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Post by sunshinedna on Mar 14, 2007 3:27:00 GMT -5
Gia have a read of the Sunshine review in this months Sight & Sound, its probably the most highbrow film magazine in the UK, it gives the entire film away (probably not a good idea to post it ) but it also said some really good things about Sunshine! I'll have a look. The British Film Institute out of *anyone* has to recognise the sheer mastery of the craft in 'Sunshine'. I've had a few television people I know go to screenings and they have all raved about Alwin Kuchler's genius. He does things - which the VFX department steps up a notch- that are mind-blowing. If Alwin doesn't get nominated for *something* I will go mental. Here's more 'thoughts' on Sunshine: davemichaelbrown.blogspot.com/2007/03/danny-boyles-sunshine.html
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Post by sunshinedna on Mar 14, 2007 6:35:05 GMT -5
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Post by Amanda on Mar 14, 2007 11:40:34 GMT -5
Oh my gosh, I seriously love reading all of these...! I kind of like Wendy Mitchell's little paragraph thinger, too (although I'm slightly offended by the Cillian Murphy bit [obviously]). It's nothing special, but I dig the "it might just be the most visually stunning piece of cinema I've ever seen."
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Post by sunshinedna on Mar 16, 2007 12:08:42 GMT -5
Dark Horizons' review(spoilers) Some non-spoiler stuff: Danny Boyle’s Sunshine, the best science fiction film for a very long time. As realistic as it is thrilling, awe-inspiring and psychological, Boyle and screenwriter Alex Garland have taken some very accepted space movie conventions and breathed fresh life into every one. It’s the realism that strikes you the most. Yes, it’s exactly how you’d imagine a mission to re-enflame the sun would look in fifty years time, but that’s not the sort of realism we mean. It’s realistic in a way the Star Wars prequels weren’t. George Lucas had his actors running around blue and green rooms so he could paint thrilling backdrops in later. Boyle’s vision of outer space is more like Das Boot – fitting as the cast and key crew toured a nuclear submarine in Scotland as part of their preparation. The eight unfortunate souls live in dank steel rooms with only the smell of each others’ frustrations and fears for company. The Icarus II is an enormous spindle with spinning modules attached to a solar shield miles across, and the interiors are designed and coloured like a cramped navy ship that’s seen months of use, frayed patience and old sweat having seeped into the walls. For a director who started with the very real world of Shallow Grave and Trainspotting, Boyle has as commanding a sense of visuals as any other science fiction ‘branded’ director working today. Firstly, there’s plenty of CG, but it’s not the ‘look at me’ CG of a tentpole adventure film. It’s a tool to get the best picture on the screen and set the tone for the story being told. Technically, it’s seamlessly executed and you’ll never be surer you’re passing from the explosively lit front of a spacecraft to the darkness-enshrouded rear of towers and blinking lights spinning hauntingly through space. But there’s much more to the visuals than just great effects. Boyle hardly ever simply points and shoots. Many sequences and even individual frames are full of lighting, focus and depth effects that make the whole thing feel even more surreal, a visual metaphor for the dreamlike state the crew are in after so much stress and so little activity. In his visual language, Boyle owes much more to 2001 than any other space opera. Space travel is a perilous thing but oddly beautiful, like a dance, and Boyle gets it pitch perfect. It would also be easy to say he gets some excellent performances out of his cast, particularly Chris ‘Human Torch’ Evans, who’s never shown such presence on screen before. But the real kudos for emotional resonance goes to Alex Garland’s lean, razor-sharp script, which leaves out as much as it includes. When a small number of the crew sit around a table <lalalalala! Can't hear you! Can't hear you! lalalala!>, there’s no rousing speech about how ‘if we do that it goes against the reason we’re out here’– it’s all in a single look. For a movie so strongly grounded in scientific and engineering reality, Sunshine also has a high emotional intelligence quotient, and the climax also veers into metaphysics and a little symbolism. But don’t let that deter you if it sounds a little too cerebral. Rarely do we get to enjoy such complex, adult characters, realistic dialogue and stunning imagery in the fantastic genres.
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Post by Amanda on Mar 16, 2007 12:27:18 GMT -5
SO. EXCITED.
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Post by chero on Mar 16, 2007 16:35:05 GMT -5
That review is one of my favorites! ;D It seems like Chris Evans doesn't make one flaw in this film (take THAT, IMDb!).
