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Gravity.

Poindexter Arachnid

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The director of Children of Men directs Sandra Bullock and George Clooney to float through outer space for 90 minutes? I'm on board.

(Look up the trailers if you get a chance)
 

Totenkindly

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Yeah, I'm interested mainly for the director and second for the concept (which could sink or swim depending on the director, so I'm glad a decent one is attached).

Creates similar feelings of being buried alive -- you're trapped, the end is imminent, and you're pretty much powerless to do anything.

The stars attached, I'm kind of indifferent to. I mean, they're decent actors -- I'm just not sure how they'll play in this movie.
 
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That trailer was one continuous CG shot. Amazing.

I'm told that supposedly the whole movie has only about 4 or 5 VFX shots, but that they're all super long, like up to 20 minutes. I have no idea if that's actually true, because it sounds like a very difficult thing to do. But wow.
 

The Ü™

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98% on Rotten Tomatoes (so far)? I haven't seen filmmakers pay critics this much to give such high ratings for their film since The Dark Knight.

Now I'm scared that I'll be completely disappointed (like I was in The Dark Knight). And yeah, I don't think that the final cut is gonna have 4 or 5 fx shots. Now I'm reading something closer to 150 (which is still pretty modest by today's standards).
 

Totenkindly

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98% on Rotten Tomatoes (so far)? I haven't seen filmmakers pay critics this much to give such high ratings for their film since The Dark Knight.

Now I'm scared that I'll be completely disappointed (like I was in The Dark Knight). And yeah, I don't think that the final cut is gonna have 4 or 5 fx shots. Now I'm reading something closer to 150 (which is still pretty modest by today's standards).

Yeah, it's kind of crazy to see a score so high. And remember that they also ran it EARLY. For real dogs, the studios tend to hold the ratings close to chest, but they are very confident in this movie as they had screenings and reviews posted as early as two weeks ago.

Jeffrey Overstreet (one critic) did not publish his review but linked to a negative/so-so review by someone else. But I haven't really heard much negative buzz.
 

Stanton Moore

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The movie dude on the radio said it was outstanding. take that as you will, but I'm gonna see it.
 
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swordpath

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Loved Children of Men, and the cinematography was great. I have heard that Gravity is no disappointment.
 

Poindexter Arachnid

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Returned from the midnight screening an hour ago.

Believe the hype. On a technical level, it pushes the boundaries of film to its breaking point. It delivers the promise James Cameron made four years ago with the release of Avatar. There are majestic images and set pieces that put Raiders-era Spielberg to shame.

Not a perfect film by any means (it comes up painfully short in terms of plot, dialogue and characterization), but it is absolutely a game-changer on every other point.
 

Totenkindly

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I would actually beg to differ from "painfully short". The movie sacrificed some things for other things, but that is what all movies do. Gravity only has two characters (effectively), and the movie is emphasizing the silence and vast loneliness of space. It's that backdrop upon which any dialogue is laid and framed, and I found it to be excellent at packing a lot of information in a limited number of lines. Anything extraneous was jettisoned (after all, in orbit all space is at a premium). I didn't need to have a lot of interaction between Clooney and Bullock to know exactly who they were as people and what they represented; more prose and interaction would have distracted from the tone, mood, and pace of the movie. The limited dialogue contained a lot behind the scenes (emotionally) if you unpacked them.

From a personal perspective, I especially connected with Bullock's character, framed against the recent loss of my father, and the same perpetual dilemma a human being faces in the face of grief and how one either decides to continue to live or perpetuates instead a living kind of death. My dad died forty years ago or more, despite remaining alive; I made a different choice; the characters here also have to wrestle directly with how to approach their own lives (and possibly deaths). Also events in the past year or two of my life left me identifying with basically hanging on by your fingernails, springing from one solution to the next and somehow getting out of one scrape to feel backed into a corner almost immediately.... and how sometimes it leaves you just wanting to give up. The whole movie was one harrowing leap from frying pan to fire and back into a new pan.

But I really agree that the set pieces and backdrop was just awe-inspiring, constantly taking my breath away. I have no idea how they filmed that or recreated what that experience would be like; it felt very real to me, like I was there. And in the IMAX 3D setting, the empty space looked very vast and frightening, and the shots of earth filling up much of the backdrop were just glorious. To me the movie was worth seeing just to feel like I was actually there in orbit experiencing the grandeur of space.
 

The Ü™

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I'm going tonight. But please tell me it's not too "arty". I hate having that shoved down my throat, and it's the exact same reason Cuarón's Harry Potter 3was the worst of the series. It's like these movies try too hard to be fancy...the way, I dunno, Rob Cohen's movies try too hard to be bad-ass.
 

Poindexter Arachnid

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More like an amusement park ride, actually.
Fairly straight forward...not a lot of baby fat.

Not too subversive or artsy-fartsy.
 

The Ü™

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Dodging Star Wars references by adding an extra word was a nice try but...well...I had a bad feeling about this mission.
 

Totenkindly

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I'm going tonight. But please tell me it's not too "arty". I hate having that shoved down my throat, and it's the exact same reason Cuarón's Harry Potter 3was the worst of the series. It's like these movies try too hard to be fancy...the way, I dunno, Rob Cohen's movies try too hard to be bad-ass.

That's not exactly a mainstream opinion; I think HP3 was one of the best of the eight, and it has a 91% on RT.

I hope you still like Gravity. I didn't consider it "artsy." And I don't think it tried to be too profound, it's pretty much a survival story literally and metaphorically. Pretty straight-forward.

I thought Children of Men was an excellent film on many levels. I guess I like well done dystopia.

I picked that up on DVD a few months ago and it's still sitting here. I figure I'll end up watching it this week, considering I have the time and after reading all the kudos here for it.
 
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