547 – Cosmopolis (2012)

spacetime coordinates:  near future Manhattan 

“There’s pain enough for everybody now,”Cosmopolis is a 2012 drama-thriller film written, produced, and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Robert Pattinson in the lead with Paul Giamatti, Samantha Morton, Sarah Gadon, Mathieu Amalric, Juliette Binoche, Jay Baruchel and Kevin Durand.

“A VAMPIRE CAPITALIST haunts New York in David Cronenberg’s film adaptation of Cosmopolis, Don DeLillo’s sci-finance novel that focuses on a Wall Street billionaire named Eric Packer who trades, converses, theorizes, kills and screws his way through New York in a single day.” (read more: https://www.wired.com/2012/08/cosmopolis-cronenberg-delillo/)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1480656/

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothko_Chapel

Movie Poster Design

0537 – All the Money in the World (2017)

spacetime coordinates:  Italy 1973 

All the Money in the World is a 2017 crime thriller film directed by Ridley Scott and written by David Scarpa, based on John Pearson’s 1995 book Painfully Rich: The Outrageous Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Heirs of J. Paul Getty. It stars Michelle Williams, Christopher Plummer, Mark Wahlberg, Romain Duris, Charlie Plummer, Andrew Buchan, and Timothy Hutton. The film depicts J. Paul Getty‘s refusal to cooperate with the extortion demands of a group of kidnappers from the organized crime Mafia group ‘Ndrangheta, who abducted his grandson John Paul Getty III in 1973. (based on actual events)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt5294550/

0528 – The Aviator (2004)

spacetime coordinates: 1927–1947 California / Connecticut

The Aviator is a 2004 American epic biographical drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, written by John Logan. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Howard Hughes, Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn, and Kate Beckinsale as Ava Gardner. Based on the 1993 non-fiction book Howard Hughes: The Secret Life by Charles Higham, the film depicts the life of Howard Hughes, an aviation pioneer and director of Hell’s Angels. The film portrays his life from 1927–1947 during which time Hughes became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD).

In an article for the American Cinematographer, John Pavlus wrote: “The film boasts an ambitious fusion of period lighting techniques, extensive effects sequences and a digital re-creation of two extinct cinema color processes: two-color and three-strip Technicolor.” For the first 52 minutes of the film, scenes appear in shades of only red and cyan blue; green objects are rendered as blue. This was done, according to Scorsese, to emulate the look of early bipack color films, in particular the Multicolor process, which Hughes himself owned, emulating the available technology of the era. Similarly, many of the scenes depicting events occurring after 1935 are treated to emulate the saturated appearance of three-strip Technicolor. Other scenes were stock footage colorized and incorporated into the film.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0338751/

0488 – In Time (2011)

spacetime coordinates: 2169 California

In Time is a 2011 American dystopian science fiction action thriller film written, directed, and produced by Andrew Niccol and starring Justin Timberlake, Amanda Seyfried and Cillian Murphy.

[first lines]
Will Salas: I don’t have time. I don’t have time to worry about how it happened. It is what it is. We’re genetically engineered to stop aging at 25. The trouble is, we live only one more year, unless we can get more time. Time is now the currency. We earn it and spend it. The rich can live forever. And the rest of us? I just want to wake up with more time on my hand than hours in the day.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1637688/

0464 – Altered Carbon (TV Series 2018– )

spacetime coordinates:  Bay City, year 2384 // “The Protectorate”

Altered Carbon is an American science fiction television series created by Laeta Kalogridis and based on the 2002 novel of the same title by English author Richard K. Morgan.

In the future, a person’s memories have been decanted into “cortical stacks”, storage devices of alien design which have been reverse engineered, duplicated en masse, and surgically inserted into the vertebrae at the back of the neck. Physical bodies are called “sleeves,” disposable vessels that can accept any “stack”. Takeshi Kovacs (Joel Kinnaman), a political operative with mercenary skills, wakes up 250 years after his sleeve is terminated, and he is given the choice to either spend the rest of time in prison for his crimes, or to help solve the murder of one of the wealthiest men in the settled worlds (James Purefoy). 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2261227/

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“When everyone lies, telling the truth isn’t just rebellion.
It’s an act of revolution. So think carefully when you speak it,
because the truth is a weapon.”

387 – I Served the King of England (2006)

spacetime coordinates: Czechoslovakia, 1963 >> 1930’s – 1940’s  Prague

I Served the King of England (Czech: Obsluhoval jsem anglického krále) is a 2006 comedy film written and directed by Czech New Wave master Jiří Menzel, based on the novel I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal. It is Menzel’s sixth adaptation of the works of Hrabal for film.

“A look at the glamorous life at an old-world Prague hotel.”

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0284363/

0333 – Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

Kingsman: The Secret Service is a 2014 action spy comedy film directed and co-produced by Matthew Vaughn. The screenplay was written by Vaughn and Jane Goldman, based on the comic book series Kingsman, created by Dave Gibbons and Mark Millar. It follows the recruitment and training of Gary “Eggsy” Unwin (Taron Egerton), into a secret spy organisation. Eggsy joins a mission to tackle a global threat from Richmond Valentine (Samuel L. Jackson), a wealthy megalomaniac.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/