Written as part of the weekly blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Join in the fun by picking three movies that fit the week's theme and writing a bit about them.
I'm a little late posting this week, but it is Thursday, and thus, time for Thursday Movie Picks...
... IN SPACE!!!!!!!
I have always been fascinated by astronauts, and wanted to be one for quite a long time in my youth. I remember begging my parents to let me go to space camp but it never happened. Ah, what could have been!
But at any rate, my love affair with outer space took a serious hit upon seeing one of my picks for this week. I decided that it was far too dangerous a profession for me, and another one of my picks this week confirmed that not only was it dangerous, but that it mostly involved work on the ground on Earth. WTF?! Here are my picks, going from Earth to outer space.
Contact (Robert Zemeckis, 1997) I'm maybe cheating a little with this one because Jodie Foster's character isn't technically an astronaut, but she does go into space. Maybe. It depends on your interpretation of what actually happens in the film's last act journey. But what I love most about Contact - besides Jodie Foster, of course - is how it focuses on the daily drudgery of work related to outer space. It's comparable to archeology: Most of it is slow and procedural, but once in a blue moon something truly exciting and magical happens. Consider this the "thinking person's outer space movie," and a damn good one.
Apollo 13 (Ron Howard, 1995) This film looks at both what happens on the ground at Mission Control and what happens in space during an actual mission. Of course, this is one of those "based on a true story" movies, so most people going in already know what's going to happen (NASA has a bad case of Murphy's Law on the Apollo 13 mission to the moon, but through genius, outside-the-box thinking, manages to get their boys home), but that doesn't make any of Ron Howard's film any less suspenseful, surprising, or heartbreaking. The cast and filmmaking are rock-solid, and the special effects remain convincing to this day. The whole story did a number on me as an 11 year-old, though: After seeing it, I abandoned all desires to ever go into outer space. I'm still a huge astronomy nut, though.
Gravity (Alfonso Cuarón, 2013) ...that said, I don't think I've ever seen a single image in all cinema that has inspired such fear deep in the pit of my gut as the one that ends Gravity's bravura opening seventeen-minute continuous shot - showing Sandra Bullock's Dr. Ryan Stone tumbling away into the black vastness of space. That Alfonso Cuarón's masterpiece somehow only gets more intense and thrilling from there seems impossible, but it is gloriously true. I was so impressed with this when I first saw it in IMAX 3D that I went back not a week later to see it in regular 2D just to see if it held up, and boy did it EVER. This is the most thrilling film of the '00s, an explosion of pure cinema that restored my faith in the art's ability to inspire awe, and Exhibit A for why you should see movies on the biggest screen possible, not on your freaking phone.
Written as part of the blogathon hosted by Wandering Through the Shelves. Play along by picking three movies that fit the weekly theme and telling us about them!
Well, color me stumped. I kept thinking of movies that I THOUGHT fit this category, only they turned out to be animated, or really for teens not kids, or some such. It's hard enough to make a good film for adults, but a film specifically aimed at children that adults would also enjoy? No mean feat, that. But I think I've found the answer.
A Little Princess (Alfonso Cuaròn, 1995) Maybe it's just because it was when I grew up, but the 90s were something of a Golden Age for family films. There were excellent versions of The Secret Garden and Little Women (directed by Agnieszka Holland and Gillian Armstrong) in 1993 and 1994 respectively, and then a year later there was this, directed by recent Oscar winner Alfonso Cuaròn. The story of A Little Princess is a bit trite (single father brings daughter to boarding school when he goes off to the army; father dies in battle, leaving the girl with no family and no money to pay for the school, and the Evil Headmistress turns her into a sort of elementary school-aged Cinderella, but she perseveres through strength of character and ability to tell stories), but the filmmaking and performances here are top-notch. Cuaròn showed such promise here - it's not hard to see the seeds of the auteur who made Children of Men and Gravity.
Babe (Chris Noonan, 1995) If you don't love this movie, there might be something wrong with you. Just saying. The story of a pig who becomes the world's greatest sheepdog through the power of kindness, Babe is just about the cutest damn movie you ever did see, and somehow manages to make live-action talking animals NOT creepy. Surely the film's Oscar-winning visual effects help, but the great vocal performances go a long way in that regard as well. James Cromwell and the hilarious Magda Szubanski lend perfect human support. In a just world, this would have won the Oscar for Best Picture in 1995.
The Muppet Christmas Carol (Brian Henson, 1992) Words cannot express how much I love this movie. And while I would say it's more clearly aimed at kids than the previous Muppet movies, this one holds the exact same pleasures for adults as those earlier hits. Michael Caine makes for a wonderful Scrooge, the concept of Gonzo (and Rizzo) narrating the story as Charles Dickens provides tons of laughs, the Muppets are all perfectly cast, and the design of the ghosts is perfection. And of course, there are the delightful, tuneful songs.
