Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013)

[flyonthewall2983]

3rd week in a row on top. Amazing.

[rohming]

Bring on Gravity 2!

Has anything really come out that could challenge it, though? I know that I personally haven't had the faintest interest in anything else that's come out since its release.

[swo17]

Has anything really come out that could challenge it, though?

Neil deGrasse Tyson's remake,

Spoiler

where she dies in the first half hour because with science, nothing is actually possible.

[rohming]

Hehe.

[flyonthewall2983]

Has anything really come out that could challenge it, though? I know that I personally haven't had the faintest interest in anything else that's come out since its release.

Not really, but it's success has become a big surprise. To me certainly, but I'd imagine the other studios as well.

And I will bet you it takes next week too since all that's opening is The Counselor and Bad Grandpa.

[Emak-Bakia]

I finally caught this in IMAX 3D this weekend. Wow, it's quite an experience! I've never wrung my hands so intensely and so often during a movie. This is the first 3D film I've ever seen where I felt that the effect actually added something of value to the experience. Just as matrix wrote earlier, I actually found myself moving to avoid the bits of space debris. Unbelievable!

I really haven't got much else to add that hasn't already been said in this thread, but I do want to return to a mostly undiscussed question posed several weeks ago:

Just saw it too, What did you think about the amount of noise in the film? I was expecting to go into this and it almost be silent for a majority of the time but I was kinda bummed at how loud it was. Maybe its just because I thought the sound doesn't carry in space was going to be a bigger part of the picture.

The one tiny nit I would pick with the film is with the use of non-diegetic music. Although I thought the ambient score was quite lovely on its own, I think the emotional impact would have been much greater had the score been mostly absent. More silence would have only heightened the sense of isolation. And, should the snippets of songs and voices from the radio have been left on their own, I think they would have been the perfect sonic accompaniment to the images. I suppose, though, that type of sound-design might have been too disagreeable to audiences of big budget Hollywood films. The film is mightily impressive, nonetheless.

[dustybooks]

And, should the snippets of songs and voices from the radio have been left on their own, I think they would have been the perfect sonic accompaniment to the images. I suppose, though, that type of sound-design might have been too disagreeable to audiences of big budget Hollywood films. The film is mightily impressive, nonetheless.

I agree. Several things about this movie, which I loved, strongly feel like slight concessions to a mainstream studio-picture audience. In a sense it's a savvy way to get something genuinely adventurous and unusual under the ordinarily staid and boxed-in structure of a big-budget Hollywood movie. I keep thinking when I see criticsms of some of the hokier dialogue in Gravity, some of which I agree with, that such things are probably the small sacrifice we make to have an artful and individualistic film like this hit #1 at the box office three weeks in a row. It doesn't hold the viewer's hand, but it doesn't leave them twirling in confusion either.

The more pessimistic side of this point is to question whether the relative simplicity of this film's story is Cuarón's reaction to the failure of Children of Men and the widespread rejection by American audiences of its pessimistic tone. To this day, if I recommend that movie to library patrons, they always come back saying that the film feels so dark and hopeless that they found it a chore to watch. Which is fine -- that's a film that's "not for everyone," as they say, whereas this one seems to be made for, yes, pretty much everybody. I just hope that Gravity gives him the opportunity to explore more sophisticated narratives, rather than simply convincing him to creatively "run for cover." There aren't many modern filmmakers I trust more than this one, though.

[Black Hat]

Saw it today at IMAX, the film is no doubt visually stunning and affecting however the insipidness of the film's second half took it from exhilarating into mundane.

Spoiler

Bullock's backstory was not only completely unnecessary, being lost in space by yourself should be compelling enough because it wouldn't and didn't have any tangible meaning or significance to the plight of Ryan Stone. The floating of her tears over and over again was forget over handed but completely distracting. The pep talk, hallucinating Clooney with the vodka bottle, every solution being yet another dead end, the last second clutching of some part of the ship numerous times, I found it completely exhausting.

That said I'm thrilled to see a film like this doing so well at the box office and if nothing else it's financial success will make it a far more important film than anything critical. Lastly, I don't recall ever liking or even seeing a Sandra Bullock movie since The Net, she's been in the 'how is she a famous actress?' category for me, but I thought she gave an excellent performance.

[warren oates]

Canadian astronaut ejected from Gravity screening for expressing his displeasure with the film's procedural inaccuracy by heckling, farting.

Edit: Unfamiliar Canadian humor site got me.

[mfunk9786]

Canadian astronaut ejected from Gravity screening for expressing his displeasure with the film's procedural inaccuracy by heckling, farting.

