(no subject)

[lapsedmodernist]

So I watched "Sunshine" the other day, and, like most other people (except 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.

Comments

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

So what does theophile think of Sunshine?

[bing-crosby.livejournal.com]

I'm a girl and I was more troubled by their totally implausible abuse of physics.

[apropos.livejournal.com]

this post totally made me LOL.

and i agree completely about Sunshine.

[zerodivide1101.livejournal.com]

You don't happen to secretly write a baseball blog, do you?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

my knowledge of baseball is limited to what I gleaned from "A League of Their Own." why, what about my entry resonated with this blog?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

in Ayn Rand world he would die when a movie theater designed and built by incompetent second-handers would collapse on him.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

yeah, at first I was, like, okay, this is going in a Solaris direction, sort of, but then bam, suddenly it alchemized into a pile of crap.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

he thought it was a great movie the whole way through, if I remember correctly.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

wait, did you write about it recently? I feel like maybe you did and I scrolled past b/c I didn't want spoilers, but now I want to read it. Or am I confusing you with someone else?

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

oh, I have no problem with that in sci-fi films, I actually love that films like "Paycheck" flesh out in 2-D (sounds like a paradox, but really isn't in that genre) ideas like nuking the sun or building a lens to see the curvature of light around the universe. It was the sudden genre switcheroo that I hated, along with the fact that it was really hard to understand what the hell was going on in the end.

[rezendi.livejournal.com]

I did briefly: http://rezendi.livejournal.com/133808.html

I thought the third act was weird but not a total failure.

[zerodivide1101.livejournal.com]

It reminded me of the format and writing style. :)

[bing-crosby.livejournal.com]

I guess I am not so much hung up on physics exactly, except that it was just like "this bomb will work" and there was no plot hung up in the deployment of the thing itself.

I know what you mean though -- my friend and I agreed, and were thinking there could have been plenty of drama just around the mission and the two ships, not needing to have some nutcase with no skin in the picture. It was like Danny Boyle still has the rage virus.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I kept being distracted by the fact that the nutcase reminded me of Henry Rollins in his "Liar" video when he turns his skin inside-out.

[lapsedmodernist.livejournal.com]

I know, that part didn't make any sense to me either. At least we should have seen some workout footage, like Robert De Niro in Cape Fear.

[theophile.livejournal.com]

a "getting it done" montage of Pinbacker slaughtering the original crew and doing Rocky III-style rugged masculine exercises would have been sublime. I'm thinking "We Are The Champions" as the soundtrack but maybe we should go for one of those new pop-punk bands to attract the younger generation.