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Post by kaliszewski on Mar 16, 2007 17:00:02 GMT -5
I have a question: if it's so cramped, etc., etc., and even if it isn't, what do they do for exercise? Maybe it's not the right place to ask, but how is it, after sixteen months of spam-in-a-slightly-bigger-can tedium, that the crew doesn't look like me (i.e., Jabba the Hut as discovered in a mushroom cave)? How is Mace maintaining those manly shoulders...? Capa that human-whippet leanness...? Seems that if you were to send people on a multi-year voyage through space, you'd have to allow them more of it. Y'know. Space. The grungy ultra-utilitarian look made sense in "Alien." The Nostromo was basically a Mack truck in space (and even some Mack trucks these days have made real advances in terms of comfort), and the crew spent most of their time in hypersleep between destinations. Seems that the people who designed the Icarus II would really have to focus on the user-friendliness of the ship's interior. People are going to live in here for a great big chunk of time: what can we do-- in terms of lighting, colors, recreational space, etc.-- to keep them from going insane? It's not a question of blowing money and time on sissy design elements: anything we can do to keep the team psychologically balanced is a plus for the mission. Real-world example: About eight years ago, my company brought in a professional workspace makeover team. As a result, our floor looks like the interior of the Enterprise D. Curving hallspace, discretely creative paint colors, designer furniture, off-the-cuff lighting, even an arboretum. And big cubes. In contrast, my friend, who's a cubedweller for a different company, works in a cramped cube under glaring light in a land of sterile white walls. Granted, my job has made me insane-- but I have to admit, I've been doing my nut-going in a pleasant, well-designed environment. So why cram the Icarus II crew into standard-issue space-submarine digs? They have the Oxygen Garden-- but what else? You have the technology to build a bomb the size of Manhattan (and I'm glad someone finally realized just how big Kansas is! ), but you're going to shortchange the most important part of the mission-- the welfare of the crew-- by opting for cramped, dim living spaces...? Where's the Bowflex, man...?
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Post by kagerou on Mar 17, 2007 0:24:30 GMT -5
I have a question: if it's so cramped, etc., etc., and even if it isn't, what do they do for exercise? Maybe it's not the right place to ask, but how is it, after sixteen months of spam-in-a-slightly-bigger-can tedium, that the crew doesn't look like me (i.e., Jabba the Hut as discovered in a mushroom cave)? How is Mace maintaining those manly shoulders...? Capa that human-whippet leanness...? Seems that if you were to send people on a multi-year voyage through space, you'd have to allow them more of it. Y'know. Space. Though I agree with you, Kali, it's possible that most of what they eat would be some sort of synthesized protein schlop that was like the Matrix gruel: "vitamins, amino acids, all the body needs, blah blah." And the salads. Must remember the salads.
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Post by kaliszewski on Mar 17, 2007 0:39:59 GMT -5
Yeah-- but I'm living, breathing proof that being parked on your can in a confined space for multiple hours a day can bring your metabolism to a screeching-- actually, it's more like a whimpering-- halt. Salads and Matrix-glop or not. (It's a weird feeling, knowing that your body is thinking: "That lettuce leaf--? It's going STRAIGHT TO YOUR HIPS, TUBBY!") Just curious, y'know: what DO they do for exercise? I mean, even here in Purgatory, we've got a walking path. And a nice workout is always good for dissipating could-be/would-be-homicidal impulses.... (I know, I know: we give 'em light and space and a nicely equipped gym, and-- * pfft*: there goes forty percent of our dramatic tension.... )
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Post by kagerou on Mar 19, 2007 21:02:25 GMT -5
Maybe they run laps around the rooms, hamster-style? Who needs what you could do if you had too much energy? Walking on ceilings might be just that bit closer to the truth.
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Post by mrsmurphy on Mar 20, 2007 13:42:15 GMT -5
Oh my gosh, I seriously love reading all of these...! I kind of like Wendy Mitchell's little paragraph thinger, too (although I'm slightly offended by the Cillian Murphy bit [obviously]). It's nothing special, but I dig the "it might just be the most visually stunning piece of cinema I've ever seen." How can you not take Cillian seriously? He is such an amazing actor!!
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Post by sunshinedna on Mar 25, 2007 4:58:11 GMT -5
When Brittany, Chero, Amanda and I were at the BFI screening I saw British film critic Mark Kermode in the audience (he's in the Screen Directory's Top 10 Critics of All Time... Here is his review. Excerpt: "2007: A Scorching New Space Odyssey ... Sunshine boasts extraordinary computer graphic imagery so luminescent you feel you could get sunburn just watching the film. As a sensory experience, it's overwhelming. But perhaps more importantly, Sunshine also harks back to a time when sci-fi turned its attention not toward the hallowed teen market but toward the heavens. Although screenwriter Alex Garland has said the inspiration for the film came from 'an article projecting the future of mankind from a physics-based, atheist perspective', this ambitious British fantasy increasingly blurs the boundaries between science and religion. In this respect, it falls within a grand tradition of adult-orientated science-fiction which is haunted by the question of divinity, whether as a presence or an absence. ..." Yes.
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Post by Amanda on Mar 25, 2007 10:15:28 GMT -5
Oh, thank goodness.
Awesome. Incredible.
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Post by jadefalcon on Apr 12, 2007 0:30:14 GMT -5
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Post by kagerou on Apr 12, 2007 0:35:54 GMT -5
Wow, a 4.5. Impressively dreary. Haha, the line about Capa.
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