Gravity Imax 3D- Page 3

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/10/13 at 7:01pm

Oh, this movie was a MUCH better theme park ride than the Avatar theme park ride.

I really disliked Avatar, outside of the 3D spectacle. It was a big, dumb movie. It was dumb and even stupid. That's how dumb it was. Dances With Smurfs. I was never moved or overwhelmed. Just fascinated by the technical aspects.

As simple a story as it is, Gravity is much better. Cuaron's direction and Bullock's performance put it far ahead.

[east side story]

Posted: 10/10/13 at 8:54pm

Finally got around to seeing this film today. It will easily win three to five Oscars. Best Actress will not be one of them. While exceptional, and as many have said -- her best performance to date, my money is still on Cate Blanchett.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/10/13 at 8:56pm

I personally think it should only be eligible in the animated features category.

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 9:13am

Thanks to everyone enthusiasm I jumped on for the ride last night. Saw it in flat IMAX. I think the traditional dome IMAX might have been even more immersive though. I don't remember the last time I squirmed and twisted myself in my seat like I did for Gravity. Lots of wow moments that did however require quite a bit of suspension of disbelief. Overall I really enjoyed the movie even for $19 but it was merely cotton candy with little to be thought upon afterwards.

In the morning I was talking about it and someone said "well in the newspaper I read that the space junk was scientifically coming from the wrong direction." I laughed and said "WHO cares! The crap was flying at them and they were dodging bullets! The direction it came from was not the point." Then another comment was made, "well there was an awful lot of stuff floating around inside the space stations." I shook my head and gave up. Obviously it was acceptable for the woman to fly/float from one spacecraft to the other using a fire extinguisher.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 9:41am

I saw it last night, the full 3D Imax blowout, and enjoyed it a great deal. The brilliance of the production and of Ms. Bullock's performance (her journey from death to life was very beautifully done, I thought) really came across. I do think there's more here than just big blowout effects, there seemed to be some religious/spiritual metaphoring going on that will take repeat viewings to get to the bottom of, after the astonishment of the spectacle is no longer quite as, well, astonishing.

My one serious complaint -- that goddamn George Clooney.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 10:24am

Can we finally discuss the plot points. Let me label it.



SPOILER







The only way the ending works is if you realize nothing shown after she surrenders and turns down the oxygen actually happened. I presumed that was the entire point of the movie but it seems many people accept everything after that moment at face value.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 10:40am

SPOILERS -- SERIOUSLY BEWARE -- I'D TURN BACK IF I WERE YOU!!!!!





We disagree, Namo. It seems clear to me that the only part that doesn't actually happen is Clooney's re-appearance, just a CO2-inspired dream. Then the rest does in fact happen, when she's inspired to turn the oxygen back on and take life by the horns again. The whole thing of Bullock's emotional and spiritual regeneration, the movie's real subject after all, is a serious cheat if she's just dead. Cuaron doesn't play bullsh*t Shyamalan/Scott games (the whole end of the movie is a death dream, and look, she's a replicant after all!!) like that, at least not for long.

Updated On: 10/11/13 at 10:40 AM

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 10:45am

SPOILER RESPONSE * ** * * * * *


I agree with Roscoe. After she wakes up and turns the oxygen back on, there was no reason to assume she was dreaming or hallucinating anymore. While the likelihood that she could do what she did was really stretching it, there was no reason to believe it was a fantasy in her mind.

I think it's up to viewer interpretation whether or not she dreamed Clooney's visit, or it was some sort of spiritual visitation where he told her how to get back home. It could have also been her confidence kicking in, spurred on by her imagination. I actually took it as that, not an "angel" visitation. He doesn't tell her anything she doesn't already know, he merely points out that she already knows how to do this.

Updated On: 10/11/13 at 10:45 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 10:59am

SPOILER CONTINUATION

Well, I mean. Not only did she HAVE to have dreamed the visitation, because he was gone with no propulsion mechanism to control where he ended up, she would not been able to survive his opening the hatch. There isn't even a way to give the movie creative license with it, especially with the title card going to such great length to explain that nothing can live in space. Everything she experienced after turning down the oxygen was the product of her dying brain.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 11:03am

SPOILER AGAIN

Disagree -- she's not dying. She's nodded off in the CO2, entirely justifiably after the really rough day she's having, and then manages to pull herself together after the inspiration of that dream, as hackneyed as that may sound. Again, the film's messages of renewal and regeneration are completely tossed out the porthole if she's just dead. Sorry, Namo, but you're describing an M. Night Shyamalan film, not an Alfonso Cuaron film.

Updated On: 10/11/13 at 11:03 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 11:20am

SPOILERVILLE

Everything after the visitation IS the spiritual regeneration. Everything that happens once the final action begins is the spiritual rebirth. Perhaps it symbolizes a reincarnation, but it can't be meant to be taken literally.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 11:26am

SPOILERPALOOZA---

Right, that's clear enough, but I can't possibly agree that her spiritual regeneration involves her death. She's very much alive. That's the whole point of the movie, it seems to me.

Updated On: 10/11/13 at 11:26 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 11:37am

SPOILERLAND

I was never suggesting it was like Shamalayan at all. If it were, she would have discovered she was dead in some way that was supposed to blow our minds but actually just made us laugh at the obviousness of it.

I think, however, it's a ridiculous Hollywood ending that's a parody of ridiculous Hollywood endings that comes with its own critique embedded in it. It's giving the audience what it wants, a belief that somebody escaped certain death, but it was a certain death. Most humans with some sort of religion want to believe they survive death and so they subscribe to afterlife narratives. Big Hollywood productions are all illusions and dreams, also a sort of religion with a narrative of immortality. I think in that way the movie's actually smarter than most people realize.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 11:53am

SPOILERAMA

Looks like we disagree. I'm going to need to hear more concrete examples of exactly how this parody of ridiculousness is enacted onscreen, I'm just not seeing any of it.

