Reel Entropy

A brief history of space movies

Posted on October 13, 2015 by reelentropy

With The Martian holding steady in the no. 1 spot, it’s time to take a look at how space has been used as a setting in movies over the years.

The first space movie — the first science fiction movie, really — was the 1902 French short Le voyage dans la lune, or A Trip to the Moon in English. Made just after the Industrial Revolution when we had basically no idea what the moon was really like, the short was an exercise in pure creativity. The shot six minutes in of the moon anthropomorphized only to be punched in the eye remains one of the most iconic images in film history.

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Posted in White Noise | Tagged #2001, #2001: a space odyssey, #a trip to the moon, #abbot and costello go to mars, #alien, #destination moon, #farewell to the master, #flight to mars, #gravity, #harry bates, #HG wells, #interstellar, #iron man, #marooned, #moon landing conspiracy, #prometheus, #robert a heinlein, #rocketship galileo, #rocketship x-m, #space balls, #space race, #stanley kubrick, #star trek, #star wars, #starship troopers, #stranger in a strange land, #the day the earth stood still, #the first men in the moon, #the martian, #the silent era, #woman in the moon | Leave a comment

NO NARRATING

Posted on October 7, 2015 by reelentropy

As a purely visual exercise, The Walk will get your blood pumping. Photos courtesy TriStar Pictures.

The Walk is a playful, visually stunning film, but every moment of joyful levity, every jaw-dropping stunt, is ruined by

Ever since I was a little boy, I have always been looking for places to put my wire. When I was 16, I- That. It’s ruined by that.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #9/11, #bill murray, #Everest, #fear and loathing in las vegas, #fight club, #france, #jeff daniels, #joseph gordon-levitt, #narration, #new york, #new york city, #paris, #philippe petit, #sin city, #statue of liberty, #the city, #the walk, #the world trade center, #thewalkmovie, #tristar pictures | Leave a comment

Sicario best of already stellar 2015

Posted on October 5, 2015 by reelentropy

Sicario establishes its discomforting feel in the first scene not because of the mass grave, but because of the FBI agents’ reaction to it — they all vomit, but they take turns doing it. It’s this bizarre, surreal rhythm in the background of the scene. Photos courtesy Lionsgate.

We’ve talked a few times this year about a film being the best of its genre in decades, but in terms of general movies, Sicario trumps them all.

The film follows Kate Macer (Emily Blunt), an FBI special weapons and tactics agent who leads a team on a cartel-related raid in Arizona looking for hostages, but instead finds a mass grave. After the incident, she is recruited by Department of Defense adviser Matt Graver (Josh Brolin), who is organizing a cross-departmental task force to go after the men responsible. Macer is soon immersed in a world of deceit, off-book police work and indiscriminate violence as she attempts to unravel the truth behind Graver and his menacing partner, Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro).

In a sentence, this is the movie No Country for Old Men wishes it was.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #benicio del toro, #denis villeneuve, #emily blunt, #gaslight, #josh brolin, #lionsgate, #prisoners, #rape, #rape-ish, #sicario, #taylor sheridan, #trigger warning | 3 Comments

The Martian a fantastic third entry for new space horror/survival genre

Posted on October 3, 2015 by reelentropy

At no point in The Martian does the guy discover water on Mars. Isn’t this supposed to be scientifically accurate?

The Martian may be filled to the brim with narration, which is on its face a bad thing, but it’s put to textbook use here. The movie only explains things that aren’t obvious, and there are a ton of little details that help get into Watney’s mindset. In this scene, for example, he’s contemplating the fact that, wherever he goes, no one has ever been there before. Photos courtesy 20th Century Fox.

Based on the hit 2011 novel, the film tells the story of NASA botanist Mark Watney (Matt Damon), who is left for dead on Mars after his crew leaves early during an unpredicted storm. With no hope of rescue for several Earth years, Watney is faced with the task of learning to farm on the red planet.

The Martian has brilliant fundamentals and sucks viewers into its story like a funnel. This is the kind of story that hangs completely on whether or not the main character is likeable, and the film knocks that out of the park with good dialogue and a sure-handed performance from Damon.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #, #20th Century Fox, #apollo 13, #cast away, #explosions, #gravity, #interstellar, #jessica chastain, #life on mars, #mars, #matt damon, #NASA, #rocket man, #starvation, #storytelling 101, #stranger in a strange land, #tension, #the martian, #tom hanks | 1 Comment

Only thing they sacrificed was opportunity to tell a great story

Posted on October 1, 2015 by reelentropy

To say nothing else for the movie, the poster was killer. Stills courtesy Bleeker Street.

So when I heard there was going to be a new biopic about chess legend Bobby Fischer (Tobey Maguire) called Pawn Sacrifice, I thought that was a neat title. They were going to do a thing with it, where he was sacrificing pawns to win games and then it turned out he was himself a pawn that was being sacrificed, and use that metaphor as a way to explore his paranoia and genius. After finally winning the world chess championship title in 1972 from Boris Spassky (Liev Schreiber), Fischer disappeared until the early ’90s, and when he came back into the spotlight he was still a weird recluse with some choice things to say about the Jews, so there’s room to interpret that something happened to him in those 20 years.

That’s not the movie they made at all.

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Posted in Entropy | Tagged #bleeker street, #brothers, #chess, #chess nerds, #das jueden, #delusional, #genius, #liev schreiber, #movie magic, #nerds, #paranoid, #pawn sacrifice, #Photoshop, #the details, #the jews, #tobey maguire, #turd polishing, #world chess championships, Spider-Man | Leave a comment

Reel Entropy

A brief history of space movies

NO NARRATING

Sicario best of already stellar 2015

The Martian a fantastic third entry for new space horror/survival genre

Only thing they sacrificed was opportunity to tell a great story

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