Edit: Unfamiliar Canadian humor site got me.

I find it uniquely funny that you left the post up and merely clarified in the edit that it was erroneous. I love everything about your post.

[oh yeah]

Ugh, nothing is more cringe-worthy than Onion-wannabe sites.

[warren oates]

Mr. Cuarón, speaking recently from his native Mexico, said that in the beginning he and his son Jonás, with whom he wrote “Gravity,” had no notion of making a space epic. They were looking for a spare, unadorned narrative that would focus on only one or two characters, and had in mind something like “A Man Escaped,” Robert Bresson’s great film about a French Resistance leader’s jailbreak from a Nazi prison.

From a short think piece with some quotes from four of this season's survival thriller directors, with some minor spoilers for Gravity, Captain Phillips, All Is Lost and Lone Survivor.

[Finch]

So I'm back from Gravity and I think it's.... alright. The technical side of it is very impressive and in that sense it could be the gamechanger so many people in the press talk about. But once you take away the effects and camerawork, the film's story is very straightforward and slight. I think that'll become all the more obvious when you watch it eventually on a smaller screen and when the novelty of the effects has worn off. James Cameron said it was "the best science fiction film ever". Not when it is up against 2001 and Tarkorvsky's original Solaris! It IS an experience and it is really terrifying in some scenes but I honestly don't think it's all it was cracked up to be. I really like the film and yet I'm a bit disappointed in it.

[Murdoch]

That about sums up my reaction. It's a very streamlined action thriller that uses its 90 minutes well and I think part of its popularity stems from that it's not a overlong action epic like so many other blockbusters out there. It's not something I can see myself wanting to revisit as it consists mainly of Bulllock dodging calamity after calamity. Although that one-disaster-after-another storytelling is perhaps its greatest strength outside of its technical prowess as it prevents it from being bogged down by Bullock's half-baked back story. It would make a good double bill with the final act of Alien, methinks.

[matrixschmatrix]

Honestly, comparing it to Solaris and 2001 seems unfair- primarily because very few movies in like, the history of film could stand up to that comparison, and partially because classing this as science fiction is misleading. It's an action film set in space, and which operates far more plausibly and with far fewer inventions than something like Skyfall- it's not really about philosophy or thought experiments. The only science fiction I can think of that it does seem fair to compare to this one would be things like Terminator, relentless, driving movies that happen to have science fictional elements.

[Finch]

Hi matrix, I was merely using 2001 and Solaris as examples because Cameron called Gravity the best sci-fi film ever made. Easy to see why he loved it, him being a "technical filmmaker" more than anything else (and I say this as someone who loves The Terminator). You make a fair point in describing the film more like an action film set in space but I feel even if you qualified it as such, that the story is just too slight and I seriously question that the technical achievements of the film will be enough to reward multiple viewings. I like it and do agree that it does need to be experienced on the big screen but I don't think it is a genuinely good film.

[pzadvance]

Small, but key, distinction:

“I think it’s the best space photography ever done, I think it’s the best space film ever done, and it’s the movie I’ve been hungry to see for an awful long time.”

Cameron, as quoted in this Variety article.

"Space film" seems like a very different beast from "sci-fi film" to me.

[Arrow]

Small, but key, distinction:

“I think it’s the best space photography ever done, I think it’s the best space film ever done, and it’s the movie I’ve been hungry to see for an awful long time.”

Cameron, as quoted in this Variety article.

"Space film" seems like a very different beast from "sci-fi film" to me.

We were taught in school that a science fiction film was based on one unbelievable premise and the rest of the film was believable. An example would be Back To The Future; time travel is the forgivable condition and the rest of the story is relatable to reality.

A story where the entire universe operates by its own rules is fantasy, like Star Wars.

A film that takes place in space but is meant to be realistic falls into other categories like Apollo 13.

I think the intention of Gravity is that its a suspense/thriller thats location is space, but is realistic. It sounds as though it may have fallen short in that regard.

I realize that those definitions open up a huge debate as to what films falls where however...

[matrixschmatrix]

As far as plausibility goes, Neil DeGrasse Tyson's were almost all extremely nitpicky, and in several cases answered within the text of the movie. I'd say overall it's as plausible as this kind of movie could be, and with very few exceptions the physics of it were really good.

[Red Screamer]

Kristin Thompson's first installment of her analysis of Gravity is a fantastic read.

http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/2013/ ... ntal-film/

[Altair]

My brief thoughts on the film...

