GRAVITY
2:30
Friday, November 25
(2013, Alfonso Cuarón) Agoraphobics beware! With a nerve-shredding sense of being “truly alone in the universe" (Richard Corliss), it’s a white-knuckle flight as Sandra Bullock and George Clooney, left holding the bag after space debris destroys their shuttle, must frantically improvise in orbit above the earth. Plus Road Runner in 3-D in FUR OF FLYING (2010). Both DCP. Approx. 94 mins.
Reviews
“BREATHTAKING!”
– Salon
“Mr. Cuarón succeeds by tethering almost unfathomably complex techniques — both digital and analog — to a simple narrative…a swift and buoyant story of the struggle for survival in terrible, rapidly changing circumstances…Mr. Cuarón’s use of 3-D, which surpasses even what James Cameron accomplished in the flight sequences of Avatar. More than that film, […] