677 – My Winnipeg (2007)

timespace coordinates: 20th century Snowy, Sleep-Walking Winnipeg

My Winnipeg is a 2007 film directed and written by Guy Maddin with dialogue by George Toles. Described by Maddin as a “docu-fantasia,” that melds “personal history, civic tragedy, and mystical hypothesizing,” the film is a surrealist mockumentary about Winnipeg, Maddin’s home town. A New York Times article described the film’s unconventional take on the documentary style by noting that it “skates along an icy edge between dreams and lucidity, fact and fiction, cinema and psychotherapy.”

Maddin also released a book titled My Winnipeg (Coach House Books, 2009). Maddin’s book contains the film’s narration as a main text surrounded by annotations, including outtakes, marginal notes and digressions, production stills, family photos, and miscellaneous material. The book contains a “Winnipeg Map” by artist Marcel Dzama featuring such fictional attractions as “The Giant Squid of the Red [River],” various poster designs for the film, and short articles about working with Maddin by Andy Smetanka, Darcy Fehr, and Caelum Vatnsdal. Maddin also includes an angry e-mail from an ex-girlfriend, collages and notebooks pages, and an X-ray of the dog Spanky from the film. The book also includes an interview with Maddin’s mother Herdis, conducted by Ann Savage, and an interview with Maddin conducted by Michael Ondaatje. Maddin’s publisher offers the book with or without a DVD of the film, distributed by Seville Pictures.

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0670 – A Quiet Place (2018)

spacetime coordinates: 2020 – 2021 upstate New York

Speaking of the political and social commentary the film encouraged, director Krasinski said, “The best compliment you can get on any movie is that it starts a conversation. The fact that people are leaving and talking about anything is really fun—but certainly about deep stuff like that, is awesome.”  Krasinski, who did not grow up with horror films, said that prior films of the genre such as Don’t Breathe (2016) and Get Out (2017) that had societal commentary were part of his research. In addition to considering his film a metaphor for parenthood, he compared the premise to US politics in 2018, “I think in our political situation, that’s what’s going on now: You can close your eyes and stick your head in the sand, or you can try to participate in whatever’s going on.” He cited Jaws (1975) as an influence, with how the protagonist police officer moved from New York to an island to avoid frightening situations, and was forced to encounter one in his new location with shark attacks.

Matthew Monagle of Film School Rejects said A Quiet Place seemed to be “the early frontrunner for the sparsely intellectual horror movie of the year”, like previous films The Babadook (2014) and The Witch (2015). Monagle said Krasinski, who had directed two previous films, was “making an unusual pivot into a genre typically reserved for newcomers”, and considered it to be part of a movement toward horror films layered “in storytelling, [with] character beats not typically found in a horror movie”. Tatiana Tenreyro, writing for Bustle, said while A Quiet Place was not a silent film, “It is the first of its kind within the modern horror genre for how little spoken dialogue it actually has.” She said the rare moments of spoken dialogue “give depth to this horror movie, showing how the narrative defies the genre’s traditional films even further”.

Bishop Robert Barron was surprised by strikingly religious themes in the film. He likened the family’s primitive, agrarian life of silence to monasticism, and commends their self-giving love. Barron noted the pervasive pro-life themes, especially in the choices of the parents, as Mrs. Abbott risks everything to give birth to a child, and her husband lays down his own life so that the children can live: what Barron sees as the ultimate expression of parental love.  Sonny Bunch of the Washington Post also commented and expanded on a pro-life message. 

(martin riggs)

Krasinski, who had recently become a new father, said in a conference interview “I was already in a state of terror about whether or not I was a good enough father,” and added that the meaning of parenthood had been elevated for him by imagining being a father in a nightmare world, struggling to simply keep his children alive.  Jonathan Hetterly, writing in Shrinktank, saw the film’s whole premise as a commentary on modern American paranoid parenting, saying that Krasinski “viewed the premise as a metaphor for a parent’s worst fears”.

Krasinski himself has told CBS News “The scares were secondary to how powerful this could be as an allegory or metaphor for parenthood. For me, this is all about parenthood.” (wiki)

imdb    /   meaning

666

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People of Color in European Art History

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ZEF – This Is France   THIS IS BRAZIL

661 – West of Loathing (2017 video game)

spacetime coordinates: 1890’s   wild west

West of Loathing is a comedy adventure role-playing video game developed by Asymmetric Publications and released on 10 August 2017.

The game takes place in the universe of Asymmetric’s Kingdom of Loathing, in a Weird Western themed frontier setting. The player character leaves the family farm and heads west to seek their fortune on a trek to the city of Frisco. (wiki)

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (MINIMUM) – OS: Windows XP SP2+ / Processor: 2.8 GHz Intel® Core™2 Duo or better / Memory: 2 GB RAM / Graphics: 512 MB / Storage: 4 GB available space

steam

0660 – Rampage (2018)

spacetime coordinates: 2017 San Diego / Wyoming / Everglades > Chicago

Rampage is a 2018 American science fiction monster film directed by Brad Peyton, and loosely based on the video game series of the same name by Midway Games. The film stars Dwayne Johnson, Naomie Harris, Malin Akerman, Jake Lacy, Joe Manganiello, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. It follows a primatologist named Davis Okoye who must team up with George, an albino gorilla who turns into a raging creature of enormous size as a result of a rogue experiment, to stop two other mutated animals from destroying Chicago. It is the third collaboration between Peyton and Johnson, following Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012) and San Andreas (2015). (wiki)

It is the all-time best reviewed film based on a video game, according to Rotten Tomatoes.

imdb

650 – Guest of Cindy Sherman (2008)

Cindy Sherman von Philipp Kaiser

Analyzing his relationship with the reclusive artist Cindy Sherman leads filmmaker Paul H-O (Hasegawa-Overacker) to confront his own identity in this personal and unexpectedly humorous documentary. Paul H-O became a fixture of the New York art scene in the 1990s with his public access show “GalleryBeat.” Armed with a video camera, he attended art gallery openings, intriguing many with his candid, witty assessments of the work and winning fans in the process. Among the latter was Cindy Sherman, the press-shy art superstar, who invited Paul to her studio for a series of exclusive filmed interviews. In these sessions, he gains insight into her artistic process and a romantic relationship blossoms as they fall in love. Their initial bliss takes a turn when Paul gets caught up in the aura of Cindy’s celebrity and he is subordinated to a role as Cindy’s guest at the star-studded openings and dinners she regularly attends. Spanning over 15 years and with unprecedented access to the great artist, including interviews with a veritable who’s who of the art and entertainment world, the film paints a vivid picture of the contemporary art scene and provides a witty, illuminating look at celebrity, anxiety, and art. (rottentomatoes)

Cindy was initially supportive, but later opposed the project.

imdb

649 – Priest (2011)

Priest is a 2011 American post-apocalyptic dystopian science fiction action horror film starring Paul Bettany as the title character. The film, directed by Scott Stewart, is loosely based on the Korean comic (Manhwa) of the same name by Hyung Min-woo. In an alternate world, humanity and vampires have warred for centuries. After the last Vampire War, a veteran Warrior Priest (Bettany) lives in obscurity with other humans inside one of the Church’s walled cities. When the Priest’s niece (Lily Collins) is kidnapped by vampires, the Priest breaks his vows to hunt them down. He is accompanied by the niece’s boyfriend Hicks (Cam Gigandet), who is a wasteland sheriff, and a former Warrior Priestess (Maggie Q). (wiki)

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