[strummergirl]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 11:58am

When I read that Robert Downey Jr. was offered the Clooney role, the character made much more sense to me in imagining who that character was and why that character made that choice. I could understand why Downey would not be down with the roll since it is incredibly on the nose with his whole career arc but I never got anything from Clooney to suggest he was even representing that kind of good time, even-keeled if resigned kind of fatalism. He was definitely the weak link but aside from one scene (that Clooney supposedly got non-writing credit on), he is avoidable in memory since the rest of it is the Bullock/Lubezki/Cuaron show.

Updated On: 10/11/13 at 11:58 AM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 12:02pm

SPOILERVERSE

The series of disasters and blunders that she manages to survive, from pushing buttons with labels she can't read to surviving re-entry in a compromised capsule that certainly would have burst into flames to sinking to the bottom of the sea (where members of my opening night IMAX audience laughed because it had everything but a giant whale swallowing her) and her not drowning and her climbing out of the primordial sea and learning how to stand and learning how to walk, THAT was all the ridiculously Hollywood ending. She survived the impossible-to-survive. Except of course, she didn't. Such a big deal is made of her turning down the oxygen, which, in her state, is NOT something that a person comes back from, even if George Clooney is snarkily egging her on from the afterlife.

Updated On: 10/11/13 at 12:02 PM

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 12:15pm

SPOILEROCRACY

Right, she survived the impossible to survive, point taken, and that's the point of the movie, it seems to me -- no parody intended, as far as I can see. I'm not seeing it as the kind of post-modern narrative joke you're getting out of it, there's just no indication (aside from her one line about "I hate space") to indicate that anything like parody or irony is at work here.

If she doesn't survive and the film's finale is an ongoing death dream/parody of Hollywood Gigantism, Cuaron would have indicated it far more clearly and explicitly than he does.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 12:26pm

I am not saying it's a narrative joke at all. I think it's a serious reflection of the strides made in neuroscience and the understanding of the process of dying over recent years. Every time she gasps for breath in the, I don't know what to call it -- extended final sequence? -- it's her brain making her gasp for oxygen. She couldn't survive that alone, without even addressing the unsurvivable series of unfortunate events that follow, the opening of the capsule door, the piloting of the capsule while reading the driver's manual which is written in another language, to the water landing, to the submersion ... I mean, what are the odds that "Houston" has been sitting around waiting and listening for a capsule from China to reenter the atmosphere? Her brain turned Ed Harris's voice into the voice of god.

I'm not saying it's a joke at all. I am saying it's a commentary. It "gives the people what they want" even though if you care to look below the surface (where she ends up before her rebirth) it's just the idea of what they want.

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 12:34pm

SPOILERAVAGANZA

OK, thanks for clarifying abou the tone of the film. But you'll have to show exactly how in the film this message/commentary is gotten across -- I see nothing in the film to indicate that she's dead after that specific point and the rest of the film is her death dream, neurons firing and all that, and Cuaron isn't exactly subtle.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 12:37pm

Whenever they make a point of showing an action like a little girl getting hit in the head by a window frame during a tornado, you should suspect that what happens after that is in the character's head.

[Brian07663NJ]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 12:41pm

...suspension of disbelief anyone?

Spoiler conversation...

Actually now that it was brought up - yes - I can in fact see that she died when she turned down the oxygen and we saw her journey to paradise though it was filled with pitfalls, fire and water.

Then again - maybe she did live through the fall, fire and water to return to paradise alive.

Enjoy the movie for what it is worth and get out of it what works for you.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 12:44pm

STILL SPOILING

It wasn't an unpleasant death, you know except for the being stranded in outer space with no communication with her home planet or any way to get back. She went to sleep and before her brain shut down completely she enjoyed a survival scenario.

[best12bars]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 1:02pm

SPOILERWORLD




I have to say, I like Namo's idea that everything after she turns down the oxygen is a dream/hallucination journey toward death. I just didn't think that was apparent while I was watching that, particularly because of how she jolts awake, realizes he's not there, and starts up the oxygen again. It would be a dream within a dream, then. Not impossible at all, just not clear. But the rest of the movie, as it plays out, would certainly work (and work well) under that premise.

EDIT: Actually, it's more interesting that way. See? Now you've got me thinking about the movie a lot more than I thought I would be.

Updated On: 10/11/13 at 01:02 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 1:32pm

"I just didn't think that was apparent while I was watching that..."

How could it be when they were so busy pummeling you with the soundtrack, shaking your seat and completely filling your field of vision?

[Roscoe]

Posted: 10/11/13 at 1:33pm

SPOILEROPOLIS

"Whenever they make a point of showing an action like a little girl getting hit in the head by a window frame during a tornado, you should suspect that what happens after that is in the character's head."

Right, but when that little girl recovers from having been hit on the head, the film goes out of its way to make it very clear that what happened was, in fact, in that character's head, something that doesn't happen in GRAVITY. Quite the opposite -- she is shown waking up, turning the oxygen back up full blast and going back on from there, there's nothing, as far as I can remember, to back up the "she's DEAD!" gimmick. Looks like we're going to have to agree to disagree, unless of course Cuaron issues some kind of statement about it.

On the other hand, this might be similar to what went down in Affleck's ARGO, the little moment where ARGO became ARGO "THE MOVIE!!!" and we got that admittedly effective but rather overdone chase of the airplane. Not seeing it, though -- ARGO could accommodate a little gimmick like that because it felt like it was part of the idea of the movie in ways that I don't see GRAVITY accommodating a similar bit of smart-assery.

Updated On: 10/11/13 at 01:33 PM