When "GRAVITY" doen't fail.

[farrandy]

Sorry, couldn't resist a reference to George Alec Effinger's novel.

Anyway, I went to see GRAVITY tonight. Everyone has already seen the trailers and so knows what it's about (and whether they want to see it), so I won't bother telling you what you already know. There is a word that I am trying use sparingly in my vocabulary because it is WAY overused. That word is "awesome"*. GRAVITY is awesome. Visually beautiful, tense and yes, at many moments absolutely terrifying. I don't often sit on the edge of my seat clutching my hat, but I did during several sequences tonight. I'm not going to try and convince anyone to see it if they've already made up their mind, but if you're wondering, I will nudge you toward giving it a try.

This year has been interesting for movies; with the theaters filled with TV Show reboots, giant robots and yet more comic book movies, I have seen two very good honest-to-Gaia science fiction movies. Movies where you don't have to leave your brain outside. The other was OBLIVION. Very refreshing indeed.


*Awesome: filling one with a sense of awe. Examples: the rising of the sun or the moon, the night sky, seeing Saturn's rings through telescope, a thunder and lightning storm in full fury (even at a distance), the Grand Canyon, a book that changes your view of the world, a piece of art that makes you weep. Movies can be awesome(especially the first time you see them); Lord of the Rings and Terry Gilliam's early movies spring to mind. Finding a quarter is not awesome. Cheese dip is not awesome. It's good, but its not awesome.

Comments

[farrandy.livejournal.com]

Okay, so, the tag was supposed to read "When 'GRAVITY' doesn't fail. Don't write posts when you should be in bed.

[naamah-darling.livejournal.com]

Oh, man, that sounds wonderful. Movies like that are rare.

I WISH I could see it, but I know it'd be a bad, bad idea. I don't cope with space peril very well. It's the unholy vampire-werewolf hybrid of agoraphobia and claustrophobia, more powerful than both. I can do Star Trek/Star Wars-type space action, but any sort of sense of being in the actual empty void of space is a big NOOOOPE. :( That brief ship/planet scene in the beginning of Avatar in IMAX 3-D was about as close as I can come without being too upset.

I REALLY liked Oblivion, which is saying something. Movies with a twist really tend to upset me, because they feel fundamentally dishonest and manipulative. Oblivion worked better for me, because it had the backdrop of the memory wipe that gave it this fundamentally unstable feeling, so that we KNEW there was all kinds of stuff we didn't know. I will have to see it again, maybe a couple of times, to really get a feel for the capital-T Theme, but it held together quite well emotionally. It pulled off several VERY difficult tricks, all of them pretty flawlessly. Can't describe more, spoilers.

Also, the Last Big Screw-You Joke was freakin' hilarious.

(I overuse "awesome" shamelessly. But I feel you on its abuse.)

[farrandy.livejournal.com]

I definitely wouldn't recommend the movie for either agoraphobes or claustrophobes. It manages to capture both the feeling of confinement and the big empty all to well.

I think I could call OBLIVION awesome--at least visually. I was reminded of a line I just re-read by Loren Eisley: "I am a student of desolation."

I up up with "awesome because I know it will eventually fade away, like the use of the word "like" as unnecessary punctuation. Language changes. I remember reading a story by Rudyard Kipling that I just couldn't finish. He was using so many turn of the century colloquialisms that I had no idea what he was saying. (It was supposed to be a humourous story so that may have been his point, a hundred years later I was just lost).

[piroshki.livejournal.com]

I will admit, and not even remotely shame-facedly, that I know absolutely nothing about this movie.

However, I agree 100% with your definition of awesome.

[evil-overlord.livejournal.com]

I have had no real desire to see this movie [in spite of how adorable I find Sandra Bullock to be.... xD], mostly because from the trailer alone I'm like "yeah, probably way too depressing".

That and I can't imagine there's a whole lot of dialog, and if 2001 did nothing but bore me to tears, I'm afraid 'gravity' would probably end up doing the same thing to me. :(

'Oblivion' DID rule though, didn't it? It made the hubby and I both decide that Tom Cruise should just do sci-fi movies. They're the only ones he seems to do halfway decent in. XD

......and I happened to like some of those movies you mentioned. Especially the one with the giant robots. Must be the otaku in me. XD

[farrandy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she is kinda cute [dreamy faraway look]....

More dialog than you would think. George Clooney's character is a seasoned astronaut on his last mission who has a penchant for gabbiness. And trust me you won't be bored (lots of action and it's only 90 minutes long).

I don't really care for Tom Cruise myself but as Barb said; "I forgot I was watching Tom Cruise."

Hey, didn't say I didn't like those other movies (the night before, we were showing PACIFIC RIM to some friends and we were all laughing our asses off). I'll always have soft spot in my heart for Star Trek (it introduced me to the greater universe of science fiction and fantasy--and got me starting to read for fun, for that matter, but really? Khan again?). It was just nice to see something original for a change--where I didn't know how it was going to end before I went into the theater, and didn't insult my intelligence by explaining everything that was happening.

[evil-overlord.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I think in this day and age the people what put out the movies seem to think that we *want* everything explained to us. [we WILL NOT TALK about the FIL, whom we had to take TEN MIN at least to explain that yes, Bruce Willis's character was dead through the whole movie, when we showed him 'The Sixth Sense'] Either that, or you get a crapton of exposition to explain what got left out when adapting from movie to book.

I've been a 'Star Trek' fan for...REALLY LONG time! XD I was afraid I'd loathe the reboot...but I actually did like it. [McCoy was my favorite char from the original , and LOVED Karl Urban's version....wish they'd show MORE of him! LOL] But yeah, after the originality [more or less, considering they *were* Romulans] of the first one, I thought it was a bit lame to retread 'Wrath of Khan' for the second. Of course, it could have been worse, we could have gotten V'ger again..... XD

[farrandy.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Karl Urban was really channeling DeForrest Kelley. The other thing I really liked was the soundtrack. Michael Giacchino managed to create "new" old Star Trek music. You could drop that music onto any of the old episodes and it wouldn't be out of place. The main theme has that 1960's "We're going out into space!" feel, there's the big alien menace in space music that would fit right onto "Doomsday Machine" and the female vocals going "Oooooohaaaaaaaah...." for the mind-meld sequence (In case you haven't gathered, I play this soundtrack a LOT while doing artwork....especially space paintings). When the end credits started to roll and they actually launched into Alexander Courage's theme from the original series (which they've never done in any other movie) I yelled "Yes!" and almost started crying.

[evil-overlord.livejournal.com]

Wasn't he though? **dreamy sigh**

It's REALLY SAD that I apparently didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the soundtrack for the 'first' one...it's totally not coming to mind [and THIS from the girl who RAN OUT after seeing 'The Hobbit' to grab the soundtrack JUST FOR the dwarves' version of 'Misty Mountain'.... XD Picked it up on the way home from seeing it. LOL] Need to scrape together the money for the ripping program, darn it! Now I wanna watch it and it's not been put back on the MythTV box yet....:P

[efamar.livejournal.com]

Glad you enjoyed it! I may not see it in the theater, but I've got it in my Netflix queue.