![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Aug. 20th, 2007 09:28 pmSo I watched "Sunshine" the other day, and, like most other people (except ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
theophile) I think that it started out awesome and just completely fell apart by act three.
But you know what's worse than then last third of "Sunshine"? Roger Ebert's review of same.
I was actually kind of disturbed by it. Without hyperbole, I thought it might be a very-early sign of elderly dementia, because it is mean-spirited, smug, and makes little enough sense that it makes me pause and go "is he all right you know...up there?" Also it's sloppy.
from the review:
As a permanent winter settles upon the Earth, a spaceship is sent on a desperate mission to drop a nuclear device into the sick sun and "re-ignite" it. To name the ship "Icarus I" seems like asking for trouble in two ways, considering the fate of the original Icarus and the use of a numeral that ominously leaves room for a sequel. Indeed, the first ship disappears. As "Sunshine" opens, the "Icarus II" with seven astronauts on board is approaching Mercury, protected by a shield that protects it from solar incineration.
Roger Ebert, I know that you know what redundant means! I also know that you were, once upon a time, capable of stringing a sentence together. I was always ambivalent about you, Roger Ebert. You were too Midwestern and crypto-Catholic for my sensibilities, and you loved "Magnolia" (now I am beeing redundant, see crypto-Catholic clause), plus I gave away my heart to Anthony Lane long ago, but you penned some decent, thoughtful reviews in your day (although I just re-learned about foreshadowing from R. Kelly, and your current smugness was, in fact, foreshadowed, by your pre-existing smugness).
Anyway, moving on:
The movie was written by the sci-fi novelist Alex Garland, whose "28 Days Later" made a scary film.
Alex Garland is not a sci-fi novelist. His most famous novel is "The Beach," which is about a backpacker fantasy of the hidden pristine turned Lord of the Flies. His other novels are variations on psychological thrillers, they are moody, paranoid, existential, but sci-fi they are not.
He goes on to wank about his own instilled-in-childhood ideas of the standards sci-fi should adhere to like this review is his own autobiography, he for some inexplicable reason feels that the psychological interactions between the crew are the weakest point of the film...but it was the coda to the review that just left me going "wha?"
So, anyway, younger girls won't like this movie, unless they know what happens under an automobile hood. Younger boys won't like it because the only thing that's possibly going to blow up real good is the sun. But science-fiction fans will like it, and also brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there's a lot going on up there, and we can't even define precisely what a soliton is.
Roger Ebert's gender socialization theory scares me.
theophile) I think that it started out awesome and just completely fell apart by act three.But you know what's worse than then last third of "Sunshine"? Roger Ebert's review of same.
I was actually kind of disturbed by it. Without hyperbole, I thought it might be a very-early sign of elderly dementia, because it is mean-spirited, smug, and makes little enough sense that it makes me pause and go "is he all right you know...up there?" Also it's sloppy.
from the review:
As a permanent winter settles upon the Earth, a spaceship is sent on a desperate mission to drop a nuclear device into the sick sun and "re-ignite" it. To name the ship "Icarus I" seems like asking for trouble in two ways, considering the fate of the original Icarus and the use of a numeral that ominously leaves room for a sequel. Indeed, the first ship disappears. As "Sunshine" opens, the "Icarus II" with seven astronauts on board is approaching Mercury, protected by a shield that protects it from solar incineration.
Roger Ebert, I know that you know what redundant means! I also know that you were, once upon a time, capable of stringing a sentence together. I was always ambivalent about you, Roger Ebert. You were too Midwestern and crypto-Catholic for my sensibilities, and you loved "Magnolia" (now I am beeing redundant, see crypto-Catholic clause), plus I gave away my heart to Anthony Lane long ago, but you penned some decent, thoughtful reviews in your day (although I just re-learned about foreshadowing from R. Kelly, and your current smugness was, in fact, foreshadowed, by your pre-existing smugness).
Anyway, moving on:
The movie was written by the sci-fi novelist Alex Garland, whose "28 Days Later" made a scary film.
Alex Garland is not a sci-fi novelist. His most famous novel is "The Beach," which is about a backpacker fantasy of the hidden pristine turned Lord of the Flies. His other novels are variations on psychological thrillers, they are moody, paranoid, existential, but sci-fi they are not.
He goes on to wank about his own instilled-in-childhood ideas of the standards sci-fi should adhere to like this review is his own autobiography, he for some inexplicable reason feels that the psychological interactions between the crew are the weakest point of the film...but it was the coda to the review that just left me going "wha?"
So, anyway, younger girls won't like this movie, unless they know what happens under an automobile hood. Younger boys won't like it because the only thing that's possibly going to blow up real good is the sun. But science-fiction fans will like it, and also brainiacs, and those who sometimes look at the sky and think, man, there's a lot going on up there, and we can't even define precisely what a soliton is.
Roger Ebert's gender socialization theory scares me.
