Journalists and reviewers have called Drive a “classic Los Angeles heist-gone-wrong story”, a “tribute to the genre of car films” in the vein of movies like Bullitt (1968). As a character study, Drive examines themes of “loyalty, loneliness and the dark impulses that rise up even when we try our hardest to suppress them.” It combines comic gore, film noir and B-movie style and Hollywood spectacle, resulting in “a bizarre concoction…reminiscent of David Lynch‘s Mulholland Drive…Quentin Tarantino‘s Pulp Fiction, and [with] angst-laden love scenes that would not be out of place in a Scandinavian drama”. – read more about Style and inspiration –
the film contains abundant, evocative, intense images of Los Angeles. from the little seen back streets of downtown LA to the dry arid outposts on the peaks of the desert landscape surrounding it, LA is re-imagined all the way down to the rocky cliffs by the sea.
While Drive is set in the present day, it carries a heavy 1980s atmosphere that is cautiously set from beginning to end and is underlined not only by the vehicles or music and clothes, but also by its architecture. The parts of the city seen in the Valley and by downtown Los Angeles are cheap stucco and mirrored glass. Refn avoided certain areas to preserve the gloomy atmosphere often leaving out more contemporary buildings. Drab background settings include the Southern California commercial strip. As the Los Angeles Times pointed out, whenever gleaming buildings are shown, it is because they are being seen from a distance. Refn shot those scenes from a helicopter at night in Bunker Hill, Los Angeles.
Valhalla Rising is a 2009 English-language Danish adventure drama film directed by Nicolas Winding Refn, and starring Mads Mikkelsen. in writing the script Nicolas Winding Refn was responsible for the spiritual, metaphysical and plot related part while Roy Jacobsen was responsible for all the Norse mythological, viking and historical themes due to his extensive knowledge about vikings and Norse paganism.
The film follows a Norse warrior named One-Eye and a boy as they travel with a band of Christian Crusaders by ship in the hopes of finding the Holy Land.
Black Death is a 2010 German-British action horror film directed by Christopher Smith from an original screenplay by Dario Poloni.
Set during the time of the first outbreak of bubonic plague in England, a young monk is given the task of learning the truth about reports of people being brought back to life in a small village.
Majesty: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim is a real-time strategy video game developed by Cyberlore Studios, and published by MicroProse for Windows in March 2000. MacPlay released a Mac OS port in December 2000. Infogrames released the expansion pack Majesty: The Northern Expansion for Windows in March 2001, and Majesty Gold Edition, a compilation for Windows bundling Majesty and The Northern Expansion, in January 2002. Linux Game Publishing released a Linux port of Majesty Gold Edition in April 2003. (wikipedia)
The High Definition edition of Majesty Gold contains main game, the Northern Expansion Pack as well as 2 new quests and several other graphics and gameplay updates. Majesty is a Real-time strategy game with indirect control – your heroes have a will of their own! Your rule is not absolute, as you face subjects that are independent, stubborn – and greedy. They will need a great deal of persuasion (ok, gold) before they carry out your wishes…
The film was an original screenplay based in part on the book Alexander the Great, written in the 1970s by the University of Oxford historian Robin Lane Fox.
A group of 30 scientists travel from Earth to a nearly-identical alien planet that is culturally and technologically centuries behind. The inhabitants of this planet have brutally suppressed a renaissance movement, murdering anybody they consider to be an intellectual, and thus the planet is stuck in the middle ages.
Stryker activates Wade, now known as Weapon XI/Deadpool, a “mutant killer” with the powers of multiple mutants.
X-Men (2000)
spacetime coordinate: usa, 2000
The film focuses on the mutants Wolverine and Rogue as they are brought into a conflict between two groups that have radically different approaches to bringing about the acceptance of mutant-kind
X2 (2003)
spacetime coordinate: usa, 2003
inspired by the graphic novel God Loves, Man Kills, pits the X-Men and their enemies, the Brotherhood, against the genocidal Colonel William Stryker . He leads an assault on Professor Xavier’s school to build his own version of Xavier’s mutant-tracking computer Cerebro, in order to destroy every mutant on Earth and to save the human race from them.
based on the 1982 limited seriesWolverine by Chris Claremont and Frank Miller. In the film, which follows the events of X-Men: The Last Stand, Logan travels to Japan, where he engages an old acquaintance in a struggle that has lasting consequences. Stripped of his healing factor, Wolverine must battle deadly samurai while struggling with guilt.
The story, inspired by the 1981 Uncanny X-Men storyline “Days of Future Past” by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, focuses on two time periods, with Wolverine traveling back in time to 1973 to change history and prevent an event that results in doom for both humans and mutants.
X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)
spacetime coordinate:ancient Egypt, 1983 Cairo, East Berlin, New York, Communist Poland
The ancient mutant En Sabah Nur awakens in 1983 and plans to wipe out modern civilization and take over the world, leading the X-Men to try to stop him and defeat his team of renegade mutants.
Dark Phoenix (2019)
spacetime coordinates: 1992 New York
the twelfth installment of the X-Men film series, and the sequel to 2016’s X-Men: Apocalypse.
spacetime coordinate: 2029 Texas, the Mexican border, Oklahoma City, North Dakota
It is the tenth installment in the X-Men film series, as well as the third and final Wolverine solo film following X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) and The Wolverine (2013). The film, which takes inspiration from “Old Man Logan” by Mark Millar and Steve McNiven, based in an alternate bleak future, follows an aged Wolverine and an extremely ill Professor X defending a young mutant named Laura from the villainous Reavers and Alkali-Transigen led by Donald Pierce and Zander Rice, respectively.
The film takes visual, tonal and thematic inspiration from classic western and noir cinema, with director James Mangold having stated that Logan’s influences included “visual reference points” of cinema, citing Shane (1953), The Cowboys (1972), Paper Moon (1973), The Gauntlet (1977), Little Miss Sunshine (2006), and The Wrestler (2008).
Mangold spoke of cinematography-based framing, while noting that he does not necessarily think about the “comic-book” related sort, instead highlighting the variety of stylistic influences that went into Logan. These influences include film noir framings and classic Hollywood filmmaking styles, as well as the Germanic expressionist filmmaking style of the early part of the last century, which Mangold stated has a commonality with comic-book art. Mangold highlighted “Strong foregrounds, playing things in depth: you have to make an image say more within that one image.” Using the image of Logan at a funeral as an example of his stylistic logic, Mangold concluded by mentioning the aspects within modern filmmaking, primarily everything in close-up format. For Logan, his aim was to set frames that are descriptive, and evocative of comic-book panels and classical filmmaking
On April 29, 2017, James Mangold announced via Twitter that a black-and-white version of the film entitled Logan Noirwould have a limited theatrical run in U.S. theaters, an event set to begin on May 16, 2017. Mangold stated that it was shot as a color film, with awareness that it would play well as a black and white film. The film was re-graded and timed shot by shot for the Noir edition. This version of the film is included on the Digital HD release and also included in the DVD and Blu-ray Combo Pack. (wiki)