Posted by Kitty
I’ve just watched a 3D film at the cinema. Yes! On a weekday morning.
The film was Gravity. Despite its minimal dialogue, it covers topics such as courage, mortality, bereavement and survival.
I made the mistake of taking my other half. He completely spoiled the drive home. When all I wanted to do was to reflect and have a good cry, all he wanted to do was to pull apart the film’s scientific and technical plausibility. Only breaking off from his detailed critique to tell me to slow down.
So what if a couple of the Laws of Physics were broken? At least one on the drive home. Gravity is visually stunning and totally gripping. And for a story set in Space it is surprisingly intimate. (No, not like that, although there’s no doubting the chemistry between the two lead actors even with their space helmets on.)
However, one thing was completely implausible: there is no way that Sandra Bullock’s character would not have known the colour of George Clooney’s eyes.
Don’t let the trailer put you off! In fact, don’t watch the trailer if you have any plans of going to watch this film.
Looks a bit traumatic for a Thursday morning, never mind 3D.
Who’s George Clooney?
Well quite.
I would find it too scary. Loving your take on it though, Kitty. I might go to see it just for the angles you have highlighted. So what colour are is eyes the?
Who mentioned Scary, I’m so glad I am not the only one, this would leave me having nightmares, I have a 26 year old son and last time we both wet to see a film it was called War of the worlds, his closing remarks were….
Old man if you don’t stop jumping Im leaving you here, I get called Dad after the 3rd week in every month when he is skint.
No it’s not scary at all – well not in the sense that a horror film might be. My other half was scared but only because of all my sobbing. I’m a very jumpy person and I only jumped (a tiny bit) once in this film.
Jed – you might be a man but I bet you know who George Clooney is.
Spoiler alert. His eyes are brown.
I saw the film at the IMAX theatre at Waterloo on Thursday evening. It is a spectacular film but stretches physics beyond breaking point. The Hubble telescope orbits the Earth well over 100 km away from the International Space Station and yet the film suggests they are a short ‘jet-pack’ away.
It reminded me of ‘The Dream is Alive’ which showed real astronauts and a real space shuttle and was one of the first IMAX films. To return to the funereal theme, it features the shuttle ‘Challenger’ and Dick Scobee and Judith Resnik, who were to be lost during a wintry launch on 28 January 1986. I’m sure most readers are old enough to remember the loss of Challenger and President Reagan’s eulogy to the 7 astronauts who “slipped the surly bond of Earth …to touch the face of God”.
The trailer has put me off – but I will go and see it.
I remember being on a family holiday near Cape Canaveral – lucky enough to witness a launch. This was a few years AFTER the Challenger disaster.
We were fairly close to the action, on a beach with thousands of other people. I chatted to a lovely French woman while our kids played happily. Mostly all of the kids around were playing in the water, the adults doing what people usually do on beaches, including making a fair amount of noise, but only up until the moment the launch took place. At that exact point, everyone, all of us fell silent, we stood and stared and I am certain, collectively willed that spaceship to free itself of earths bonds, all of us desperate that nothing went wrong.
In all my years as a human, that was as close as I have come to feeling positive and good about my species.
Hi David! Do not let the trailer put you off. This is a tiny bit of the film. But you’ll probably get motion sickness from some bits.