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

1127 – Red Planet (2000)

timespace coordinates: 2056 A.D., Earth is in ecological crisis as a consequence of pollution and overpopulation. Automated interplanetary missions have been seeding Mars with atmosphere-producing algae as the first stage of terraforming the planet. When the oxygen quantity produced by the algae is inexplicably reduced, the crew of Mars-1 investigate—a crew consisting of Quinn Burchenal (Tom Sizemore), a geneticist; Bud Chantilas (Terence Stamp), an aging philosophical scientist and surgeon; systems engineer Robby Gallagher (Val Kilmer); commander Kate Bowman (Carrie-Anne Moss); pilot Ted Santen (Benjamin Bratt); and terraforming scientist Chip Pettengill (Simon Baker). (wiki)

Red Planet is a 2000 US | Australian science fiction thriller film directed by Antony Hoffman.   –   imdb

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

1123 – Twelve Monkeys (1995)

timespace coordinates:  2035,  subterranean compound / ruins of Philadelphia (after a deadly virus released in 1996 wipes out almost all of humanity, forcing survivors to live underground) > 1990 / 1996  Baltimore + battlefield during ww1

12 Monkeys, also known as Twelve Monkeys, is a 1995 American neo-noir science fiction film directed by Terry Gilliam, inspired by Chris Marker‘s 1962 short film La Jetée, and starring Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, and Brad Pitt, with Christopher Plummer and David Morse in supporting roles.

TWELVE MONKEYS, Bruce Willis, 1995. ©Universal

References to time, time travel, and monkeys are scattered throughout the film, including the Woody Woodpecker cartoon “Time Tunnel” playing on the TV in a hotel room, the Marx Brothers film Monkey Business (1931) on TV in the asylum, and the subplots involving monkeys (drug testing, news stories and animal rights). The film is also intended to be a study of people’s declining ability to communicate in modern civilization due to the interference of technology. (Memory,_time,_and_technology)

12 Monkeys is inspired by the French short film La Jetée (1962); as in La Jetée, characters are haunted by the images of their own deaths. Like La Jetée, 12 Monkeys contains references to Alfred Hitchcock‘s Vertigo (1958). Toward the end of the film, Cole and Railly hide in a theater showing a 24-hour Hitchcock marathon and watch a scene from Vertigo. Railly then transforms herself with a blonde wig, as Judy (Kim Novak) transforms herself into blonde Madeleine in Vertigo; Cole sees her emerge within a red light, as Scottie (James Stewart) saw Judy emerge within a green light. Brief notes of Bernard Herrmann‘s film score can also be heard. Railly also wears the same coat Novak wore in the first part of Vertigo. The scene at Muir Woods National Monument, where Judy (as Madeleine) looks at the growth rings of a felled redwood and traces back events in her past life, resonates with larger themes in 12 Monkeys. Cole and Railly later have a similar conversation while the same music from Vertigo is repeated. The Muir Woods scene in Vertigo is also reenacted in La Jetée. In a previous scene in the film, Cole wakes up in a hospital bed with the scientists talking to him in chorus. This is a direct homage to the “Dry Bones” scene in Dennis Potter‘s The Singing Detective. James Cole is a notable Christ figure in film. The film is significant in the genre of science-fiction film noir, and it alludes to various “canonical noir” films.

After the release of The Zero Theorem in 2013, claims were made that Gilliam had meant it as part of a trilogy. A 2013 review for The Guardian newspaper said, “Calling it [The Zero Theorem] the third part of a trilogy formed by earlier dystopian satires Brazil and Twelve Monkeys [sic]”; but in an interview with Alex Suskind for Indiewire in late 2014, Gilliam said, “Well, it’s funny, this trilogy was never something I ever said, but it’s been repeated so often it’s clearly true [laughs]. I don’t know who started it but once it started it never stopped”(wiki)

imdb   /  12 Monkeys (TV series)

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

1114 – Cube (1997)

Cube is a 1997 Canadian science-fiction horror film directed and co-written by Vincenzo Natali. A product of the Canadian Film Centre’s First Feature Project, the film follows a group of people as they cross industrialized cube-shaped rooms, some rigged with various traps designed to kill.

Cube has gained notoriety and a cult following, for its surreal atmosphere and Kafkaesque setting and concept of industrial, cube-shaped rooms. The film received generally positive reviews, and was followed by two sequels. A remake is in development at Lionsgate. (wiki)

imdb