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Tag Archives: lost in space

4/30/14: Today Came Yesterday

02 Monday Jun 2014

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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'70s films, '70s-era, Bruce Dern, Charles F. Wheeler, cinema, Cliff Potts, Deric Washburn, Dewey and Louie, director-producer, directorial debut, Douglas Trumbull, Earth, environmentalism, film reviews, films, Freeman Lowell, global warming, greenhouse effect, Huey, Jesse Vint, L.A. Law, lost in space, Michael Cimino, Monsanto, Movies, near future, NYPD Blue, outer space, robot helpers, Ron Rifkin, sci-fi, Silent Running, space operas, special effects, Steve Bochco, Steven Bochco, The Deer Hunter, trees, Truck Turner, visual effects pioneer

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Sometimes, science fiction can be so fantastic, so out-of-this-world, that it leaves the realm of “science” and puts both feet firmly in the “fiction” camp. Take Douglas Trumbull’s ’70s-era sci-fi film, Silent Running, for example. In this particular movie, we’re led to believe that in the near future, mankind has destroyed Earth’s atmosphere due to unchecked industrialization and pollution, leading to the loss of all flora on the planet. Not only are we asked to buy this utterly outrageous scenario (since when has unchecked industrialization ever led to anything but more money and happiness?) but it’s also compounded by a further bit of foolishness: in order to preserve what trees and plants are remaining, we’ve put them aboard gigantic, spaceship-sized greenhouses and sent them into space, where they can be free from Earth’s noxious atmosphere, serving as a melancholy reminder of what we once enjoyed.

As mentioned, utter hogwash: why in the Sam Hell would we waste money sending the trees into space when we could just let them die, for free, by doing nothing? As long as future generations can read about them, that should be more than sufficient: no self-respecting “person-in-charge” would spend one cent on this foolishness, much less the perceived mega-cost of a fleet of spaceships. After all…they’re just trees, right? What real use do they have, besides the obvious benefit of building resources and mass-producing toothpicks?

Silent Running is concerned with Freeman Lowell (Bruce Dern), an employee of the defunct Forestry Department who has spent the past eight years tending the last remaining forests. These forests have been uprooted from their native terra firme and set to space, orbiting Saturn in massive “greenhouses” in order to protect them from Earth’s now noxious environment. Lowell is the epitome of the tree-hugging peacenik: hanging out in long, flowing, Druid-style robes; growing his own, organic food; petting fluffy bunnies and tenderly planting each new seed, cutting and sapling. His crew members, however, aren’t quite as eco-friendly as ol’ Lowell: Barker (Ron Rifkin), Wolf (Jesse Vint) and Keenan (Cliff Potts) spend their days racing around the spaceship on ATVs (crushing Lowell’s plants in the process), scarfing down the fake, processed “food” that they’ve been provided and bitching about being stuck in space with hippy Lowell, when they’d much rather be back on good ol’ Earth, pollution be damned. When a communique comes in from Earth, Lowell expects the best (the reinstatement of the Forestry Department and his installation as Director) but gets the worst (nuke the forests and bring the ships back to Earth, where they can be re-purposed for commercial usage.

Lowell, of course, is devastated: this is akin to a mass genocide, for him, and synonymous with giving up the rest of our (tenuous) humanity. The others, however, are overjoyed and rush to set the nukes as quickly as they’re able. While the other ships around him begin to glow with the inferno of their “cleansing,” Lowell just can’t let that fate befall the forests under his care. In a moment of terrifying clarity, Lowell takes matters into his own hands and, with the assistance of his faithful robotic helpers, Huey and Dewey, sets out to atone for mankind’s mistakes and preserve the forests, at all costs.

When visual effects pioneer Douglas Trumbull directed Silent Running in 1972, there no way he could have known how prescient the film would become by 2014, a mere 40+ years later. After all, Silent Running is a film that examines not only over-industrialization, pollution, resource management (and waste) and global warming but it also manages to throw haymakers at genetically modified food and our species’ tendency to put the almighty dollar above the needs of the natural order. In a day and age when words like “Monsanto” and “GMO” are hot-button issues and revelations about global warming on shows like Fox’s Cosmos can bring the kind of angry debates that used to be restricted to questions like “Tastes great?” or “Less filling?”, it definitely seems like our world is ready for another look at this chestnut. While there’s plenty of hippy-dippy silliness to be found here (the ’60s weren’t far in the rearview mirror, after all), there’s also a surprisingly somber and moving meditation on what it means to be human, what it means to be a guest and what it means when we’ve lost something as basic as the plants around us. Throw in a powerful, nearly solo performance from Bruce Dern and you’ve got a film that deserves to be given a chance to add its voice to the current debate.

