Ad Astra (2019)

As I was saying last time I didn't get to watch "Ad Astra" in the weekend, but I did get, or better said I decided to get to see it on Monday. And I prefer to also not postpone anymore neither the blog entry because I already started forgetting some fresh impressions it left with. Which might make the following very subjective, but I guess it would be hard not to be anyway, so...

I heard before watching the movie that it's slow & boring. Debatable = I won't lie, for the first half I checked my watch a couple times... I also heard either that it gets close to "Gravity", either that it gets close to "Interstellar". I'd say it's more SciFi than the first, but a bit less SciFi than the second. In any case it has definitely much more substance than "Gravity" (to which I'll stick to the opinion of not being more than a simple recipe of a disaster movie set in space + extra VFX bling-bling), which, adding the slow development it has, would make it indeed more close to "Interstellar". But let's leave out the comparisons and move into the subject.

In the future the humanity established colonies on the Moon, on Mars and managed to send an expedition on Neptun's orbit. The space ship is led by Dr. H. Clifford McBride, having the mission to try a contact with other intelligent species. Only that the status of the expedition seems to have reached a sort of "lost in space" = nobody knows anything about them for as long as almost 30 years. Meanwhile, Dr. McBride was labeled as a space here that took the Earth civilization where no man has gone before. We just end up one day with some periodical surges coming from outer space strong enough to endanger the life in the Solar system. The department of space defense (or something like that) suspects that the cause of origin lies on the lost ship, or more precisely with its captain who is suspected to still be alive. As solution it's decided that Roy McBride, the son, also an astronaut, to be sent to the farthest still functional outpost - on Mars, with the purpose of dispatching a peace message. Only that, predictable enough, the final destination will be a bit more far than that...

That was the story, now the philosophy :) Warning: this is not an action movie - go see Alien for that ;) There's lots of philosophy in the movie, and sometimes it seems it tries to be even more than it is. At least that's the feeling it left me with by its half-time. After that it starts making more sense. Roy McBride is a lonely guy, divorced in order to remove the stress from his family on him getting also lost in space one day (at least that's what he says), very pragmatic and cool enough in panic situations, subjecting to rules and to the orders he gets, the perfect candidate for a critical mission. There are plenty of fine-grained aspects throughout the entire slow development in the first part, which have as purpose exactly the build-up of such a very complex character. Who, in brief, can be labeled as a smarter than average guy, but who knows his place or better said knows not to leave that place. In a total contradiction of character, McBride the father, another smarter than average guy, but for whom moving forward in the goal to find another civilization, or generalizing to surpass the achievements of a normal life, is important enough to sacrifice everything in a normal life: family, coming home, the life of his crew. There's some point towards the end where the movie seems very biased in the comparison of the two: the positive character and the negative character, in the sense of better stay put, be fine with all it's asked, take care of the ones near you, and do your job than dreaming on achieving something that's not there, and step on corpses for that goal. But it's too black and white...

Fortunately, the entire movie is spread with McBride junior monologues, which bring some grey into the picture, even though not very obvious. I don't remember the lines exactly but at some moment we have one saying something like only in the end "I'll find happyness in my loneliness/solitude" + some other, more precise this time (thanks to Google): "I see myself on the outside, smile, present a side. It’s a performance, with my eye on the exit. Always on the exit.", which speculating a bit would say that also the son knows that he could achieve more but it's an accepted choice to not pass some limits, limits that will go away, mentally at least when the life will end. Speculation that's strengthen by the ending monologue (again thanks to Google) delivered as part of a psychological evaluation when finally returning to Earth: "I am focused on the essentials, to the exclusion of all else. I’m unsure of the future, but I’m not concerned. I will rely on those closest to me, and I will share their burdens, as they share mine. I will live and I will love. Submit.". Let's say I completely agree with all this "conclusion" that's delivered in a pretty optimistic note as a happy-end. After all this should count first for a human being. What irritated me, however, is the positive light subliminally put on all this acceptation of conformism for the good of everybody, and the negative light thrown on trying to force a bit your daily life to reach the stars - or to quote also some other source “Non est ad astra mollis e terris via" - "There is no easy way from the earth to the stars” (Seneca). What's even more behind than this subliminal, as I said above it softens this, but that's pure speculation - something like after all you know you won't be happy with your decisions. But even with this hidden meaning, the big part of the grey between the black and white is missing in this movie... Maybe there's a middle way to share their burdens and also get concerned of the future, i.e., to try to reach the stars. Why exclude that completely? At least let the hope live! :) I told that I'm subjective ;) No more. Too much philosophy.

