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barbarianeggplant wrote:Anyone seen Cuarón offer any insight as to whether Bullock's character was originally written as a woman? Her masculine name seems either to be an indication of a different or open intent in casting originally or it could be a direct nod to Ripley in Alien, which is especially interesting considering the feel of Gravity has a lot in common with particularly the last ten or so minutes of that movie.

I do know there was a lot of back and forth with the studio over casting the role, and every single name I heard floated for the role was a woman.

In the early draft I've read, Gravity's protagonist is a woman and I'm pretty sure it was always imagined that way.

Science fact checks the film as Neil Degrasse Tyson ruins Gravity for the rest of us.

Anyone who wants an alternate take on Gravity's scenario ought to check out Ray Bradbury's short story "Kaleidoscope."

Btw, I agree with Jeff's thoughts and with his encouragement to see this one in 3D on the biggest screen around with the highest resolution available. I thought this film was really terrific. The visuals are stunning not just for their technical sophistication but because they really do hold their own with the cinema's greatest spectacles. Some of the action might be a little contrived compared to Kubrick's 2001 and the David Lean epics --

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One too many "just barely have enough booster power to reach it, just barely grabbed the last handhold left" moments.

-- but the way it's shot takes the same full advantage of the vastness and scale of big screen storytelling, and results in a least a handful of literally jaw-dropping images. There's a classical elegance in the visual awe on display, which is all the more impressive considering that nearly every shot in the film is a VFX shot. Still, for me, the biggest coup of the whole production is how procedural and minimal the narrative remains, how steadfastly it clings to its vision as a contained survival thriller, a chamber piece that just happens to take place in the cosmic emptiness of near Earth space. I admire the way the script rendered the characters plausibly alone, with only themselves to rely upon for the duration. And, for the most part, the finished film is even better at this. The draft I read had way more radio contact with Earth, however fleeting, and at least one more human around, if I recall correctly. And but for the few and unfortunate

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Sandra psyching self up (verbally for the benefit of the audience) soliloquies and Clooney ghost pep-talk

there's very little unnecessary chatter. It 's really a pretty stark rendition of this tale.

I am really looking forward to seeing this movie in the theater.

I am not looking forward to how the home viewing experience will then compare--seems like it's gonna lose a lot.

It's certainly thrilling, a stunning technical achievement, and the script is cleverly structured so that Bullock's character is constantly facing new obstacles. But this is one of Cuaron's lesser films overall. There's a streak of po-faced sentimentality that seems out of character with the rest of his work. While as always there is great poetry in his imagery, much of the human element is surprisingly clunky and prosaic. I disagree that it's the film everyone pretended Avatar was; just like the Cameron film, its substance suffers in comparison to its style. There's certainly none of the mystery and profundity found in truly great sci-fi.

That seems like an unnecessary generic concern to lay on this movie- I don't think that's necessarily true of all science fiction, and I don't think this movie is trying to be science fiction. It betters Avatar in that it's not a bloated, confused work that's at war with itself- it's a tight, harrowing action movie, and I think the human element is just right, giving shading to the action without trying to overwhelm it or slow it down. I think it could have been deployed slightly more artfully, but I don't think anything about the story or the performances needs improvement whatsoever.

So Oscar-wise, I think Bullock wins and they sweep as much of the technical awards as possible. Alfonso gets nominated but the film itself doesn't.

flyonthewall2983 wrote:So Oscar-wise, I think Bullock wins and they sweep as much of the technical awards as possible. Alfonso gets nominated but the film itself doesn't.

The film will be nominated and will probably be among the top three vote-getters. Besides the technical achievement and great reviews, it is raking in a shit-ton of cash (highest ever October opening, best opening weekend for both Bullock and Clooney). Industry folks will be falling all over themselves to throw awards at this thing.

It's little justification for Children Of Men being ignored, but I hope that's how it winds up.