Right off the bat, Silent Running looks absolutely gorgeous, featuring some of the most majestic space shots you’re likely to see from that era (2001: A Space Odyssey, by contrast, came out a mere four years before Silent Running). Trumbull was an award-winning, visionary, special effects pioneer whose work in films like 2001 (1968), The Andromeda Strain (1971), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977),  Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and, my personal favorite, Blade Runner (1982), pushed the genre (and films, in general) into exiting, new places. His work on Silent Running, perhaps because it was a labor of love, are exemplary: the early shot we get as the camera zooms out of the forest and into outer space, to reveal the greenhouse-ships for the first time, is a true stunner. Words like “awe-inspiring” get thrown around a lot today but I would love to have been able to experience this film in the theater, with other people: I can’t imagine that there was anyone there who didn’t have their mind blown by that initial reveal. Likewise, the scene where Lowell navigates through the rings of Saturn is a Technicolor marvel, reminiscent of the equally impressive space-travel scene in 2001.

Trumbull also used real people, under costuming, for the parts of the robot helpers, which gives them an odd sense of movement that’s strangely realistic: it’s an interesting effect that only speaks to the care and attention put into the production. Truth be told, everything about the visual style of Silent Running works exceptionally well: the sense of world-building in the film is pretty complete, unlike more generic “space operas” that feature anonymous scenery and Spaceship #1, Robot #5 scenarios. By extension, the acting in Silent Running is pretty good, although all other characters become subsidiary to Dern’s, by the end. Although this isn’t a “one-man-show” film like Moon (2009), Wrecked (2010), Gravity (2013) or All is Lost (2013), the focus is squarely on Dern throughout, with the other characters serving only to play up elements of his own personality or to provide him moral/logistic challenges.

Dern has been a helluva career actor, logging time in nearly 150 projects in just over 50 years, with many of them being of the utmost quality. He’s easily one of our most under-rated actors and Silent Running gives a great opportunity to see Dern play a role that’s more low-key than his usual parts but no less passionate. Without Dern’s powerful performance, Silent Running would be a beautiful bit of cotton-candy, big ideas in search of an anchor: Dern is just that anchor, attaching the film’s ideas about ecology and conservationism to a decidedly human ideal. It’s a sad, sympathetic performance and, to be honest, quite haunting: I found myself thinking about Freeman Lowell quite a bit in the days following my screening of the film.

In another nifty hat-trick, Silent Running’s script also featured the early effort of two gentlemen who would go on to full careers: Michael Cimino and Steven Bochco. Ciminio, of course, is best known for the epic failure that was Heaven’s Gate (1980) but he also wrote and directed the award-winning The Deer Hunter (1978), as well as writing the Clint Eastwood vehicles Magnum Force (1973) and Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974). Bochco, of course, is the guy synonymous with creating a TV empire, including such iconic shows as Hill Street Blues, Doogie Howser, M.D., L.A. Law and NYPD Blue. Together with Deric Washburn (who also worked on The Deer Hunter screenplay with Cimino), they’ve turned in a really tight script, filled not only with gripping action sequences (the aforementioned Saturn crossing, the race against time with the nukes) but also big emotional beats (Lowell’s inspiring speech to his crew members, the poignant and lovely finale). Silent Running is that rare event movie that is actually about something, rather than being a mindless excuse to consume popcorn.

If there is any point where the film feels “silly” or dated, it would definitely have to be the awful theme songs, sung by Joan Baez. The songs are both stereotypical hippy twaddle, to be frankly honest, and seem so cliché as to drive the rest of the film down. In one key scene, one of the stupid songs scores a bit where a hawk flies to Lowell’s outstretched: combined with the song, the scene is so ridiculous and treacley as to be laughable. If anyone wants to cast dispersion on Silent Running, let it be for the awful songs, which give the exact mental image that the rest of the film works so hard to contradict. Lowell may be a “hippy” but the songs are the worst kind of pabulum and definitely do the film a disservice.

