1135 – Us (2019)

timespace coordinates: 1986 – 2019 Santa Cruz, California

Us is a 2019 American psychological horror thriller film written and directed by Jordan Peele, starring  Lupita Nyong’o, Winston Duke, Shahadi Wright Joseph, Evan Alex, Elisabeth Moss, and Tim Heidecker. The film follows a family who are confronted by murderous doppelgangers known as “the Tethered”.

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themes and interpretations

Critic Jim Vejvoda related the Tethered to “urban legends” and “xenophobic paranoia about the Other”, (…) Journalist Noel Ransome viewed the film as being about “the effects of classism and marginalization”, writing “the Tethered are effigies of this same situational classism. They’re trapped—mentally and physically—and ignored”. Joel Meares of Rotten Tomatoes also noted that the Tethered, referencing the “we’re Americans” line, are representatives of the duality of American society, how some citizens can afford to live on top of the class system, while others are stuck in illiterate poverty. He also noted the title Us could mean “U.S.”, or United States.

The Tethered’s red jump suits and single glove were an allusion to Michael Jackson along with the “Thriller” shirt seen on young Adelaide, and Peele has stated that Jackson was “the patron saint of duality”. Peele referenced many other instances of 1980s culture, including allusions to The Lost Boys and Hands Across America, stating “Everything in this movie was deliberate, that is one thing I can guarantee you. Unless you didn’t like something and that was a complete accident”.

The film contains numerous references to Jeremiah 11:11, which reads: “Therefore this is what the Lord says: ‘I will bring on them a disaster they cannot escape. Although they cry out to me, I will not listen to them'” (NIV). Critic Rosie Fletcher commented on the context, with Jeremiah warning Jerusalem was facing destruction due to false idols, and expressed the opinion that the film’s characters also “worshiped the wrong things”…  (wiki)

imdb   /   rottentomatoes

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LUNIZ — I GOT 5 ON IT

1130

Cold Pursuit (2019)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s  Colorado ski resort of Kehoe

Cold Pursuit (imdb) is a 2019 American black comedy action film directed by Hans Petter Moland (in his Hollywood debut) from a screenplay by Frank Baldwin. The film stars Liam Neeson, Laura Dern, Emmy Rossum, William Forsythe, and Tom Bateman. It is a remake of the 2014 Norwegian film In Order of Disappearance (Kraftidioten), also directed by Moland, and follows a snowplow driver who sets out for revenge on a local drug lord following the murder of his son. (wiki)

Kraftidioten (2014)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s Tyos, Norway

In Order of Disappearance (imdb) (Norwegian: Kraftidioten) is a 2014 Norwegian black comedy action film directed by Hans Petter Moland and starring Stellan Skarsgård.

The Battle of Kosovo (1389) was a battle between the combined army of Serbians and Bosnians against invading Turks of the Ottoman Empire. Both armies suffered heavy casualties, both being basically annihilated. The eventual outcome was the annexation of the Serbian provinces by the Ottomans. The Battle of Kosovo is significant in Serbian history and integral to Serbian national identity.

The symbol shown after Greve’s death is Humanist.

1125 – future man (season 2 – 2019)

timespace coordinates: 2162 Lost Angeles / the NAG > 3491 AD, Damnation Island

792-future-man-2017-tv-series

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Season two picks up in 2162, and Josh, Wolf, and Tiger learn that their season one mission to stop the cure from getting out didn’t work. In this timeline, Stu Camillo is now in power, having created the cure, and launched a plan to relocate humanity to Mars. A shadowy organization called the Pointed Circle seeks to recruit Josh to take Stu down — but are they the good guys, or is Stu? As Wolf quickly acclimates to the strange customs of this time, Tiger struggles with her Biotic identity and searches for an escape. Josh unites the team in an epic plan to save the world, but their time-traveling catches up to them, and they must reckon with their choices and what to do next. (rottentomatoes)

imdb

1120

The Professor and the Madman (2019)

