32 replies to this topic

[Gothneo]

Gravity turned out to be the big winner at the oscars last night. 7 wins. It didn't how ever get best picture or any best actor/actress award, which I think is right. It pretty much got all the sound and visual awards, which I think it deserved.

I was really only surprised by the best actor and best supporting actress awards. Mathew Mconeghy (sp?) is not that good of an actor IMO. He's all right but I expected 12 years a slave to win it.

Any one else watch any of the oscars?

[Destructor!!!]

Yep, I watched the whole thing.

I think Gravity deserved every award it got, and didn't deserve any that it missed - though the nominations were deserved. I was very pleased with its Oscar performance, and Alfonso Cuaron comes across as such a lovely guy - I'll have to buy him a beer some day.

I haven't seen any of the other big hitters at the Oscars - save for The Wolf Of Wall Street, which, again, I felt did about as well as it deserved to - so I can't comment on McConnaughey(also sp?)'s performance in Dallas Buyer's Club, but based on what I've seen of him in True Detective, he has recently upped his game, acting-wise. He's very impressive in that show, and what little I've seen of DBC certainly showcases the gruelling physical transformation he put himself through. His acceptance speech, however, was bizarre and preachy, and I could totally identify with Jennifer Lawrence, grimacing awkwardly in the background.

I rewatched Gravity today, and I spotted a few more minor nitpicks:

Spoiler

Generally with the consistency of their location relative to geographical landmarks on Earth, or Earth occasionally appearing static in the background. At one point, the rising moon is moving with unnatural speed against the background star-field.

Tiang Gong's final descent into the atmosphere is pretty absurd - the curvature of the horizon seems far too pronounced, to me, to allow for the level of atmospheric interaction it was experiencing, not to mention how implausible it is that its orbit would decay so quickly, or that it could remain such a fixed waypoint for Stone at such a radically different altitude to the ISS (or that she could possibly reach it using soft-landing jets). At least the implausibly thick atmosphere around the Chinese station accounts for the ease with which Stone decelerates using the fire-extinguisher - she was helped by air resistance. The little flutes of visible vapour trails are obviously just a visual cue for the audience, but that whole scene is out of whack.

As for the by-now infamous Kawalski tether scene - there's still room to rationalise it, but it's too close to being completely wrong to ignore. Real astronauts have criticised that scene, and while their motion is not completely nill, with respect to the station (at least in the wide shots), it's not believable to me that Kawalski thought the only solution was to die.
There's a beautifully accurate little move later in the film where Stone throws her empty fire-extinguisher away from her in the opposite direction to the Tiang-gong station in order to change her trajectory to reach a handhold. She saves her own life with this cursory, but very physically accurate and savvy maneuver. So even if we accept that he had to let go of the tether, Matt could have done the same thing with his torch, iPod, rotary tool, or any number of items he had strapped to himself... hell, since Stone manages to get herself into and out of two different space-suits without assistance in the film, it stands to reason that Matt could have detached and kicked off the empty MMU he was strapped to. Given their relatively low speed of separation, that would have been more than enough.

It's still a heck of a film, though. I was dipping into it on and off throughout the day, and I kept saying "just a few seconds more" - busy day - but would find myself glued to it for minutes at a time... so damn gripping.

I also noticed that as they approach the hulk of the Explorer early in the film, they are passing over Ireland at night, with the lights of Dublin clearly distinguishable. That was cool to see, and I don't know how I missed it in the cinema.

Definitely still my favourite film in a long time.

[Gothneo]

There are quite a few people that seem to criticize it as boring. I can't say I ever felt that as the pacing seemed slow to me, so I dont agree with that view. I picked it up on Blu-ray and have been re-watching it, and I think its spectacular even on blu-ray. It certainly deserved the awards it got.

 

All the nits and critiques are pretty much out there, but I think as neil degrasse tyson has said, its a film that, where ever possible, made a real effort to get things right, but took liberties where it had to in order to move the plot along, thus I find it to be one of the better science fiction films in recent years. So I think we are in agreement Destructor.

 

I found it interesting to turn on the sub titles and read them as there is some dialog that you may miss w/o them! and I was doing some reading and it seems even Bullocks scene where she imagines Clooney popping open the suyez is credible. Exposure to space and decompression wouldn't necessarily kill you instantly. In fact they say you'd have about 12 seconds before you black out. So Clooney's character could have popped it open hopped in and re-pressurized it.

[Destructor!!!]

Oh yeah - even though I was scoffing at the very idea that he could somehow have found his way back to her, or that he would so casually decompress the Soyuz like that, I bought her survival of it... though I suspect one would burst an eardrum or two in such a sudden decompression in real life. I also suspect that a full re-pressurisation of the Soyuz takes longer than the handful of seconds it took - or that the ship has the requisite atmosphere reserves on-board (though, maybe), but what the hell, right? It was a dream/hallucination.

[Gothneo]

I just watched some the extras on the blu-ray that described all the effects they did. Actually pretty amazing. All the vizor effects were added in. Every speck, thumbprint, and reflection.

[Destructor!!!]

Not sure if it's out on BR here, but I will absolutely pick it up. The special-er the edition, the better.

[Prometheus]

Wow.... just saw Gravity for the first time last night..... talk about one bad day for the space program!!!

[Gothneo]

lol. Yeah. As discussed... IMO its a bit too much. The movie is a technical triumph, but the plot and acting are a bit weak.

[Destructor!!!]

Yep, but worth it for the attention to detail and sheer visual mastery.

[Prometheus]

I agree with both of you.... the technical aspects of this film are just mind blowing.... the acting and plot were okay.

[Jay K]

This is incredible:

[Daysleeper]

ROFLMAO Not bad. I might've preferred this version of the movie...

[Prometheus]

Hahaha !!!   That's awesome !!!