1497 – Ragnarok (TV Series 2020–)

timespace coordinates: 2020’s fictional Norwegian town of Edda in Western Norway

Ragnarok is a Norwegian-language fantasy drama from Netflix that premiered on 31 January 2020. The series is produced by the Danish production company SAM Productions. The show has been renewed for a second season. 

The show takes place in the fictional town of Edda which is plagued by climate change and the industrial pollution caused by the factories owned by the local Jutul family, the fifth-richest family in Norway. The Jutuls are actually four Jötunn, frost giants and giantesses posing as a family in Edda. They are challenged by Magne, a teenage boy who is surprised to learn that he is the embodiment of Thor and begins the fight against those that are destroying the planet.

The story draws inspiration from Norse mythology. (wiki)

imdb

1486 – VFW (2019)

A typical night for a group of war veterans at the local VFW turns into an all-out battle for survival when a teenage girl runs into the bar with a bag of stolen drugs. Suddenly under attack from a gang of punk mutants looking to get back what’s theirs — at any cost — the vets use every weapon they can put together to protect the girl, and their VFW, in the biggest fight of their lives. (rottentomatoes)

Director: Joe Begos

Stars: Stephen Lang, William Sadler, Fred Williamson, Martin Kove, David Patrick Kelly, George Wendt, Tom Williamson, Sierra McCormick, Travis Hammer, Dora Madison, Josh Ethier

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imdb

1483 – After We Leave (2020)

After We Leave is a science fiction drama film about a man who has a once-in-a-lifetime chance to emigrate off Earth…if he can find his estranged wife and convince her to come with him. (rottentomatoes)

After We Leave is the first feature feature from Los Angeles based writer/director Aleem Hossain,

imdb

1454 – Motherless Brooklyn (2019)

timespace coordinates: New York City in 1957

Motherless Brooklyn is a 2019 American neo-noir crime film written, produced and directed by Edward Norton, based on the 1999 novel of the same name by Jonathan Lethem. Set in 1950s New York, the film follows a private investigator with Tourette syndrome, who is determined to solve the murder of his mentor. Along with Norton, the film also stars Bruce Willis, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Bobby Cannavale, Cherry Jones, Alec Baldwin and Willem Dafoe.

A passion project of Norton’s ever since he read Lethem’s novel in 1999, the film took nearly 20 years to go into production. Although the book is set in contemporary times, Norton felt the plot and dialogue lent themselves more to a noir setting — moving it to the 1950s, with many added plot points inspired by The Power Broker.  (wiki)

imdb

1453 – Doctor Sleep (2019)

timespace coordinates: 1980 > 2011 > 2019  Florida > New Hampshire > Colorado

Doctor Sleep (sometimes referred to as Stephen King’s Doctor Sleep) is a 2019 American horror film based on the 2013 novel of the same name by Stephen King, a sequel to King’s 1977 novel The Shining. The film, which also serves as a sequel to the film adaptation of The Shining, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is set several decades after the events of the original and combines elements of the 1977 novel as well.

Doctor Sleep is written, directed, and edited by Mike Flanagan (The Haunting of Hill House). It stars Ewan McGregor as Danny Torrance, a man with psychic abilities who struggles with childhood trauma. Rebecca Ferguson, Kyliegh Curran, and Cliff Curtis have supporting roles.

Stephen King felt that the elements of Kubrick’s film that he disliked were “redeemed” for him in Doctor Sleep.

Connections to The Shining novel and film

Themes

Possible future

imdb

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1450 – Welcome to the Greenhouse: New Science Fiction on Climate Change (2011 short story anthology)

In Welcome to the Greenhouse, award-winning editor Gordon Van Gelder has brought together sixteen speculative [climate fiction (cli-fi)] stories by some of the most imaginative writers of our time. Terrorists, godlike terraformers, and humans both manipulative and hapless populate these pages. The variety of stories reflects the possibilities of our future: grim, hopeful, fantastic and absurd.

Included is new work by Brian W. Aldiss, Jeff Carlson, Judith Moffett, Matthew Hughes, Gregory Benford, Michael Alexander, Bruce Sterling, Joseph Green, Pat MacEwen, Alan Dean Foster, David Prill, George Guthridge, Paul Di Filippo, Chris Lawson, Ray Vukcevich and M. J. Locke.

goodreads

1433 – Monos (2019)

timespace coordinates: teenage soldiers in the Colombian conflict – the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes + jungle scenes (shot around the Samaná river, five hours from Medellín. Because of the conflict, the place was visited only by soldiers and illegal gold miners until recently, hence remaining mostly unspoiled by humans.)

Monos is a 2019 internationally co-produced war drama film directed by Alejandro Landes, written by Landes and Alexis Dos Santos and produced by Fernando Epstein, Santiago Zapata, Cristina Landes and Landes himself. It stars Julianne Nicholson, Sofia Buenaventura and Moisés Arias. The film follows a group of armed teenage guerillas assigned to watch over a hostage.

The film was loosely inspired by the novels Lord of the Flies by William Golding and Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Filmic influences included Come and See and Beau Travail. While “monos“, the title as well as the code name of the main squad in the film, superficially means “monkeys” in Spanish, it signifies the prefix mono- of Greek origin meaning “alone” or “one”. (wiki)

imdb   /   rt