I may very well be the minority on this, but it would be nice if the Academy created an award for 3D. The format is going to be around for awhile, why not hand one out every year and get more films that use the technology so well like this out there?

The studio notes not taken. Phew. Man oh man. It's like the suits aren't even paying attention. At all.

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Add a time clock? How about the various oxygen gauges? Or the jetpack's fuel? Or the recurring, once every 90 minutes, catastrophic space junk shrapnel cloud -- the most plausible, ingenious and organic catalyst/ticking timeclock I've seen in an action movie in a long time.

Worse yet are the notes about adding missiles and human villains (see the ruinous final act of Danny Boyle's otherwise pretty good Sunshine). Worst of all are the calls to cut away from the tension created by the characters' inherent isolation. Either to a purported rescue mission (because knowing someone's coming to help always amps up the tension?) or to elaborate on the weakest part of the film by flashing back to Ryan in the past with her now-dead backstory child.

I did hear a woman behind me in the theater complain after the end that

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the movie didn't show someone coming to pick her up. Like Stone being on terra firma and breathing isn't resolution enough.

Jesus, adding a human villain would have been the worst. I recall that Dan O'Bannon, in the Alien commentary, complained about the Ash twist, as he felt that it was needlessly creating conflict between the characters when part of the point of the screenplay was about how, individually and as a group, they responded to the external threat. As much as I have mixed feelings about that idea with respect to Alien, putting an evil spy aboard the ship or an evil missile strike or whatever here would have radically changed the movie for the worse, both texturally and philosophically. If nothing else, the movie gives an incredible and indelible sense of what an implacable and unbeatable enemy space itself- to dilute that with willed evil would be just the dumbest goddamn thing I can think of.

Flashbacks, cutting to Houston, and a rescue helicopter all seem like normal studio notes- fit in more stars, more 'human interest', less radical style, that all makes sense. But adding a villain is beyond wrong headed and into full on gross.

Your point vis-a-vis space as the only enemy is right on. The conflict in Gravity is essentially a disaster film scenario, where it's Man vs. Nature. So cutting away might be a normal studio note, but it's still an equally horrible one for this film. If Gravity is a space set disaster/survival movie, then it shares company with only a handful of the very best ones -- like Alive, the original Poseidon Adventure and perhaps the forthcoming All Is Lost -- that have the patience and integrity to keep us in the place of characters struggling for their survival alone and in the moment, without help from or connection to the rest of the world.

I'm just coming back from seeing the movie, and I actually thought after seeing it "Gosh, they managed not to pull the usual stupid stuff, like a stupid romance, or a silly last-minute countdown to whatever they could pull up to try and add more pressure". Seems they tried...

Otherwise, it's a pretty marvelous movie, if only for the classic catastrophe structure, where basically every move is towards another bad situation again and again. But what striked me is how masterful the directing is. The use of cinematographic space is tremendous, and it only made think of all the awfully directed 2013 movies I've seen (yes, World War Z, I'm looking straight at you). Cuaron has an incredible directing talent, and I only hope he will be able to shoot more and more like this for the years to come.

This was an amazing experience in IMAX 3D. Home viewing is gonna be a pale shadow, don't know if i'll even bother with my current set-up. It just won't do it justice.

Thematically, I dunno, there are some nice hints of things but I don't think it ever adds up to more than the sum of its parts (despite some really ham-fisted moments trying to achieve that courtesy of the script and Bullock). Sandra was okay, i do think that this film could have been even better with a Watts or Weisz in that role.

It really is about the ambitious ideas and the execution that Cuaron and his visualization team bring to the table. The script's dialogue--often ultra-expository--and sentiment might be clunky and obvious, but it does a good job of somewhat organically setting up these incredible set-pieces, pitching the movie, then Cuaron and the production and post-production crews knock the ball so far out of the park the ball might as well be in outer space, too.

