1057 – The Gods Must Be Crazy (1980)

timespace coordinates: South Africa / Botswana 1980 –  the Kalahari Desert

The Gods Must Be Crazy is a 1980 South African comedy film written and directed by Jamie Uys. Financed only from local sources, it is the most commercially successful release in the history of South Africa’s film industry. Originally released in 1980, the film is the first in The Gods Must Be Crazy series. It is followed by one official sequel, The Gods Must Be Crazy II, released by Columbia Pictures.

Set in Botswana, it follows the story of Xi, a San of the Kalahari Desert (played by Namibian San farmer Nǃxau ǂToma) whose tribe has no knowledge of the world beyond, Andrew Steyn (Marius Weyers), a biologist who analyzes manure samples for his PhD dissertation, and Kate Thompson (Sandra Prinsloo), a newly hired village school teacher.

The final scene was filmed at God’s Window, a site located at the edge of the escarpment between the Highveld and Lowveld, in the province of Mpumalanga, South Africa.

imdb   /   rt

1056 – Les mondes engloutis (TV Series 1985–1987)

Spartakus and the Sun Beneath the Sea (French: Les Mondes Engloutis, “The Engulfed Worlds”) is a French animated series created by Nina Wolmark. The series consists of 52 episodes, each between 20 and 25 minutes in length, divided into two 26-episode seasons.

The lost city of Arkadia (named for Arcadia) resembles a small Alderson Disk, and is home to an ancient civilization which escaped a Great Cataclysm in the ancient past by relocating deep within the Earth’s crust. Unaware that life continued on the Earth’s surface, and hoping to keep their people safe, the elders sealed all records of their past in the city’s Archives.

Arkadia survives by the light of an artificial sun, the Tehra (Shagma), which is dying. A group of young Arkadian kids and teens defy the law and enter the Archives. With information about the world above, they create a messenger, Arkana, and send her above to find help.

Arkana encounters two children from the surface, Matt and his sister Rebecca, and brings them back through the underground strata (which seem more like separate worlds or dimensions, with one strata even being the distant future) to save Arkadia. They travel in a living turtle type spaceship called Tehrig, along with Spartakus (a mysterious wanderer) and Bic and Bac (a pair of pangolin-like creatures), Arkadia’s mascots. (wiki)

imdb

0999 – The Thirteenth Floor (1999)

timespace coordinates: late 1990s / 1937 / 2024 Los Angeles

The Thirteenth Floor is a 1999 neo-noir science fiction crime thriller film written and directed by Josef Rusnak, and produced by Roland Emmerich. It is loosely based upon Simulacron-3 (1964), a novel by Daniel F. Galouye (one of the first literary descriptions of virtual reality), and a remake of the German film World on a Wire (1973). The film stars Craig Bierko, Gretchen Mol, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Vincent D’Onofrio, and Dennis Haysbert. (wiki)

imdb

953 – Saints Row IV (2013 video game)

Saints Row IV is an open world action-adventure video game with third-person shooter elements developed by Volition and published by Deep Silver. It is the fourth title in the Saints Row series. In the game, the playable character is the leader of the 3rd Street Saints, a street gang that has become the world’s most powerful and popular organization, and must fend off an alien invasion after becoming President of the United States and receiving superpowers.

The player is free to explore their environment while completing main and side missions at their leisure. The game incorporates elements from science fiction video games and films, and continues the series’ reputation for over-the-top parody. It was released in August 2013 for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, and Xbox 360, and was later ported to PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Linux in 2015.

The game is set in a nearly identical simulation of Steelport, the fictional city setting from Saints Row: The Third, though individual story missions have new, custom-designed levels. 

Saints Row IV‘s story parodies science fiction video games, especially Mass Effect 2, as well as films like The Matrix and Zero Dark Thirty, and other “nerd culture”. Some story missions are propelled by individual characters’ existential crises, as each Saint character is stuck in a personal simulation of their own hell, and must be rescued by the player. Other elements borrowed from video game culture include BioWare-style character romances games and a Metal Gear-style mission with an unhelpful partner.

Saints Row IV received several limited and summative edition releases, and was briefly banned in Australia.

System Requirements (Minimum) CPU: Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600 | AMD Athlon II x3. / OS: Windows Vista (x86 or x64) / VIDEO CARD: NVIDIA GTX 260 | AMD Radeon HD 5800 series. / FREE DISK SPACE: 10 GB. / DEDICATED VIDEO RAM: 896 MB.

steam

951 – R.I.P.D. (2013)

timespace coordinates: early 2010’s Boston

R.I.P.D. is a 2013 American fantasy buddy cop action comedy film starring Jeff Bridges and Ryan Reynolds. Robert Schwentke directed the film based on a screenplay adapted from the comic book Rest in Peace Department by Peter M. Lenkov. The film also stars Kevin Bacon, Mary-Louise Parker, Stéphanie Szostak, and Marisa Miller.

This movie has been compared to Men in Black (1997), in that they both deal with secret government agencies contending with otherworldly beings. Jeff Bridges is playing the same kind of character that his good friend Tommy Lee Jones played in the Men In Black trilogy.

imdb

930 – The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018)

The Man Who Killed Don Quixote is a 2018 adventure–comedy film starring Adam Driver, directed by Terry Gilliam and written by Gilliam and Tony Grisoni, loosely based on the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Gilliam unsuccessfully attempted to make the film many times over the span of twenty-nine years, which made it an infamous example of development hell.The film premiered on 19 May 2018, simultaneously acting as the closing film at the 2018 Cannes Film Festival and being released in French theaters. Gilliam has struggled to release The Man Who Killed Don Quixote worldwide since then, partially due to a lengthy legal dispute with former producer Paulo Branco, and the film was only released in a few other countries. On 17 December 2018, the film was confirmed for a US release in March 2019. (wiki)“Toby, a disillusioned advertising executive, becomes pulled into a world of time jumping fantasy when a Spanish cobbler believes him to be Sancho Panza. He gradually becomes unable to tell dreams from reality.” (imdb)

Lost in La Mancha 

He Dreamed of Giants

0928 – Land of the Lost (2009)

Land of the Lost is a 2009 American adventure comedy film directed by Brad Silberling, written by Chris Henchy and Dennis McNicholas and starring Will Ferrell, Danny McBride and Anna Friel, loosely based on the 1974 Sid and Marty Krofft television series of the same name.

The film serves as a parody of the original TV series. While the original Saturday morning show targeted a child audience, the film was designed for a more adult audience and includes risque humor, sex and a drug reference, among other adult-oriented items.

imdb