GRAVITY: The Film Babble Blog Review

Opening today at nearly every multiplex in the Solar System:

GRAVITY (Dir. Alfonso Cuarón, 2013)

Sandra Bullock and George Clooney are our astronaut audience surrogates in Alfonso Cuarón’s GRAVITY, the first great movie of the fall season.



After so many overblown sci-fi epics, it’s so refreshing to find a film set in the heavens, on the edge of Earth’s atmosphere to be exact, that doesn’t need attacking aliens or big ass asteroids to be scary - the prospect of being stranded, untethered in outer space is terrifying all by itself.

Bullock and Clooney find themselves in this predicament after debris from a destructed Russian satellite hits their space shuttle during their space walk on a Hubble Telescope repair mission. All other crew members were killed, and contact with Houston, represented by the voice of Ed Harris as Mission Control (nice shout-out to Harris’s roles in THE RIGHT STUFF and APOLLO 13) is lost, so there’s just the two Oscar winning A-listers lost in space.

Clooney, cocky and confident as usual, retrieves Bullock after she spins out of control away from the devastation of the accident, and, with the help of thruster packs, they make their way back to the shuttle. Finding that the shuttle’s been totaled and therefore not their ride back home, they then head towards the International Space Station.

Along the way we get a bit of insight into the characters, though less about why Clooney is driven to break the world record for longest spacewalk, and more about why Bullock prefers the quiet of space to life on Earth, i.e. she’s mourning the death of her four year old daughter.

When it comes to 3D, GRAVITY joins Martin Scorsese’s HUGO and Ang Lee’s LIFE OF PI in the small club of films that make spectacular use of the format. Cuarón and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki (who also shot Cuarón’s Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN and CHILDREN OF MEN) glide through the spectacularly imagery with an electric energy that will make you feel as weightless as its leads. It's definitely worth the price of admission for the IMAX 3D Experience.


Clooney is his regular charming self, but Bullock acts her ass off. It’s such an impressive and emotionally invested performance that I wouldn’t be surprised if it garnered her another Oscar nomination.

From the point-of-view visor shots from inside of Bullock’s helmet, to the expansive CGI-ed shiny space station surroundings, there’s a lot of immersive imagery in GRAVITY, a lot of technical beauty, but the film’s most amazing feat is how satisfyingly stressful it is.

One fake-out fever dream scene aside that I won’t spoil, the film is heavily grounded in reality with only existing technology available which adds greatly to the film’s frightening grip.

Although it begins with text telling us how unlivable outer space is, recalling Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci fi classic ALIEN’s tagline: “In space nobody can hear you scream,” GRAVITY is not sci-fi. It’s a thriller in which the cold darkness of the great beyond is more terrifying than any made up monster. 



Seeing it will make you feel as if you’re really starring into the void, and when it’s over you’ll be happy to be safe back on Earth. That’s just a few of this bold, amazing, and breath taking movie’s many sensations.

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İnsan Lekesi – The Human Stain izle

Julianne Moore Takes On Sarah Palin in GAME CHANGE Out Today On Blu Ray/DVD

GAME CHANGE

(Dir. Jay Roach, 2012)

Former Governor of Alaska turned Fox News pundit Sarah Palin has said that she wouldn’t watch this HBO telefilm, releasing today on Blu ray and DVD, but if she ever changes her mind I’m sure she’ll have an extremely surreal experience. Especially when watching scenes that show Julianne Moore’s pitch perfect Palin reacting negatively to seeing Tina Fey parody her on SNL. 

GAME CHANGE, based on the 2010 book by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, focuses on the 2008 presidential campaign from the point of view of John McCain’s (Ed Harris) staff, particularly the involvement of Woody Harrelson as Republican Party campaign strategist Steve Schmidt. The film begins with Schmidt being asked by Anderson Cooper after the fact, appearing via flawlessly inserted original interview footage, “If you had to do it over again, would you have her on the ticket?”

As the respectfully depicted McCain, Harris makes no attempt to mimic the candidate’s cadences (somewhat reminiscent of James Cromwell’s George Bush Sr. in Oliver Stone’s W), and that’s wise – two heavily accented impressions would be a bit much for this movie.

