35 Days More

And So It Begins...

So sinister that sounds...

Deadline reports that Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron's ambitious and hotly anticipated 3-D science fiction thriller, will open (albeit out of competition) the 70th Venice Film Festival.  The film stars Sandra Bullock and George Clooney and debuted a startling teaser trailer a few months back.  Venice is a part of the trifecta of the early fall festival spree that starts to announce and gauge the beginning of the awards season-- the other two being Telluride and Toronto, all which occur nearly concurrently.  Cuaron has a history with Venice, which makes this announcement not so surprising.  Y Tu Mama Tambien, his wonderful 2001 sexual coming of age film won the screenplay prize that year.  He also took his last film, Children of Men to Venice in 2006, which won a special prize for Emmuanuel Lubezki's Oscar-nominated cinematography.  Gravity holds as an awards hopeful for Warner Bros. this year and potentially may boast a significant performance from Bullock, who based on early reports, is the only one on screen for the majority of the feature.  The Venice Film Festival will begin August 28th.  Let the games begin...

Holy Cow!!

Since it was announced that visionary mastermind/poet/bringer-of-all-things-good Alfonso Cuaron would be following up the masterful Children of Men with a science fiction lost in space yarn entitled Gravity, there was a palpable rush of adrenaline felt in the cinematic community.  The casting of Sandra Bullock and George Clooney added star luster, but the real treat was always going to be the magic that Cuaron would bring to his 3-D space tale.  It was a disappointment to learn that the film was pushed back a year after brief murmurs it would make its debut in the midst of last falls awards season.  Whatever the wait, and whatever the hype, this already demands to be a must see.  It is said that the film will open with a bravura 17-minute single take opening shot.  Heady, confounding, and potentially genius!  The synopsis is eerily simple:

"Astronauts attempt to return to earth after debris crashes into their space shuttle, leaving them drifting alone in space." 

Here's a first reaction of a someone who alleges to have seen an early cut of Gravity, courtesy of AICN:

This is not just next level shit, this is several levels ahead of next level shit, & quite possibly the highest level shit you could possibly make. This is like if Avatar had been released in 1927 a week after The Jazz Singer. People won’t know how to comprehend what they are seeing. In short, Gravity genuinely makes you feel like you have been to space. It really, really does. And guess what? It’s beautiful, and awe-inspiring, and profound (and a little scary too), everything you thought it would be since you first thought about going to space when you were a kid. The movie exploits dreams it knows every sentient being has had, using the best special effects I have personally ever seen. I honestly don’t know how you could enhance a cinematic experience more. I kept waiting for a cameo from the Tupac hologram.  However, some people might end up saying that Gravity ends up being too light on story & is just an expensive space roller coaster ride, ‘Space Mountain: The Movie’ if you will. But those people would be wrong, stupid & ungrateful. Gravity is an important & subtle character study wrapped up in the guise of the most technologically advanced film of the new millennium… To me the film is about apathy and isolation. It’s about people today not knowing why they should be excited about living but only knowing they don’t want to die. It’s about looking at your own insignificance in the universe (or on Earth, or at your job, or at your school, etc.) & becoming empowered by it instead of defeated. And most of all, it’s about seeing what it would be like to float through space like an astronaut (spoiler: it’s fun).