Rating: 4 out of 5

The Zero Theorem (2013)

I wanted to skip over "The Zero Theorem". Having enough experience with Terry Gilliam from movies that left a deep touch somewhere like "12 Monkeys" or "Dr. Parnassus", up to totally unfortunate experiences as "Tideland" or "Brothers Grimm", I was convinced I'm able to smell the corner where a new release fits. Missed though that I didn't actually have any title by Gilliam to place somewhere in between. Until now ...

Call me lazy. I don't have the necessary mood and I also doubt it will help more than the trailer to talk about the subject of "The Zero Theorem". From my vague memories, would be probably close to talking about the subject of "Brazil". Sure, you can do it. But, what's the use ? As there, here, and in many other of Gilliam's movies, the picture relies on the personal take of each viewer. And the range of interpretation is very diverse. Actually, to offer such a diversity of possible ways to perceive a movie that keeps relatively coherent action threads it's really something. Doesn't always work (e.g., "Tideland"). Here it did.

Call me lazy, again. I won't start now with my own interpretation of this. I'll just limit to some general appreciations. The movie starts well. Again, is probably the most close picture to "Brazil", since "Brazil", but without reaching the same high (saying this in the context where I don't remember much of "Brazil"). Unfortunately it ends too rushed. Around three quarters is like getting it fed to an accelerated compression algorithm, giving the impression that all the action threads are suddenly cut. Maybe it's intended, for excluding quickly all the characters, and leaving the main one in eternal solitude. I don't know. Anyway, it seemed forced and artificial.

It's most probably the type of movie to see when you're n a very specific mood. And also a movie that definitely won't appeal to everybody. It did in my case. Not that well to get it at the same level of impact as "12 Monkeys". But enough that subjectively to have a higher appreciation degree than it probably deserves :) (and it's not because is a production made in Ro). Maybe it's because life is a chaos & the challenge to control it is somehow addictive despite you knowing it will never really work ... maybe because I need a Bainsley in my life ;) ... maybe others ...

Rating: 4 out of 5

7 .. Interstellar .. 2014

When I heard for the first time about Interstellar", and that a guy named Kip Thorne (just Google if doesn't ring a bell) is a consultant for the script, I said "that's it" - Nolan can reach a higher peak than what he got with "The Prestige" and "Inception". After seeing the trailers my enthusiasm dropped dramatically, reaching a bottom of "Armageddon meets Gravity" in terms of expectations. After watching the movie I have to admit how wrong I was, and to acknowledge that there still are trailers that don't tell everything :)

There are 7 years since I started this blog, originally only in Romanian, and with each anniversary I'm trying to find an entry that does worth every second spent watching. In the last couple of years I started having problems with this. Either I don't have time to search, or the movies quality is constantly dropping compared to the number of releases. "Interstellar" is neither "Armageddon", nor "Gravity". It's simply in a different league compared to the 1st, and it's many levels above the 2nd. So you could say that I got a subject for this year. And still, I don't see it on top of "The Prestige" or "Inception". But neither much lower :)