timespace coordinates: England, 1871 – 1910

The Professor and the Madman is a 2019 Irish biographical drama film, directed by Farhad Safinia (under the pseudonym PB Shemran), from a screenplay by Safinia, and Todd Komarnicki, based on the 1998 book The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester. It stars Mel Gibson, Sean Penn, Natalie Dormer, Eddie Marsan, Jennifer Ehle, Jeremy Irvine, David O’Hara, Ioan Gruffudd, Stephen Dillane, and Steve Coogan. The film is about the famous professor, Sir James Murray, who in 1857 began compiling the Oxford English Dictionary and led the overseeing committee and W. C. Minor, a doctor who submitted over 10,000 entries while he was undergoing treatment at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum. (wiki)

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Fatman (2020)

timespace coordinates: 2020’s US > Christmas present shop on a farm near the town of North Peak, Alaska.

Fatman is a 2020 American action film written and directed by Eshom & Ian Nelms and starring Mel Gibson, Walton Goggins and Marianne Jean-Baptiste. The plot follows an unorthodox Santa Claus who must fight off an assassin sent by a vengeful naughty kid. (wiki)

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1119 – Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984)

timespace coordinates: dystopian 1984. war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate

“Under the spreading chestnut tree / I sold you and you sold me”

Nineteen Eighty-Four, also known as 1984, is a 1984 British dystopian science fiction film written and directed by Michael Radford, based upon George Orwell‘s novel of the same name (published in June 1949). Starring John Hurt, Richard Burton, Suzanna Hamilton, and Cyril Cusack,

the film follows the life of Winston Smith, a low-ranking civil servant in a war-torn London ruled by Oceania, a totalitarian superstate. Smith (Hurt) struggles to maintain his sanity and his grip on reality as the regime’s overwhelming power and influence persecutes individualism and individual thinking on both a political and personal level. The film, which features Burton’s last screen appearance, is dedicated to him. (wiki)

imdb   /   Newspeak

1118 – Hardware (1990)

timespace coordinates: Christmastime in New York City  (21st century, a nuclear war has transformed the Earth into a radioactive wasteland where the sea has dried up leaving it as a post-apocalyptic desert.)

See these mighty buildings. It all shall
be thrown down and shattered to splinters.
The earth will shake, rattle and roll. The
masses will go hungry, their bellies bloat.
These are the birth pains.
No flesh shall be spared. MARK-13 (Read more)

Hardware is a 1990 British science fiction horror film starring Dylan McDermott and Stacey Travis. The film, which was written and directed by Richard Stanley, also features cameos from Iggy Pop and Lemmy. Since its release, it has become a cult film. The film is about a self-repairing robot that goes on a rampage in a post-apocalyptic slum. Fleetway Comics sued the film-makers over the screenplay because it plagiarised a short story entitled “SHOK!” that appeared in 1980 in the Judge Dredd Annual 1981, a spin-off publication of the popular British weekly anthology comic 2000 AD. (wiki)

imdb

1116 – One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975)

timespace coordinates: 1963 Oregon

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is a 1975 American tragicomedy-drama film directed by Miloš Forman, based on the 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. The film stars Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy, a new patient at a mental institution, and features a supporting cast of Louise Fletcher, William Redfield, Will Sampson, Sydney Lassick, Brad Dourif, and Christopher Lloyd in his film debut. The producers decided to shoot the film in the Oregon State Hospital, an actual mental hospital, as this was also the setting of the novel. Considered by some to be one of the greatest films ever made, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is No. 33 on the American Film Institute‘s 100 Years… 100 Movies list. (wiki)

Jack Nicholson sitting on bench with Will Sampson in a scene from the film ‘One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’, 1975. (Photo by United Artists/Getty Images)

rottentomatoes critics consensus: The onscreen battle between Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher serves as a personal microcosm of the culture wars of the 1970s — and testament to the director’s vision that the film retains its power more than three decades later.

imdb