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Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity


Jay

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I think anyone who's seen it should put spoilers in spoiler tags

~~

Cuarón has been developing this film ever since Children Of Men. It was at Universal for a long while before it shifted to WB in 2010. The two leads changed many times, with Angelina Jolie, Marion Cotillard, Scarlett Johansson, Blake Lively, and Natalie Portman being considered / auditioned for the female lead, and Robert Downey Jr for the male lead.

It was filmed in May 2011 and had a long post-production process, it was first scheduled to be released in November of 2012.

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I think Sandra Bullock might be the best choice of out all of them, honestly. Many of the other options were just too young.

Angelina Jolie / Clooney would have been good too, I think. Plus Sandra Bullock / Robert Downey

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I think I haven't ever seen Bullock in anything. Maybe it's for that reason that I prefer her to many of the other options.

See "Speed" as soon as you can!

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Jolie would not have been as good. She is a decent actress, but a bit too detached. Bullock is more "normal" and therefore vulnerable.

The others would not have been realistic because of the age. 20-something people in space might work for Enders Game, not here.

Clooney is very good as a rather annoying, but vital character.

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Im fine with Bullock. But I also think Cotillard could have been an interesting choice.

And I am so damn excited for this movie.

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2001 A Space Odyssey was the first film to realistically portray outer space. and people working in outer space. It was an environment of incredible beauty, but utterly dangerous. Inconceivable in size, totally inhospitable, and there is no sound.

Almost every film or TV show set in outer space didn't have that feeling. And almost every one of them had sound in space.

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity harkens back to Kubrick's sci-fi classic because it feels like space is perilous. No sound. Either ice cold or too hot, no air, and...the main point of the film, no gravity, no resistance. If you go in one direction, there is nothing to stop you. If you can't hold on to anything, or push against anything, you don't stop moving. No control of motion, direction anything.

The film opens on a spectacular view of the Earth, with over the course of minutes, a space shuttle docked to the Hubble telescope slowly comes into view. 3 astronauts are EVA. Doctor Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, a first time astronaut and mission specialist. trying to get a comm unit working on Hubble while trying not to puke.

Matt Kowalsi, played by Clooney, a veteran space dog on his last mission who talks and talks and talks and talks.

And a third one who we dont see at first.

What happens next was seen in the trailers.

The acting is very good, as is the casting. Bullock is just right as Ryan. She convinces as a doctor, an astronaut, and as someone who isn't born into this job, like Clooney's character.

She is also vital because she is likeable in this, and human. The way she goes from scared, to resilient, to giving up, to defiant is very well acted. Throughout the films she tends to under-act a bit, Keeping it down a notch because she is portraying a person trying to survive. Admirably even in the big emotional moments, she doesn't go hog wild to compensate. An admirable and very effective performance

Clooney has the only other role (other then voice overs. His character is actually quite an annoying motor mouth. If you sat next to him in the train you would look for another seat. But he also exudes an enormous amount of calm in a crises. If you were adrift in space, moments from dead, you would want this guy to come and save you.

Clooney is also good in his final scene, basically an oxygen deprived dream sequence, where we finally see him take his helmet off, and calms Ryan and gives her the idea she needs to save her live...even when he's already dead

;)

The special effects are perfect because, even though they are omni present throughout most of it (there are very few shits which does not have some effects work) they don't stand out like special effects.

Cuarón creates an environment, which feels totally real, vast, beautiful and terrifying. There are shots of great beauty that last minutes. I love the fact that they did that. Plenty of films set in space after the CGI era have good effects, but also fast paced editing, shakycam etc. So you can't savour it.

With Gravity you can look at Earth, the details, the beauty.

The film also does great with the spectacle. there are several scenes of destruction here, and they look fantastic. Especially the ISS being ripped apart. They even work better for not having sound

The camerawork is top notch. The camera rarely stands still, but floats elegantly in space. I'm not sure how long the opening shot is exactly, but it's beautifully engineered.

There a great shot of Bullock in the ISS, taking her suit of and free floating in the station, relieved to be alive, probably exhausted. She slowly assumes the fetal position. With an air hose positioning into the frame forming her umbilical chord.

This is not hard sci-fi, this is at it's heart a survival story. And it's one damn thing after another. Murphy's Law in space!

the shuttle and Hubble get destroyed, Ryan get's lost in space, rescued, narrowly makes it to the ISS, which catches fire, and then get shelled by the debris field. She narrowly makes it out alive to the Chinese space station, which is losing it's orbit and will burn up into the atmosphere. In between that there are scenes of narrow escape from fire, untethered EVA's with every collision bouncing Ryan into a different direction. And when she finally lands on earth, she almost drowns.....