There’s a point, in the film, where Lowell argues with his ship-mates over the tide of progress that’s brought them to where they are now. As the other men point out, Earth’s policies may have done irreparable damage to the environment and the flora but it also led to no poverty, no disease and a constant temperature of 75 degrees. In short, this has become a “golden age” for mankind, despite the implications for everyone else. This may be true, Lowell grants, but it also means there is no more imagination, no more frontiers to conquer…because we just don’t care anymore. When we turn our backs on the natural world and defy the complex machinery of nature, we’re making a definite statement: we know better than you do, whoever you may be. “You” may be a higher power or it may be a dedicated group of environmental activists. “You” may be a raft of scientists or it may be the board of directors of a mega-corporation. “You” could be a bunch of loud-mouthed “eco-terrorists” or it could be Mother Nature, herself.

In this day and age, “we” are so sure about everything, so confident in our own boundless abilities, that we always know better than “you.” This, of course, is a shame: we can always stand to learn from others, no matter who they are or what they believe. In crafting a bold, new world for humanity we have said, unequivocally, that we know what is best for the planet and, by default, what is best for every living thing on it. This is not only hubris but it’s dangerous. In the business world, sticking to the same unsuccessful strategy would not only be considered pointless but it would also be seen as crazy. We’ve tried to wring every last drop and resource out of our planet for almost 200 years, now: maybe it’s finally time to try something different.

 

2/25/14: Lost in Space (Oscar Bait, Part 9)

02 Wednesday Apr 2014

Posted by phillipkaragas in Uncategorized

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2013 Academy Awards, 86th Annual Academy Awards, Academy Award Nominee, Alfonso Cuaron, All Is Lost, astronauts, auteur theory, Best Actress nominee, Best Cinematography winner, Best Director nominee, Best Film Editing winner, Best Original Score winner, Best Picture nominee, Best Sound Editing winner, Best Sound Mixing winner, Best Visual Effects winner, Children of Men, cinema, disaster films, Ed Harris, Emmanuel Lubezki, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, George Clooney, Gravity, lost in space, marooned, Movies, multiple Oscar winner, outer space, rescue mission, Sandra Bullock, sci-fi, space shuttle, special-effects extravaganza, thriller, trapped in space

My Oscar-prep viewing for the last week of February continued with Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity. Of all of the nominees, I was probably (initially) most excited to see this one, since I’m a huge fan of Cuaron’s previous film, the wonderfully dystopic Children of Men. After waiting seven years for a follow-up, how would Gravity stack up? And did it really earn all ten of its Oscar nominations? Read on, gentle readers…read on.

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As a boy, my twin loves (above and beyond anything else that I loved) were dinosaurs and outer space. If there was a book about the subject(s), I read it. if there was a show or movie, I watched it. I’ve always been fascinated by huge, open expanses but my inability to swim has always rendered the deep-sea about as terrifying as diving into an active volcano. Space, however, was a different story. As frightening as the notion of all of that vast emptiness was, I never ceased to be fascinated and drawn to it. As time went on and I got older, my former obsession with dinosaurs gradually faded into my childhood, although I remember being fairly agog when I first saw Jurassic Park in the theater. My obsession with space, however, has never waned. If anything, I find myself more fascinated by it now then I ever was: we truly live in a glorious time for anyone who’s ever wondered about what might be “up there,” since we seem to get word of astounding new galactic discoveries on a fairly regular basis. If there’s one thing me and my boyhood self would agree on, it’s this: outer space is pretty damn amazing.

Interestingly enough, however, my lifelong love of space hasn’t really translated into a love of sci-fi films. I’ve found many, over the years, that I really enjoy and a few that I even love: 2001; Alien; The Black Hole; Event Horizon, to name a few. For the most part, however, I’m not really drawn to the space shoot-em-ups of stuff like Star Wars or Battlestar Galactica. I’m much more interested in low-key, intellectual films like Moon, Europa Report, 2001 and Solaris. Part of the appeal of space, to me, has always been the inherent mystery of it: the best sci-fi films manage to preserve this sense of mystery while still giving something to thrill along to.

Gravity could certainly be said to exist in the same company as the aforementioned “intelligent” sci-fi films, but it’s not quite the same thing. There is nothing lunk-headed or especially clumsy about the film but its heart is definitely more interested in action (sometimes so non-stop as to almost seem real-time) than it is in wonder or inquiry. There’s nothing wrong with this, mind you, but it immediately puts Gravity into a slightly different category and is one of the reasons why I couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed after the whole thing was over.

Story-wise, Gravity is simplicity itself: Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) and Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) are American astronauts on a routine spacewalk when disaster strikes. The Russians have accidentally bombed one of their own satellites, which has caused deadly space debris to travel into the Americans’ vicinity. Too late to avoid the bombardment, Stone and Kowalski find themselves adrift in space, no contact with Earth and only their connecting tether keeping them from spinning away into the vastness of forever. Using every ounce of their strength, courage and cautious optimism, the two must do everything they can to make it back home, lest the far reaches of space become their frigid tomb.

