“Gravity” Is Such a Lonely Word (Short Review)

The new space film, Gravity (2013), starring Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, is getting rave reviews. The movie about two characters who end up floating in space features great special effects, fine acting, and drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

Gravity Clooney Bullock If you have seen the trailer, you know what to expect. The movie does not waste time with a back story leading up to the accident, where debris from a Russian satellite destroys the U.S. space shuttle and sets Bullock and Clooney adrift. The rest of the movie features their attempts to stay alive and get back home.

Without saying more about the plot, the movie features plenty of action and drama, reminding me of Tom Hanks in Cast Away (2000), where a human struggled to get back to civilization and learned about himself along the way. Director Alfonso Cuarón, who also directed the wonderful Children of Men (2006), has a special eye for creating other worlds while still staying focused on character.

For a film set in space, Gravity is a very intimate film, with Clooney and Bullock carrying the entire story. Clooney’s character makes great use of the actor’s charm, and Bullock provides a solid center as a scientist who appears to be in over her head. We do, however, hear some other voices. As required for any movie about NASA such as The Right Stuff (1983), Ed Harris appears. Here he is the voice for mission control as he was for Apollo 13 (1995).

The movie is playing in both 3D and 2D. I had the unusual experience of getting to see part of the movie in both forms, as the theater made a mistake and showed my 3D audience the first 20-30 minutes in 2D and then, realizing its mistake, began the movie from the start in 3D. While, I still enjoyed the 2D version, Gravity is a movie where it is worth the extra bucks for 3D, as the shots of people and items in space, as well as the earth in the background, are spectacular.

Conclusion? If you like space movies or desert island adventures, you will enjoy Gravity. I do suggest you avoid reading many of the glowing reviews, as they may raise your expectations too high for a solid movie that has many traditional elements. Gravity is not as challenging as recent space or sci-fi movies like Moon (2009), Clooney’s Solaris (2002), or Cuarón’s Children of Men. But it is definitely worthwhile. I give the film eight chimes out of ten.

What did you think of Gravity? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Director’s Guillermo del Toro’s Latest Work: A Simpsons Opening

    Director Guillermo del Toro created the upcoming The Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror XXIV” opening sequence. The nearly three-minute opening features enough movie and horror references to make it worth re-watching to try to catch all of them. del Toro does a cool job of incorporating all of the references with the traditional Simpsons’ opening, including Bart’s blackboard, the trip to the grocery, and the ending on the couch. Watch for some Alfred Hitchock, an appearance by Edgar Allen Poe, and many movie references, including Mr. Burns in a sequence using del Toro’s own Pan’s Labyrinth (2006).

    The segment is pretty cool, and at the least, del Toro’s involvement has garnered a lot of press for the twenty-fourth installment of the Halloween tradition.

    What is your favorite part of the intro? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Versions of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

    Occurrence Owl Creek Bridge American author Ambrose Bierce originally published the short story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” in 1890 in  The San Francisco Examiner. Today the story remains in the national consciousness more than one hundred years later, largely due to the story’s appearance in film and TV.

    Director Robert Enrico made the story into a 1962 French short film La Rivière du Hibou (“The Owl River”). The film won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and the Academy Awards.

    But you may have seen the French film without knowing it was a French film. Rod Serling broadcast it with the short story’s title during the 1964 season of The Twilight Zone.

    The Story of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”

    In “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,” Civil War soldiers prepare to hang a man named Peyton Farquhar at Owl Creek Bridge. When the man drops, the rope breaks, dropping him into the river below.  Farquhar escapes and tries to return to his family and loved ones.

    In the film, the escaped prisoner, played effectively by Roger Jacquet, conveys his desperation to get back home. If you have never seen the film or read the story, I will not ruin the ending.

    The French Film Version

    The original French short film won the Golden Palm for Best Short Subject at the 1962 Cannes Film Festival.  It also won the Best Live Action Short at the 1963 Academy Awards.

    Unlike the short story, the film begins with the execution, omitting the back story but thrusting the viewer right into the action. [October 2015 Update: Unfortunately, the entire French film is no longer available on YouTube, but below is reportedly an excerpt from the original French film with the song “Livin’ Man.”]

    The Twilight Zone Broadcast

    The French film attained a larger audience when Rod Serling incorporated the film into a Twilight Zone episode.  In a series of original productions, Serling’s use of the film in this way was unique.