“Gravity” (2013), directed by Alfonso Cuarón, is at its heart, a film of survival, of battling an inhospitable environment against all odds, with no help and little chance of success. Framed like this, the film looks less like a science fiction film and more like a tale of survival. Cuarón has endeavoured to make the space environment as realistic as possible, from the interior of space stations to the movement of the human body in zero gravity. Imaginatively utilising 3D, he shoots the many scenes set in the deathly silence of space to simulate the appearance of the camera “floating”. The audience feels like they too are in the midst of space, buoying alongside Clooney and Bullock. This creates a sense of credibility throughout and makes the peril the characters face even tauter. Cuarón has crafted a milieu that is ideal for showing the fragility of humanity against the vastness of the cosmos; writing the screenplay with his son Jonás, they populate the drama with only two characters to reinforce the emptiness of space.
These two characters though, are the audience’s anchor, and are refreshingly well-written, recognisably human, reacting to events in a way that conforms to reality. Both Clooney and Bullock are excellent, never letting the extensive CGI dominate, while being appropriately ordinary enough to allow the viewer to identify with them, particularly Bullock. This is crucial for a film that concentrates on so few characters.
The cinematography by five time Academy Award nominee Emmanuel Lubezki perhaps acts as another character in the film, being the prism through we which enter the drama. Starting with a bravely held shot of Earth, it permits us to slowly make sense of the conversation over the radio between the astronauts and NASA (represented by an un-seen Ed Harris, one of the stars of “Apollo 13” [1995]). It continues with an extraordinary, thirteen minute long, continuous shot that is supremely virtuosic, their incredible duration carried on throughout the entire film. Yet this isn’t done for its own sake; in doing so, Cuarón brings you into the film and introduces a sense of claustrophobia with people stuck inside their spacesuits and the cramped interiors of escape shuttles and space stations. This had to be worked out in immense detail far in advance of shooting, meaning cinematography and editing (by Cuarón and Mark Sanger) is intimately linked.
The music by Steven Price is very good, allowing for silence where there needs to be, and overall this exemplar of pure cinema, with no villain except the harshness of the universe, is probably the best original film of the year. It masterfully builds tension and character simultaneously and remains resolutely human throughout.
Hollywood can still surprise.

[matrixschmatrix]

This continues to reinforce my theory that if you know too much about a subject, perhaps you should skip the film based upon it. I had major issues with Moneyball because of the rather inane changes made to the realities of a baseball team from only a decade ago, which led me to begin to ponder this - and then there was the Neil deGrasse Tyson incident with Gravity (and I'm not implying that my baseball knowledge matches his physics knowledge, but hey, I watched a lot of SportsCenter and a lot of baseball games that season!), and now this post about All is Lost. It seems like if they make a film about your profession or hobby or area of expertise, you might just want to avoid the possible disappointment altogether unless you're willing and able to suspend disbelief for two hours.

I thought of Tyson's list reading that spoiler, but a.) Tyson's was extremely nitpicky, whereas that spoiler makes it sound as though nearly everything Redford does is poorly motivated, and b.) Tyson said he actually enjoyed that movie. There's a certain kind of Michael Mann style cinema that seems to promise that the people we're seeing are smart professionals making smart professional decisions, and in that kind of movie, deviations from what would actually be smart are deeply annoying. Though generally I'm fine with it if the movie just handwaves away things (if you need him to be unable to patch the hole, stick in a line of dialog or a note or something along those lines indicating that he's got a kind of boat where you can't- the plot's needs are more important than what would really happen, after all.)

[swo17]

I thought of Tyson's list reading that spoiler, but...Tyson's was extremely nitpicky

To be fair, I think these points are a lot more than just nitpicks:

Gravity

1. There's no reason Clooney should have had to die.
2. Bullock's Point A to Point B to Point C mission is impossible since the points are on different orbits. So actually Clooney would have died after all.

[matrixschmatrix]

This spoiler is for Gravity

Spoiler

I need to watch it again, as I was confused by the Clooney thing too, but a friend I saw the movie with said that the cable Bullock was hanging on to was moving rotationally relative to the main mass of the station- which would have created centrifugal force, and meant that extra mass at the end would have created drag comparable to dead weight, as we saw.

As far as the orbits thing goes, that seems to me a really clear cut case of something that needs to be true for the purposes of the plot and also just happens to be a different way in real life, not a physics or logic issue. I suppose that's a situation where what seems nitpicky varies, though.

[swo17]

I'm no science expert but

Gravity

I'm just working from Tyson's comment "In zero-G a single tug brings them together." Also, the one thing that I remember my high school physics teacher telling me constantly was that centrifugal force is a myth. For whatever that's worth.