In a nutshell, that’s pretty much it: just slightly over 90 minutes of Bullock trying desperately to get back home. In many respects, Gravity and All Is Lost (Redford stuck at sea on a sinking sailboat) are kindred spirits. Both are claustrophobic, quick-paced thrill rides that feature one protagonist (it’s no spoiler to say that Bullock spends the majority of the film alone), almost no supporting characters or additional actors and minimal locations. While I heartily enjoyed Gravity, I’ll have to give the edge here to All Is Lost for one very important reason: it didn’t dilute its impact with unnecessary emotional baggage. In All Is Lost, we end up knowing as little about Redford’s character as possible: he doesn’t even get a name. This isn’t to say that there’s no character information whatsoever: through a few small, subtle scenes, we find out enough about Redford’s character (wife and kids back home, well-to-do older man) to become invested in his struggle. At no time, however, does the film wring unnecessary mileage out of the emotional beats: they’re just there to humanize the character.

In Gravity, however, Ryan’s back-story directly influences her actions in the film and, at times, is used as the sole emotional ballast. For my money, this wasn’t the best way to humanize the character and, to be honest, had a bit of the opposite effect for me. At times, I found myself questioning Ryan’s actions: she would be unthinkingly swift and decisive one moment, curled in a fetal position and looking “lost” the next. While this might be a natural reaction for any normal person caught in the situation, it still had the effect of dragging down the film and injecting a maudlin, overly emotional tone that was at odds with the film’s more clinical inclinations. It’s almost as if Cuaron was unsure if the audience would be fully invested in the actual things happening to Bullock’s character (who the hell wouldn’t find being lost in space terrifying and thrilling?!), so he decided to hedge his bets by piling on a tragic back-story for her to overcome. It’s a reductive measure and, effectively, boils down Ryan’s entire experience in space to “overcoming personal adversity.” It’s equivalent to Ripley coming at the Mother Alien with the robot suit only to end up shaking hands and hugging it out. This is particularly puzzling since, aside from the too obvious back-story and some beats with Clooney’s character, there isn’t anything obvious about the actual film. This was a pretty big disappointment for me, since it seemed like a concession to what modern audiences expect from films, not what filmmakers actually intend. I keep wondering how amazing this film would have been as a non-stop, tightly-shot, A-B-C thriller and it makes the final product even more disappointing.

But, let’s be absolutely frank here: most people going to see Gravity won’t be going for the character development, the writing or anything of that nature: they’ll be going to experience a huge, eye-popping visual smorgasbord. And on that count, Gravity absolutely does not disappoint. In fact, I daresay that I really have no appropriate words to describe how utterly, sumptuously amazing the film looks. There isn’t one frame that didn’t look meticulously composed and I still have no idea whatsoever how many of the shots were achieved. As far as I can tell, Cuaron took a small crew into deep space and filmed: that’s about the best explanation I have for a lot of the film. The SFX are seamless, the space visuals are so stunning that I got teary-eyed (really) and the sound effects put you right in the thick of everything. If there’s one part of the filmmaking I didn’t care for, however, it would definitely have to be Steven Price’s intrusive, too-obvious score. Something more minimalist and  moody would have helped the film but I felt like the score tried to be too leading: I’m not a fan of hand-holding between filmmakers and the audience and the score was definitely that. As far as the technical awards and the Best Cinematography statue, however? There was simply no other film in the running after this one: even discussing other films’ effects as being equitable is absolutely ridiculous.

At the end of the day, perhaps my own unreasonable expectations led me to be disappointed by Gravity. Don’t get me wrong: I enjoyed most of the film as I was watching it (save for the overly emotional bits referenced above). I was even stunned at several points, especially that jaw-dropping opening. It was a fun, exquisitely crafted film with a rock-solid performance by Bullock (not Oscar worthy, IMHO, but damn close), a very Clooney-esque performance by George C and a totally awesome reference to my favorite scene in Jaws. It was also, unfortunately, a rather slight film, almost more of an effects exercise then anything else. I remember how much I found myself pondering and returning to Children of Men after I first saw it. After watching Gravity, my only thought was, “Damn: shoulda seen it in the theaters.” While Gravity was a good Cuaron film, it looks like I might have to wait another seven years for a great Cuaron film.

 

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