I'll respect the amount of info given by the trailers, and I won't tell much besides what you get in these. After the terrestrial ecosystem starts collapsing, NASA, semi-anonymous organization in an of-the-future budget restricted US, sends a mission with the task to find another life supporting planet. And since we don't have anything like this in the galaxy, the trip is interstellar. The crew sent to find green grass and sparkling water is not coming back, and NASA has to send somebody else to check out if first team's sent signals are a real hope for the salvation of the human race. Karma ( and we could start here a philosophical debate about what karma means ;) or to be closer to the definition I prefer: "the kismet" ) is choosing as the "unlucky" pilot for the "recovery" mission a former engineer. The guy has two kids, lost his wife, and in the context of the global famine was forced to give up his "space, the final frontier" dream for farming corn. What's next .. would be simple to describe, but hard to explain :) so maybe it's best to get a personal view over the movie by watching it. What can I say it's that either you can consider what you see on screen as a disaster movie a la "Gravity"/"Armageddon" in which you can start searching for plot holes, or to view it as an imagination exercise for still unexplained theories with plenty of consequent "what if ?"s, to which you can hope there exists somewhere a response path ending optimistically. And if this is something you can hope for, to find that path (if it is there) should be something certain. The kismet is after all just your choice ;)

Production related, I guess that "Interstellar" is the most Spielbergish film that Nolan made. I don't think I have to say more. Oh .. yes. Once again, we have the proof that it's possible to have superb cinematography without 3D ;) I'm waiting a nomination for that. If it's not coming I think I'll boycott that section in next year's Oscars.

I wrote about "Interstellar", but not much about 7 - the full age of this blog .. or 2014. Well, it's already a good thing, considering that in 2014 there were many weeks when I didn't write about anything. I've honestly considered a final blog shutdown for today, meaning yesterday, because as it can be seen I wasn't able to finish the entry the day I wanted ( I have my cheap Blogspot trick to make it look like that for the Romanian version, but that's still a cheap trick :) ). I was thinking that 7 years were enough. Enough to not have the effect it did by motivating me to see at least one movie per week, enough to get to a phase where I tend to repeat myself quite often in what I write, enough to realize that I'm fooling myself with the perspective of someday finding time to "jump to the next level" = making this blog financially productive. Besides that, 2014 was a pretty tough year for reasons I don't want to discuss here ( and 2014 is not over yet ... ). Sufficiently tough to cut even my mood for watching a movie to allow my mind to run free for two hours. I've been trying to recover a bit the missing entries in the last couple months, but it's a forced recovery, and again in the end is just a number to fool myself that I'm back to the usual frequency. So, should I say stop then ? ...

Building suspense :) ... Well, I don't like giving up. I'm tired enough to accept a compromise, but I hope I won't be ever tired enough to give up completely. I just didn't think yet on what kind of compromise to do. No time. Maybe I'll start again taking periodical "vacations" (hopefully not a permanent one), maybe something else. Anyway, I would like that the final entry on this blog to be a 5 rated one :P. And in case of "Interstellar" ...

Rating: 4 out of 5 ;)

Chasing Rabbits 101 .. (?)

As a final entry for the year, I was planning to write a post about "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy ?". A sort of animated documentary directed by Michel Gondry, which covers a series of discussions with Noam Chomsky (check out Wikipedia if the name doesn't sound familiar). But somewhere at the half of it I got sleepy. Overall, it's an interesting amalgam of ideas, but too chaotic to follow carefully if your brain didn't have enough rest before. I have to admit though that the 2nd half was slightly more coherent. In particular, the string of short (more or less) philosophic sequences includes some notable opinions on the human learning process, and also one of the most rational or logical argumentation on the need for religion I've heard by now. But even so, this doesn't change my disappointment that what I've seen is pretty far from what I intended to have as "catchy final entry for 2013". Therefore ..

