Five Movies in Five Days: Part One- GRAVITY

My winter break is five glorious days of sleeping in, Chinese food, and non-stop DVD viewing of the Larry Sanders Show. To break up the monotony and class myself up a bit, I have decided to leave my home for at least two hours a day and head to the multiplex.  Five movies in five days. Besides eating up half my weekly salary, it is an exercise in film interpretation, structural analysis, and genre/character integrity. That, and a break from my mother.

Monday: Gravity

Spoiler alert: George Clooney DIES!

Synopsis: Astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney) and Mission Specialist (i.e. NOT a pilot, but a scientist…so can’t fly a ship) Ryan Something (Sandra Bullock, with very short hair) are marooned in space. A chain reaction from a missile test causes more and more space junk to burst into a thousand pieces, which then wiz through space in orbit and hit the Space Shuttle, killing the entire crew sans Clooney and Bullock, who were spacewalking at the time to repair some fancy expensive tinfoil looking thing. They need to make their way to the International Space Station, but every 1.5 hours, the space junk comes flying back at them. AGHHHHHHH!!!

My Review: I give it an A. And not just cause I am an easy grader. The visuals were AWESOME. And I saw it in 3D, which I normally eschew because it gives me headaches. But frankly, seeing George Clooney in 3D and reaching out to grab him is probably the closest I will ever get to touching him. The 15$ is sooo worth it.

Sandra Bullock just gets one obstacle thrown at her after another. Low oxygen? CHECK! Fire on her rescue ship? CHECK! Having to pilot a ship back to earth with directions in only Russian and later, Chinese? CHECK and CHECK! And…an hour of solo screen time to boot!

When she finally reaches one of the foreign space ships in orbit (deserted of crew) and takes off her space suit, gasping for oxygen, she is as dry as a cotton swab, not one damp spot of sweat to be seen.  As a viewer, I myself was gasping for air right along with her, and I can tell you that not only would I have been drenched if I had just been through what Sandra had, but you would have seen the poop running down my legs.

Of course, Mission Specialist Sandra Bullock is further foiled by the elements, including her capsule being unable to break free of the its tangled parachute, even at full throttle. And yet the tether that kept George and Sandra together snapped like an old sclerotic rubber band, leaving them both to cling to whatever the could.

Sandra survives reentry, only to open the hatch too soon, which causes her ship to fill with water. Oh no! She is able to exit the capsule, but then her suit weighs her down and she cannot swim to the surface. Once more, she sheds her space suit and springs to the surface. She paddles to shore and shakily crawls onto the banks of the lake, clutching the wet sand in her hands. She slowly stands up and takes her first steps back on earth.

Lovely.

However, though we hear “Houston” telling her they are sending a rescue mission, I could not help but be concerned as to where she landed.  What if it was North Korea? Hmmm. Perhaps a sequel could tie the loose ends. Gravity Two: Thirty Years of Hard Labor.

On a side note, my dad, who accompanied me to the film, kept his 3D glasses. He now wears them on occasion, even after I explained that we are already in 3D. But he likes them, and actually, they do make quite the fashion statement.