movies

0493 – The Shape of Water (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  Baltimore during the Cold War  in 1962

The Shape of Water is a 2017 American fantasy drama film directed by Guillermo del Toro and written by del Toro and Vanessa Taylor. It stars Sally HawkinsMichael ShannonRichard JenkinsDoug JonesMichael Stuhlbarg, and Octavia Spencer. Set in Baltimore in 1962, the plot follows a mute custodian at a high-security government laboratory who falls in love with a captured humanoid-amphibian creature.

the film was primarily inspired by del Toro’s childhood memories of seeing Creature from the Black Lagoon and wanting to see Gill-man and Kay Lawrence (played by Julie Adams) succeed in their romance.

In an interview with IndieWire about the film, del Toro said, “This movie is a healing movie for me. … For nine movies I rephrased the fears of my childhood, the dreams of my childhood, and this is the first time I speak as an adult, about something that worries me as an adult. I speak about trust, otherness, sex, love, where we’re going. These are not concerns that I had when I was nine or seven.”

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5580390/

movies

0448 – Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (2012)

spacetime coordinates: 2012 Palau //  Atlantis

Journey-2-The-Mysterious-Island-2012-movie-poster

Journey 2: The Mysterious Island is a 2012 American science fiction comedy adventure film directed by Brad Peyton. It is the sequel to Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008). Following the first film, the sequel is based on another Jules Verne novel, this time The Mysterious Island. The film stars Dwayne “The Rock” JohnsonMichael CaineJosh HutchersonVanessa HudgensLuis Guzmán, and Kristin Davis. (Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards 2013 Favorite Male Butt Kicker: Dwayne Johnson)

Possible sequels

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1397514/

movies

0433 – Il racconto dei racconti – Tale of Tales (2015)

spacetime coordinates:  17th-century. the kingdoms of Longtrellis / Highhills / Strongcliff

tale-of-tales-poster-2015-001-ORIGINAL

Tale of Tales (Italian: Il racconto dei racconti) is a 2015 European dark fantasy film, directed by Matteo Garrone, starring Salma HayekVincent CasselToby Jones, and John C. Reilly. It is a screen adaptation based on collections of tales by Italian poet and courtier Giambattista Basile:  Pentamerone ( a 17th-century collection of fairytales) or Lo cunto de li cunti (Tale of Tales, or Entertainment for Little Ones), which contains the earliest versions of famous fables like RapunzelSleeping Beauty and Cinderella.

tale-of-tales-2015-08

The Baroque stories manage to mix real and surreal with many metaphorical usages. The three tales are La Cerva Fatata (The Enchanted Doe), La Pulce (The Flea), La Vecchia Scorticata (The Flayed Old Lady), that have been freely adapted with elements of other tales by Giambattista Basile, as well as a touch of artistic license. All three stories are told in a mixed way, pieced in fragments through the whole film, with all three briefly joining for a royal funeral near the start and a royal coronation at the end.

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3278330/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tale_of_Tales_(2015_film)

games

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 RandGeorge 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)


steam