Movie Reviews #1…
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#1: 12 Years a Slave. Although not for the squeamish, this is Hollywood at its best. Chiwetel Ejiofor is superb as the musician who is kidnapped and taken to the South. We see the whole spectrum of this ignoble period in the nation’s history—from a concerned Canadian to a compassionate slave owner to a rat bastard who is a monster, not human. My only complaint is that the movie is too long—after a few sadistic scenes you get the idea, and you know that no matter what they show on the screen, the real situation was much worse!
#2: Last Vegas. Basically a vehicle designed to let some marvelous old actors, including the inimitable Mary Steenburgen, frolic around on the set. Good for a chuckle here and there, but isn’t it terrible to see all these old people making fools of themselves? This is Cocoon with much less plot, except aging. Your money is probably better spent elsewhere, or wait for NetFlix.
[Note from Steve: the following reviews appeared in “News and Notices from the Writing Trenches #58”—for those who missed them, I repeat them here.]
#3: Prisoners. The best movie mystery I’ve seen in years. It keeps you guessing right to the end. The acting by all the principals, led by Hugh Jackman in a very different role, is spot on. Have I read better mysteries? Yes! But Hollywood is not good at bringing this genre to the screen, so go and enjoy this exception. Caveat emptor: there’s some brutal violence here that made even me, ye olde thriller and mystery writer, a bit squeamish.
#4. Gravity. Shows that space exploration can still excite us, even on that big silver screen. In fact, you have to see this one in 3D—it’s well worth the extra price. I’ll never go into space, but this movie is as good as an IMAX documentary I saw on the ISS about giving you the feel of what it’s like “up there” (some viewers might want to take some Dramamine). This movie grossed $55 million the first weekend. (Some sour-grapes physicist complained that Sandra Bullock’s hair didn’t float—this ex-physicist thought her hair was cut short for exactly that reason! A more important objection: the orbits of the Hubble and ISS weren’t nearly the same altitude, if I remember correctly. Who cares? It’s a good story!)
I seriously doubt that all those moviegoers to Gravity were aging baby boomers who watched that first Apollo landing or looked in awe at those first Hubble photos (featured in the movie). Both the death of Hubble and the shuttle program were blows to all of us who see space as the final frontier. I hope the film will revive interest in space exploration. Warning: the “accident” depicted in the movie is far more tragic than the near one in the spacewalk depicted in my Survivors of the Chaos—I’ll say no more in order not to spoil the film. By the way, Sandra Bullock does a great acting job as the space-faring medical doctor. Certainly her best….
In libris libertas….
