zak Hilditch and based on Stephen King‘s novella of the same name.

imdb

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Cell (2016)

spacetime coordinates: 2010s New England 

Cell is a 2016 American science fiction horror film based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Stephen King. The film is directed by Tod Williams, produced by John Cusack, with a screenplay by King and Adam Alleca. The film stars Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, and Isabelle Fuhrman.

imdb

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*ALL SK’s BOOKS TIE TOGETHER AND JOIN ANOTHER UNIVERSE, RUN BY AN ARCH ENEMY, NAMED Randall Flagg. Or other names

293

“whence it appears that in the smallest particle of matter there is a world of creatures, living beings, animals, entelechies, souls. each portion of matter may be conceived as like a garden full of plants and a pond full of fishes. but each branch of every plant, each member of every animal, each drop of its liquid parts is also such garden or pond.”

(monadology, leibniz)