0905 – Under the Silver Lake (2018)

timespace coordinates: 2011 Los Angeles

Under the Silver Lake is a 2018 American neo-noir mystery film written, produced and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Set in Los Angeles, it stars Andrew Garfield as a young man who sets out on a quest to investigate the sudden disappearance of his neighbour (Riley Keough), only to stumble upon an elusive and dangerous large-scale conspiracy.

Joshua Rothkopf of Time Out gave the film a perfect five rating, calling it “Hypnotic, spiraling and deliriously high” and stating “the ambition of Under the Silver Lake is worth cherishing. It will either evaporate into nothingness or cohere into something you’ll want to hug for being so wonderfully weird.” Eric Kohn of IndieWire gave a positive review, calling it “a bizarre and outrageous drama grounded in the consistency of Garfield’s astonishment at every turn. […] Aided by cinematographer Mike Gioloukas’ sunny visuals and a searching Disasterpiece score, the movie becomes a bittersweet ode to wanting answers from an indifferent world overwhelmed by superficial distractions. The homage can be irritating and some of the transitions work better than others across an unwieldy running time — but even the flaws speak to the movie’s beguiling raison d’être. It’s fascinating to watch Mitchell grasp for a bigger picture with the wild ambition of his scruffy protagonist.” 

Owen Gleiberman of Variety gave a positive review, calling it “a down-the-rabbit-hole movie, at once gripping and baffling, fueled by erotic passion and dread but also by the code-fixated opacity of conspiracy theory. The movie is impeccably shot and staged, with an insanely lush soundtrack that’s like Bernard Herrmann-meets-Angelo-Badalamenti-on-opioids. When it’s over, though, you feel like you’ve seen a meta-mystery made by someone who spent too much time scrawling notes in the margins of his frayed copy of Infinite Jest. (wiki)

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871 – Attenborough and the Empire of the Ants (2017 Documentary)

On one side of the Jura Mountains there are ants colonies at war and the other home to a huge empire of ants, believed to be one of the largest animal societies in the world, where over a billion ants from rival colonies live in peace.

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0852 – Another World (1991 video game)

Another World, also known as Out of This World in North America and Outer World  in Japan, is a 1991 cinematic platformer action-adventure game designed by Éric Chahi and published by Delphine Software. The game tells a story of Lester, a young scientist who, as a result of an experiment gone wrong, finds himself on a dangerous alien world where he is forced to fight for his survival.

Another World was developed by Chahi alone over a period of about two years, with only help with the soundtrack from Jean-François Freitas. Chahi developed his own game engine, completing all the game’s art and animations in vector form to reduce memory use, with some use of rotoscoping to help plan out character movements. Both narratively and gameplay-wise, he wanted the game to be told with little to no language or user-interface elements. The game was originally developed for the Amiga and Atari ST but has since been widely ported to other contemporary systems, including home and portable consoles and mobile devices. Chahi has since overseen release of various anniversary releases of the game.

Another World was innovative in its use of cinematic effects in both real-time and cutscenes, which earned the game praise among critics and commercial success. It also influenced a number of other video games and designers, inspiring such titles as Ico, Metal Gear Solid, Silent Hill, and even Delphine’s later Flashback. (wiki)

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816 – Mark of the Ninja (2012 video game)

timespace coordinates: 2010’s Japan

Mark of the Ninja is a side-scrolling action stealth video game developed by Klei Entertainment and published by Microsoft Studios. It was announced on February 28, 2012 and later released for the Xbox 360 via Xbox Live Arcade on September 7, 2012. A Microsoft Windows version was released on October 16, 2012, later released for Linux and OS X on September 11, 2013. It follows the story of a nameless ninja in the present day, and features a themed conflict between ancient ninja tradition and modern technology. Cutscenes for the game are rendered in Saturday-morning cartoon animation style. (wiki)

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS (RECOMMENDED): OS:Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7 SP1 / Processor:Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64 X2 5600+ / Memory:2 GB RAM / Graphics:NVIDIA® 9600GT or ATI Radeon™ HD 5000+ or better / DirectX®:9.0c / Hard Drive:2.5 GB HD space / Sound:100% DirectX9.0c compatible sound card and drivers

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0814 – Apostle (2018)

timespace coordinates: remote Welsh island, 1905

Apostle is a 2018 British-American period horror film written and directed by Gareth Evans and starring Dan Stevens, Lucy Boynton, Mark Lewis Jones, Bill Milner, Kristine Froseth and Michael Sheen. (wiki)

“A drifter on a dangerous mission to rescue his kidnapped sister tangles with a sinister religious cult on an isolated island.” (imdb)

799

Ant-Man (2015)

Ant-Man is a 2015 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics characters of the same name: Scott Lang and Hank Pym. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the twelfth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film was directed by Peyton Reed, with a screenplay by the writing teams of Edgar Wright and Joe Cornish, and Adam McKay and Paul Rudd. It stars Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man, alongside Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Bobby Cannavale, Michael Peña, Tip “T.I.” Harris, Anthony Mackie, Wood Harris, Judy Greer, David Dastmalchian, and Michael Douglas as Hank Pym. In Ant-Man, Lang must help defend Pym’s Ant-Man shrinking technology and plot a heist with worldwide ramifications. (wiki)

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Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018)

Ant-Man and the Wasp is a 2018 American superhero film based on the Marvel Comics characters Scott Lang / Ant-Man and Hope van Dyne / Wasp. Produced by Marvel Studios and distributed by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures, it is the sequel to 2015’s Ant-Man, and the twentieth film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). The film is directed by Peyton Reed and written by the writing teams of Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers, and Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer, and Gabriel Ferrari. It stars Rudd as Lang and Evangeline Lilly as Van Dyne, alongside Michael Peña, Walton Goggins, Bobby Cannavale, Judy Greer, Tip “T.I.” Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John-Kamen, Abby Ryder Fortson, Randall Park, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, and Michael Douglas. In Ant-Man and the Wasp, the titular pair work with Hank Pym to retrieve Janet van Dyne from the quantum realm. (wiki)

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505 – Downsizing (2017)   /   348

797 – Hold the Dark (2018)

timespace coordinates: December 2004, small village in the Alaska wilderness (Keelut)

‘Green Room’ filmmaker Jeremy Saulnier’s art-horror adaptation of Arctic Noir novel is bloody, brutal, bleak and Freudian as hell”  (rollingstone review)

Hold the Dark is a 2018 American thriller film directed by Jeremy Saulnier from a screenplay by Macon Blair. It is based upon the novel of the same name by William Giraldi. It stars Jeffrey Wright, Alexander Skarsgård, James Badge Dale, Riley Keough, Tantoo Cardinal, Irene Bidel and Julian Black Antelope. (wiki)

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