I'm doing something that I .. let's say discreetly avoided before. Which is to try catching up with a series of "off-topic" entries on my "native" .ro blog version, series that started somewhere in 2007 and continued at the "impressive" rate of one/year. Even so, I'm not in the proper mood now to search, translate, adapt, and so on and so forth, for all the posts. In short, it's about rabbits :) More exactly it started with an old saying, that I don't know where did originate, but in Romanian goes something like: "Who runs after two rabbits doesn't catch any of them." Well, let's just say that I totally, completely, and strongly disagree with that. And through those entries that I wrote during the years I tried (usually at very late hours when my mind gets in a sort of "lucid drunkenness" state of spirit) to develop various chase tactics, hunting grounds analysis, etc, that would prove "the theorem" wrong. Now ... I'm not considering my crazy random ramblings as an equivalent subject to a Noam Chomsky interview, but I'm really too lazy at the moment to get into details with the thing in the first paragraph. Actually I'm quite lazy for any long entry, so I'll try to wrap up my "rabbits" thing quickly ;) ...

Let's say that I strongly believe that there are ways, maybe very complicated, to somehow steer the running rabbits towards the same destination. Consequently, and ideally, at some point you'll chase "one" and not two. Or another way to look at it, you'll chase two (or more) rabbit-halves that complete each other. But, that's the simple version to state a potential solution which includes that "very complicated" part :) You can gradually add up to the equation lots of stuff. For instance there's the time to get them running on the same path. Time which might be so long that you can compare it with a pyramid construction. And pyramids are nice, but you know what's the final purpose of that building, don't you ? :) So .. although a beautiful achievement for posterity, the whole thing might get ironically grim in respect to you ;) And actually, constructing the pyramid = getting the rabbits on the common path, is unfortunately not exactly the same with finally catching them. So, how do you build a pyramid and catch the rabbits at the same time ? Well, typically you can find pyramids in the desert (especially this kind, since they're very often more a mirage .. a Fata Morgana, than an actual pyramid). Ergo, the hunting ground might be a desert. It might look easier to hunt rabbits in a desert, but it's actually not. No water, wind storms erasing tracks, you can get lost .. So what to do ? Well, the rabbits probably try instinctively anyway to run out of the desert (they also need water). So the desert must have an end. How to get there ? Let's think a bit out of the box. Shrink the desert surface. How ? Stop the global warming :D

Is that all ? Well, no :) Obviously it's not that easy to stop the global warming :P What's above is a summary of some of my ramblings written years ago (at least a couple that I had the patience to quickly re-read now), just to give an idea of "the topic". What's new this year ? Well, I got to the point where I'm thinking that I might after all need an introductory manual to "learn the basics" .. despite my previous five years "advanced expertise" accumulated on "hunting techniques". That's because I'm either getting old (and well .. the rabbits are forever young), or I have some major flaws in my "strategic planning" that keep the "hunter - rabbits" distance constant (not to destroy completely my morale now and say that's increasing). Well .. maybe there's the external factor = the fate. But to discuss about this, and how much of the "global warming" is caused by kismet would require another entry ;) So I'll stop for the moment with a question mark. I'm too tired now to try an answer to that (plus the doctor told me to stop drinking and I didn't chew enough poppy pretzels to get the opium concentration in blood sufficiently high to trigger an inspiration boost). I'm still not tired enough though to give up on the idea that the rabbits can be "modeled" somehow such that somewhere, sometime, to get an acceptable convergence and catch more than one.

I'll end this with a short film I remembered about which says more than many words ( it's a movie blog after all :) ) .. + a warm "Happy New Year !" and a wish for a .. let's say nicer 2014 than the (still) current year ;)



PS 1 : I've been gradually trying on my .ro blog version to switch my "chasing rabbits" annual entry to a "let me tell you a story" entry. Unsuccessful by now because I didn't have time to catch the story "rabbit", but I'm slowly progressing. And it's not the 1st time anyway, but I didn't write any since 2009 so it's been a while. Who knows, maybe next year ;)

PS 2 : For who's interested in the Chomsky talks from "Is the Man Who Is Tall Happy ?", that's the trailer. Enjoy!

