Anybody Seen "Sunshine"?

[Dis]

and I thought this would be about eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Excellent movie.

This seems interesting. Could you describe more of the plot without spoiling it?

28 days later was kind of interesting. Can't beat gratuitous male frontal nudity. . I know it was supposed to focus on local events, but made very little reference to what was going on in the rest of the world. Was the island quarantined? That was my impression with the jets flying over.

[FrostyBoy]

Sunshine is decent to watch, you probably won't walk out of the theatre disappointed, just satisified.

As for Fountain, that was a good movie, especially the music.

[Bkeela]

Originally posted by Sn00py
Sunshine is decent to watch, you probably won't walk out of the theatre disappointed, just satisified.

As for Fountain, that was a good movie, especially the music.

Hmmm. So if you think The Fountain was good, and Sunshine merely 'decent', I shall avoid Sunshine like the plague. Thanks for the heads-up.

Edit: Oh, hang on, what am I thinking? If you think Sunshine merely decent, yet thought The Fountain good, then that means I will probably think Sunshine is above average and walk out of the cinema extremely satisfied.

Okay, I'll go and see it.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Originally posted by Dis
and I thought this would be about eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Excellent movie.

This seems interesting. Could you describe more of the plot without spoiling it?

The plot follows a crew of 8 in space who are on a mission to reignite the dying sun with some kind of super-duper warhead. That's what Sloww and others were making fun of, and it is pretty ludicrous, but it's also just something to set the plot in motion. It's certainly no more ludicrous that the science behind other great scifi films.

The plot itself is essentially: crew with essential, do-or-die mission pick up distress signal from comarades whose mission failed seven years earlier. Should they answer it or not? That conflict initially divides the crew (that's the psychological part I referred to), and the consequences of their choice set the action part of the plot in motion.

[FrostyBoy]

Bkeela, I'm curious what about The Fountain you dislike so much?

[Bkeela]

Originally posted by Sn00py
Bkeela, I'm curious what about The Fountain you dislike so much?

The disjointed plot spread over three eras served to dilute the characters and story so that I felt no empathy for their well being and thus couldn't care if they lived, died, or discovered the bleeding fountain of youth.

I also felt that Aronofsky's visual motifs, so striking in Requiem for a Dream, made The Fountain stale. For instance, the close up, repeated image of hairs becoming erect on the bark of the mystical tree made me feel sick after awhile.

Finally, I was led to believe it was science fiction. Floating through space in a bubble with a tree is not my idea of an interesting depiction of the future.

The Fountain is a confused, disorientating, New Age masturbatory fantasy.

[KrazyHorse]

It's certainly no more ludicrous that the science behind other great scifi films.

Only if your list of great sci-fi films goes as follows:

1) The Core

that is all

[KrazyHorse]

That being said, I'll probably still watch this at some point. The movie sounds like it has more to it than most sci-fi films.

[TheStinger]

Originally posted by Dis
and I thought this would be about eternal sunshine of the spotless mind. Excellent movie.

This seems interesting. Could you describe more of the plot without spoiling it?

28 days later was kind of interesting. Can't beat gratuitous male frontal nudity. . I know it was supposed to focus on local events, but made very little reference to what was going on in the rest of the world. Was the island quarantined? That was my impression with the jets flying over.

Like a Zombie movie in the US would refer to the rest of the world

[Thedrin]

Only if your list of great sci-fi films goes as follows:

1) The Core

that is all

Unlike just about every iminent-apocalypse film of the last few years - The Core, Armageddon, The Day After Tomorrow - Sunshine barely dwells on the fictional science which the story is built upon. How the sun is to be reignited is never explained. The crew is even aware that there's no solid evidence that the unexplained plan will actually work.

It's not a disaster film either (in the same way that the above mentioned films are). The film opens long after the ship has left Earth - just as it reaches a point beyond which contact with Earth is no longer possible.

When it comes to avoiding the ridiculous aspects of the plot, the film does about as good a job as could be expected, allowing a very interesting story to come through instead. How the crew deal with the ever increasing proximity to the source of life on Earth.

The best film I've seen this year. It's obviously visually stunning - better than anything I've yet seen - putting this year's Apocalypto and The Science of Sleep in the shade (300 doesn't compare, even to those two films), and has some of the tensest moments I've witnessed in years (aided by a really great sound track). But what makes it an excellent film is the well developed plot and characters. The film continuously builds on ideas presented in the beginning without ever forcing the audience to accept concepts that they might disagree with (The Abyss) or being so vague that an explanation must be searched for outside of the film (2001). Chris Evans could well become a major action star based on this for a very good leading role, but all the actors do very well with their parts. I was particularly impressed with Rose Byrne and Cliff Curtis. Cillian Murphy was excellent but I've come to expect that.

[Bkeela]

I wasted my money on this film last week. It had potential, but Danny Boyle botched it (no great surprise really).

Suffice to say that what follows could spoil your viewing experience, but it might also save your money...

Okay, the Icarus II is on its way to Sol to save the world and all that. They soon discover that Icarus I, the first, failed attempt to reignite the sun, is still intact and sending out a mayday. So it is decided to rendezvous with the craft, giving them potentially double the chance to save Earth.

Readjusting course is a tricky proposition though. If it wasn't for solar distortion making communication with Earth impossible, you could well imagine an entire building full of NASA nerds sweating bullets over the maneuver. At the very least you would assume that every person on Icarus II would be involved in the task. But this is a Danny Boyle film, so while the crew is distributed at all quarters of the spaceship, one lone crewman performs the necessary adjustments. He calculates and re-calculates the coordinates, but oops - he forgets just one important thing: to also adjust the sun shield!

All hell breaks lose, and with it all believability gets sucked out into the vacuum of space. Which is a great shame, for the film had established an interesting dynamic between the crew members, Hiroyuki Sanada as the captain was enigmatic, and the lovely Australian girl Rose Byrne was a pleasure to look at. There was almost an Alpha Centauri like vibe amongst the diverse members of the crew, and it reminded me what a great film that material could produce. If only Peter Jackson was into SMAC...

The visuals were also good, with cool blue interior shots contrasting nicely with the hot and orange exterior shots. The cinematography was also blessedly free from shakey cam.

In the end the film degenerates into an Event Horizon pile of fecal matter, which is climaxed with an ending so preposterous and unintelligible, it doesn't even make good comedy. Danny Boyle must be a very charismatic man, because I can't explain otherwise how he became a film maker.

Sunshine might have been good if the end of the world senario was entirely eliminated, and instead a more subtle story was put in its place. Why not just have the craft on a mission of exploration? There would be more time to get to know the crew and become attached to them. Their relationships and conflicts could be fully fleshed out. And when a bit of drama, perhaps a stray meteor or something, was introduced, the audience would actually care what happened. Unfortunately subtlety is a quality in which Danny Boyle is totally deficient. He instead attempts something that only a Kubrick, a Ridley Scott, or a James Cameron could successfully achieve - and he utterly fails.

[Gibsie]

Well, the whole, "if we fail our entire species dies" concept does add to the tension part a teeny bit, don't you think?

[Bkeela]

Originally posted by Gibsie
Well, the whole, "if we fail our entire species dies" concept does add to the tension part a teeny bit, don't you think?

As a passionate misanthropist and subscribed member of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, the only tension it excited in me was the risk the mission might actually succeed...

Seriously though, an abstract notion like an entire planet in peril is not as immediate or exciting as characters you are concerned about getting into danger. I don't think I've watched one disaster film where I have actually feared that Superman or whoever would actually fail in saving the world.