Hey guess what? I'm answering question 3 now. Get excited.

I think that the use of the whole past/future mix thing helped to ground the movie a bit with recognizable elements.  It shows that even though technology advances, we never really get out of certain ideas and styles and that even though it has become more extreme, some things never change.  In a movie that is so "out there" and strange and kind of confusing, it helps to see recognizable elements  like  TV screens.  It also adds to the inefficiency of everything.  We got the sense that the world in which they live is highly inefficient to the point where it is incredibly frustrating to the viewer (and to the characters).  I therefore find it interesting that the technology is old, because one of the reasons that technology advances so much and so quickly is to make things easier and more efficient.  Rarely does technology evolve to slow things down or make them harder to use (that would never sell!)  In many other sci-fi films, the future is usually portrayed as being kind of sleek and glossy and minimalist for a reason; it is easier, cleaner, and more efficient.  If you look at technology now, it progressed the same way- just look at the iphone.  I think iphones look like something out of a science fiction movie.  In the Brazil, the use of the old technology shows that things have kind of come to one giant bureaucratic stalemate in which nothing can ever or will ever change.