One could argue that Ryan's rescue is not realistic, that in one of these perils she faces she would have faltered, not manage to grab the outer edge of a space station, make a wrong judgement call or simple be obliterated by space junk.

No matter. I liked Ryan's character enough that I wanted her to make it. (mostly thanks to Bullock's portrayal) And a more subdued approach would not have been as spectacular.

The music is effective in conveying tension and underscoring the emotional moments. There are a couple of scenes I would have liked unscored. At one point Ryan points out how much she loves the silence in space, they stop talking, but straight away the music starts playing. A bit silly...

These are niggles though.

I don't know how the film will play over multiple viewings, or if it will be as tense and have such a sense of the overwhelming vastness of space in 2D, or on Blu-ray (gonna buy it though). But Cuarón says this film was meant to be seen in 3D, and in 3D it works brilliantly. By far the best use of the format I have seen.

It's a visual and auditory masterpiece (the sound effects are outstanding actually). And the human element works quite well....

***1/2 out of ****



I just don't like her, at all. I find her annoying. I can tolerate her in Speed and that's it. I was happy when she fell down the stairs in Crash!

If you don't like Sandra Bullock, then don't see this film. She is in every scene.



Oh really? That's interesting.

I think that's always been the tradition here. On occasion a film might get an early preview showing or special event première (like The Hobbit), but Thursday is pretty much the standard here.

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All big films get their own threads. Star Trek. Star Trek Into Darkness. Hobbit. Avengers. Batman. Dark Knight. Rises. Thor 2. Guardians of the Galaxy. Avengers 2. Etc etc etc etc.

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I found gravity to be very moving. Well, it moved me until I could not move any more. By then, I had hit the floor, and bounced my chin so hard that I saw only inky black. But I didn't spill my beer.

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2001 A Space Odyssey was the first film to realistically portray outer space. and people working in outer space. It was an environment of incredible beauty, but utterly dangerous. Inconceivable in size, totally inhospitable, and there is no sound.

Almost every film or TV show set in outer space didn't have that feeling. And almost every one of them had sound in space.

Alfonso Cuarón's Gravity harkens back to Kubrick's sci-fi classic because it feels like space is perilous. No sound. Either ice cold or too hot, no air, and...the main point of the film, no gravity, no resistance. If you go in one direction, there is nothing to stop you. If you can't hold on to anything, or push against anything, you don't stop moving. No control of motion, direction anything.

The film opens on a spectacular view of the Earth, with over the course of minutes, a space shuttle docked to the Hubble telescope slowly comes into view. 3 astronauts are EVA. Doctor Ryan Stone, played by Sandra Bullock, a first time astronaut and mission specialist. trying to get a comm unit working on Hubble while trying not to puke.

Matt Kowalsi, played by Clooney, a veteran space dog on his last mission who talks and talks and talks and talks.

And a third one who we dont see at first.

What happens next was seen in the trailers.

The acting is very good, as is the casting. Bullock is just right as Ryan. She convinces as a doctor, an astronaut, and as someone who isn't born into this job, like Clooney's character.

She is also vital because she is likeable in this, and human. The way she goes from scared, to resilient, to giving up, to defiant is very well acted. Throughout the films she tends to under-act a bit, Keeping it down a notch because she is portraying a person trying to survive. Admirably even in the big emotional moments, she doesn't go hog wild to compensate. An admirable and very effective performance

Clooney has the only other role (other then voice overs. His character is actually quite an annoying motor mouth. If you sat next to him in the train you would look for another seat. But he also exudes an enormous amount of calm in a crises. If you were adrift in space, moments from dead, you would want this guy to come and save you.

Clooney is also good in his final scene, basically an oxygen deprived dream sequence, where we finally see him take his helmet off, and calms Ryan and gives her the idea she needs to save her live...even when he's already dead

;)

The special effects are perfect because, even though they are omni present throughout most of it (there are very few shits which does not have some effects work) they don't stand out like special effects.

Cuarón creates an environment, which feels totally real, vast, beautiful and terrifying. There are shots of great beauty that last minutes. I love the fact that they did that. Plenty of films set in space after the CGI era have good effects, but also fast paced editing, shakycam etc. So you can't savour it.

With Gravity you can look at Earth, the details, the beauty.

The film also does great with the spectacle. there are several scenes of destruction here, and they look fantastic. Especially the ISS being ripped apart. They even work better for not having sound

The camerawork is top notch. The camera rarely stands still, but floats elegantly in space. I'm not sure how long the opening shot is exactly, but it's beautifully engineered.

There a great shot of Bullock in the ISS, taking her suit of and free floating in the station, relieved to be alive, probably exhausted. She slowly assumes the fetal position. With an air hose positioning into the frame forming her umbilical chord.