    Different sources give different stories about how the film came to be a Twilight Zone episode.  One source claims that Rod Serling attended a film festival and saw the short.  Then, he bought the rights for broadcasting on his series.

    However, most other sources report that Twilight Zone producer William Froug first had the idea when he showed the movie to a film class. At the beginning of this video, Froug, who passed away in September 2013, explains how the idea arose.

    Below is the “special and unique” 1964 Twilight Zone episode that incorporated the French short film and added a Rod Serling introduction. The original French film achieved its tension with very little dialogue and used English for what little dialogue there was.  So, the French film easily translated to American TV.

    The Twilight Zone episode includes some music around the 15:20 mark that does not appear in the French video above (although one source says the song “Livin’ Man” appears in the French version too).

    Reportedly, the Twilight Zone episode of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” was the last one produced for the series.  But it was not the final episode that was broadcast.

    For a long time after the broadcast and one repeat showing, viewers could not watch the episode.  Twilight Zone did not have the syndication rights for the film. So after its initial broadcast and a repeat, for years the “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” episode did not rerun on TV in syndication with the other episodes. Eventually, though, the episode was reunited with the other series episodes on DVD.

    Alfred Hitchcock Presents

    The Twilight Zone episode, however, was not the first to tell Ambrose Bierce’s story on television. Several years earlier in 1959, Alfred Hitchock Presents aired its own version of the story.

    The Hitchock version, like the original short story, provided more back story on how the man came to be sentenced to death. [September 2016 Update: Unfortunately, a decent quality of the video is currently not available on YouTube.]

    A Song, “Owl Creek Bridge”

    Finally, more recently, Montreal-born singer-songwriter David Rubin wrote and recorded a song inspired by “An Occurrence at Owl Street Bridge.” The song, “Owl Creek Bridge,” appeared on his album Secret Agent in 2006.

    One can speculate that Ambrose Bierce could never have imagined how his story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” would reach so many people.  It continues to grip us even today because the tale of one man’s desire to get home reflects the tragedy of both death and war.

    Which is your favorite version of “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge”? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    Dylan Plays “Like a Rolling Stone” With The Rolling Stones

    In spring 1998, the Rolling Stones were doing a stadium tour in South America with a guy named Bob Dylan as their opening act. During the tour, Dylan often joined the Rolling Stones for a performance of “Like a Rolling Stone.” Although reportedly early joint performances of the song were a little rough, by the time the Rio de Janeiro performance was televised Dylan had adjusted to the Stones’s playing style on the song. Check out Dylan and the Rolling Stones on “Like a Rolling Stone.”

    The joint performance is one of the rare times Dylan has played with the full lineup of the Rolling Stones, even though he and the band are long-time friends. Before the South American joint tour, both bands were playing in New York earlier in 1998 and the Rolling Stones played “Like a Rolling Stone” in honor of Dylan, but he never joined them on stage.

    At Dylan’s 1988 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, Mick Jagger and a large number of other stars joined Dylan for “Like a Rolling Stone.” But the South American tour remains the rare time the legend and the legendary band played the legendary song.

    Who would you like to see Dylan perform with? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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    What Was the Final Song of “Breaking Bad”?

    Badfinger Baby Blue The last few weeks have been full of speculation about the ending of the AMC TV series Breaking Bad. I will leave it to others to debate the greatness of tonight’s series finale. But one thing we cannot argue about is that it was cool that the final scene used the Badfinger song, “Baby Blue,” which first appeared on the band’s 1971 album, Straight Up.

    Both the band’s name and the TV series feature the word “bad.” More importantly, though, the song’s opening had appropriate lyrics for the show’s end, as well as a good sound for the mood of the ending of the series and of our relationship with Walter White (Bryan Cranston).

    Guess I got what I deserve;
    Kept you waiting there, too long my love,
    All that time, without a word;
    Didn’t know you’d think, that I’d forget, or I’d regret,

    The special love I have for you,
    My baby blue

    Below is a 1972 Badfinger performance of “Baby Blue.” Note that the band is introduced by a dark-haired Kenny Rogers.

    Unfortunately, the original Badfinger, which lost band members Tom Evans and Pete Ham to suicide, has not been active since the mid-1980s. A lot of people, though, are singing their song tonight.

    What did you think of the ending of Breaking Bad? Leave your two cents in the comments.

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