It's strange, if I could afford to I'd probably catch this movie several more times in IMAX 3D...but for half the cost I dunno that I'd want to own the blu-ray. At least not until I own a TV that's a foot bigger.

rs98762001 wrote:It's certainly thrilling, a stunning technical achievement, and the script is cleverly structured so that Bullock's character is constantly facing new obstacles. But this is one of Cuaron's lesser films overall. There's a streak of po-faced sentimentality that seems out of character with the rest of his work. While as always there is great poetry in his imagery, much of the human element is surprisingly clunky and prosaic. I disagree that it's the film everyone pretended Avatar was; just like the Cameron film, its substance suffers in comparison to its style. There's certainly none of the mystery and profundity found in truly great sci-fi.

I don't disagree that the film has a pretty blatant streak of sentimentality, but how is it out of character with Cuaron's other work? I can't think of a Cuaron movie that doesn't get pretty sentimental at times, even Y Tu Mama Tambien. Children of Men is super sentimental there at the end--I mean, that shot where everyone stops fighting because of the baby and there's that gaudy music?

I do think this one had some clunkier dialogue than Cuaron's other films, maybe partly due to Jonas Cuaron' inexperience, maybe more because they were trying to work in backstory and character development into a very focused scenario that wasn't very conducive to those elements happening in an organic way (so maybe they would have been better off abandoning the attempt since they couldn't quite pull it off--however, without that attempt, I doubt the script gets greenlit with the necessary funding to do what they were trying to do aesthetically).

Good call, rohming, on Naomi Watts. She's one of the few actresses I can think of who could have been better in the lead role. There's something about Rachel Weisz though that still seems too delicate and refined in spite of her obvious strength and intelligence. For me, to buy somebody as an astronaut, there has to be a bit of the everywoman and tomboy in them too, which Bullock certainly has. Weirdly enough, by all accounts, Angelina Jolie, who was at one point discussed for the role, has those qualities too in her personality -- but certainly not in her looks. Jolie's beauty is too outrageous and airbrushed for anybody to believe she's spent her life collecting advanced degrees so as to apply to NASA.

This just in, apparently: Beautiful women can't spend their early life collecting advanced degrees because they're too busy putting on makeup and making their faces and bodies look a certain way

Just sayin': Google "female astronaut" and find me a single one with Jolie's model perfect looks. Someone like Watts or Bullock on the other hand, while still good looking, is at least plausibly within the continuum of Earthling females who might prioritize science and flight training over spinning class and lip injections.

They should have replaced Bullock with a monkey, but not an unrealistically attractive monkey.

warren oates wrote:Just sayin': Google "female astronaut" and find me a single one with Jolie's model perfect looks. Someone like Watts or Bullock on the other hand, while still good looking, is at least plausibly within the continuum of Earthling females who might prioritize science and flight training over spinning class and lip injections.

Absolutely sickening that you'd post something like this.

warren oates wrote:Just sayin': Google "female astronaut" and find me a single one with Jolie's model perfect looks.

Well, no kidding. You can Google pretty much any profession other than "model" and you'd get a bunch of people that don't have "Jolie's model perfect looks". There are only a relative very small handful of people who do, so it' not surprising that astronauts or teachers or lawyers or whatever other profession has very few women that look like that. (Just to be clear, this pretty much applies to perfect-looking men as well.)

I think that's the only conclusion to be drawn from this little observation of yours.

warren oates wrote:Just sayin': Google "female astronaut" and find me a single one with Jolie's model perfect looks.

I did what you said to do and I don't think you're correct.

I don't see what's so funny about this, Matt. Warren, your implication that a good looking woman who exercises and may or may not get plastic surgery or apply makeup skillfully can't be incredibly intelligent, well-educated and well-trained for a high risk, high demand job is grade-A misogynist bullshit.

Oates maybe?

And I don't see why you're getting so outraged about it. warren oates made one more moronic comment on the Internet and he's being roundly mocked for it. If you want to be a white knight for pretty women, might I direct you to some comic book or video game forums where there are seriously hateful things being said?