This is not hard sci-fi, this is at it's heart a survival story. And it's one damn thing after another. Murphy's Law in space!

the shuttle and Hubble get destroyed, Ryan get's lost in space, rescued, narrowly makes it to the ISS, which catches fire, and then get shelled by the debris field. She narrowly makes it out alive to the Chinese space station, which is losing it's orbit and will burn up into the atmosphere. In between that there are scenes of narrow escape from fire, untethered EVA's with every collision bouncing Ryan into a different direction. And when she finally lands on earth, she almost drowns.....

One could argue that Ryan's rescue is not realistic, that in one of these perils she faces she would have faltered, not manage to grab the outer edge of a space station, make a wrong judgement call or simple be obliterated by space junk.

No matter. I liked Ryan's character enough that I wanted her to make it. (mostly thanks to Bullock's portrayal) And a more subdued approach would not have been as spectacular.

The music is effective in conveying tension and underscoring the emotional moments. There are a couple of scenes I would have liked unscored. At one point Ryan points out how much she loves the silence in space, they stop talking, but straight away the music starts playing. A bit silly...

These are niggles though.

I don't know how the film will play over multiple viewings, or if it will be as tense and have such a sense of the overwhelming vastness of space in 2D, or on Blu-ray (gonna buy it though). But Cuarón says this film was meant to be seen in 3D, and in 3D it works brilliantly. By far the best use of the format I have seen.

It's a visual and auditory masterpiece (the sound effects are outstanding actually). And the human element works quite well....

***1/2 out of ****

I just don't like her, at all. I find her annoying. I can tolerate her in Speed and that's it. I was happy when she fell down the stairs in Crash!

If you don't like Sandra Bullock, then don't see this film. She is in every scene.

Oh really? That's interesting.

I think that's always been the tradition here. On occasion a film might get an early preview showing or special event première (like The Hobbit), but Thursday is pretty much the standard here.

if it was meant to be seen in 3D why didn't he film it in 3D?

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no he converted it post production, it was shot in 2D



btw we're going tomorrow after work in 2D but next week I'm on vacation for the latter half and I'm taking mom to see at the IMAX in 3d



I miss Roger Ebert, this is a film I would so enjoy seeing and reading his review.

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if it was meant to be seen in 3D why didn't he film it in 3D?

http://collider.com/gravity-sandra-bullock-alfonso-cuaron-interview/

Alfonso, why did you decide not to shoot with 3D cameras for this?

CUARON: It didn’t make any sense. Because of the technology that we used, it was practically impossible. We wanted to shoot native, as we call it, to shoot in 3D with the cameras. We did the test and it was impossible because of the technology. We used these robots that are used for car manufacturing and adopted some of those robots. Instead of having a motion control, the weight of the cameras was not possible in those robots. In one instance, Sandra was on a rig, inside a cube that is 9 by 9, and the camera had just a limited view of Sandra. It was enough to photograph Sandra. I had to go through holes in that cube, so if it’s a wide shot, it would start wide, and then go very close in. It was impossible because, with 3D cameras, you need two cameras, so you need more space. And then, the other set that we had is the Russian space pod, the Soyuz, which is pretty much the size of three chairs smashed up together. So, it was impossible. But beyond that, not only was it impossible because of the constraint of space, it didn’t make any sense because it is such a combination of real action and CG. The amount of real footage was so minimal that what we ended up doing a conversion. We started converting to 3D, three and a half years ago, to go through pains to make sure that it was the closest thing to native 3D.

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if it was meant to be seen in 3D why didn't he film it in 3D?

http://collider.com/gravity-sandra-bullock-alfonso-cuaron-interview/

Alfonso, why did you decide not to shoot with 3D cameras for this?

CUARON: It didn’t make any sense. Because of the technology that we used, it was practically impossible. We wanted to shoot native, as we call it, to shoot in 3D with the cameras. We did the test and it was impossible because of the technology. We used these robots that are used for car manufacturing and adopted some of those robots. Instead of having a motion control, the weight of the cameras was not possible in those robots. In one instance, Sandra was on a rig, inside a cube that is 9 by 9, and the camera had just a limited view of Sandra. It was enough to photograph Sandra. I had to go through holes in that cube, so if it’s a wide shot, it would start wide, and then go very close in. It was impossible because, with 3D cameras, you need two cameras, so you need more space. And then, the other set that we had is the Russian space pod, the Soyuz, which is pretty much the size of three chairs smashed up together. So, it was impossible. But beyond that, not only was it impossible because of the constraint of space, it didn’t make any sense because it is such a combination of real action and CG. The amount of real footage was so minimal that what we ended up doing a conversion. We started converting to 3D, three and a half years ago, to go through pains to make sure that it was the closest thing to native 3D.

Cuaron needs to quit using the word impossible.

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Well, English is his second language..

not much difference in the word in either language.

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