Intended as a behind the scenes look at the plotting, worrying, and tense talks that the McCain crew went through as a result of picking Palin for the pivotal Vice Presidential running mate position that, as history tells us, was not a successful decision. Palin’s greatest hits in the public arena are well depicted too: her disastrous Katie Couric interview (more expertly inserted video), her surprising performance in the debate with Joe Biden (some good humor here about her trying not to say O’Biden in the rehearsals), her accusing Obama with “palling around with a terrorist,” and the well documented incident of her being blocked from giving a concession speech on election night.

Its director Jay Roach and writer Danny Strong’s sharp almost satirical take on the material, which was also present in their previous 2005 HBO telefilm RECOUNT (about the 2000 Bush/Gore race), that made Roach’s 2012 Will Ferrell/Zach Galifianakis political spoof THE CAMPAIGN disappointing. Goes to show that the truth is often much more comical and absurd than what comedy writers can come up with.*

That said, GAME CHANGE largely plays Palin’s story straight. Harrelson and Harris don’t act like they’re in a farce; they both give believable grounded performances. Moore can’t help but pile on the ridiculousness in her portrayal, because, you know, the real Palin could be pretty damn ridiculous. Also accurately silly, are the sound-bites that come from her proto Tea Party supporters like one lady who says: “There’s something about her, she’s talking to me, and nobody talks to me!”

A real stand-out in the cast is Sarah Paulson as McCain/Palin campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace, who is on to Palin’s airheaded inexperience early on, and has a great comeback to Palin’s whining about understanding what Hillary (Clinton) meant by finding her own voice: Wallace: “Yeah, because you’re just like Hillary!”

Well made, well written, and very well acted, GAME CHANGE entertainingly captures one of the craziest and most memorable campaigns ever, reminding us of how weird it all was. I’m happy with the outcome of that strange race, which, it must be admitted, was an extremely surreal experience for everybody.

Special Features: A couple of watchable though hardly essential featurettes, “Creating a Candidate,” and “Game Change: The Phenomenon.” These extras are mainly good for footage of the real Palin that should show you how dead-on Moore’s portrayal is. 



* THE CAMPAIGN was written by a couple of guys associated with the HBO show Eastbound & Down - Chris Henchy and Shawn Harwell.
More later…

MAN ON A LEDGE Has No Edge

MAN ON A LEDGE (Dir. Asger Leth, 2012)

Although it isn't a comedy, MAN ON A LEDGE has more laughs than last fall's similarly themed TOWER HEIST, but most of them aren't intentional.

It's not because the plot, which concerns an ex con who climbs out on the ledge of a high rise Manhattan hotel room to distract everybody from noticing a heist at another building nearby, is so ridiculously implausible - it's just pulled in so many ridiculously implausible directions that it's laughable.

Sam Worthington (AVATAR, CLASH OF THE TITANS) is the title character who toys with the police, including Edward Burns as a a wise cracking detective and Elizabeth Banks as a NYPD negotiator, as he seemingly threatens to jump.

You see, Worthington was screwed over by Ed Harris as a Donald Trump type tycoon, so he's enacting a convoluted revenge involving a big-time diamond heist. It involves Jamie Bell (as Worthington's brother) with his squeeze Génesis Rodríguez breaking into Harris's vault while our hero keeps the cops and the crowd occupied.

Everything moves along briskly, but it's such standard stake-less stuff that it takes no hold.



Worthington doesn’t have a worthwhile character to inhabit, the glibness of Banks’ part would be better suited for a sitcom, Harris doesn’t care enough to even slightly nibble the scenery, and Rodríguez is on hand only to provide cleavage.



Also misused is Kyra Sedgwick as a TV reporter on the sidelines milking the event for ratings - a role that’s been done to death and it never comes alive here.



Laughs of the eye-rolling variety are all MAN ON A LEDGE is good for, and there aren’t enough of those to make it recommendable.



So I know it sounds like it could be something worth stopping and taking a look at, but move along folks!



Nothing worth seeing here.



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