Ravenous (1999)

Considering that I'm writing about the movie based on some far memories, I don't know how much I'll miss or not, and forgive please the (probably) chaotic order of the following. I hope I'll catch the essence though, since I've seen the movie around seven times throughout the last 13 years. Also, during this time I reached the conclusion that's a movie which either you like a lot, or not at all. I don't know if I've met somebody to tell me that it was "so and so", and if I would count the opinions for the plus and minus sides, they're probably evenly split. It's a horror, but with a less touched subject - cannibalism - handled in a context and in a way which maybe surprisingly make the topic more "digestible" :) (no pun intended). Because the movie goes a bit more far in essence getting beyond the surface theme. It starts that with the intro taken from Nietzsche "He who fights with monsters must be careful not to become one" which, ironically, probably remains the only part connected to his philosophical ideas that's not attacked by the movie. I actually should give credit for this insight to some blog entry I've read once, I don't know where, that was debating in detail the subject "Nietzsche vs. Ravenous" :). Because the movie, besides the horror nuance it's a fine satire on the human condition, and more specifically targeting the importance of life. Probably it doesn't say much what I've written until now, but I hope at least I managed to generate some curiosity to who's reading, so let me drop a couple words also on the subject itself ;) ...

The action is set at some point in the middle of the 19th century. Following the "bravery" shown during the Mexican-American war - to be read: hiding under a pile of corpses, and managing to victoriously survive an impossible situation - John Boyd (Guy Pearce) avoids getting sentenced for deserting by being advanced to captain and getting sent to fill up the army personnel detached on an isolated fort, somewhere in the mountains before a passage to California. So, with a moral like it would've been better to get killed in battle, he joins the group of seven inhabitants at the place - 5 army members and 2 civilians, each weirder than the other. During a cold winter night the fort's "calmness" is disturbed by a guy who's more dead than alive (Robert Carlyle), frozen, who after getting on his feet starts telling a grim story. So, we find out about a trip to California ended badly by getting lost in mountains, and topped by the hunger effects on the travelers group. Our frozen guy apparently escaped before getting to be the main course during the next dinner. The rest of the story, in the movie ;) ...

Besides the acting, which is superb in building up the characters, something to be noticed in the movie is the soundtrack - Damon Albarn and Michael Nyman, which is probably one of the best and in the same time interesting scores ever made for a horror. I would even say it's on par with the masterpiece you can hear in Hitchcock's "Psycho", although the effect it creates is totally different. Hard to describe, you need to see and hear it.

The horror nuance is probably given, besides the general dark theme, by the bloody scenes, which are plenty, but we don't have anything extreme (as in "Saw" to give the "classic" example). At least for me it's not a movie to generate nightmares or to make you jump from the chair. More, the satire and the comic (even dark and grim as it is) relax the movie almost completely in respect to the "terror effect". Besides that, as I was saying, the movie's idea is a bit deeper and revolves around the motivation for living (or the lack of it), the price for that, and why paying it. I'll refrain from getting into philosophy right now, especially since I don't have the movie very fresh in my head, but it's not a title to take easy just as entertainment. In particular, there are plenty of details, from the used symbolism to lines lost in the context when you see it first, but which you might discover at a second view. As example, the fort commander breaks nuts with some books (I guess) in the beginning of the movie and with his bare hands in the end. This is just something going on in parallel with some conversation carried. The sense connects with the character state and also with some lines at those given points in the timeline, and I don't think you'll normally get the nuts detail from the 1st viewing. There are more like this one. I don't know how much is from the script (Ted Griffin) but the directing by Antonia Bird was flawless. It's the only movie I've seen by her, and since I've found out that she recently passed away, I felt the need to give some credit for who, at least for me, gave the best horror of the '90s. For the reader .. you might hate it, you might love it, I don't know ;)

Rating: 5 out of 5

A soundtrack sample, on movie scenes ( or 4 minutes compressing all the bloody moments :) ) ..
The final scene (Warning ! = major spoiler, but it's the best clip quality wise that I found, although it doesn't catch much from the merits of this movie) ..
And a perspective on the movie from when was done by the people involved (unfortunately embedding disabled, so you need one more click) ..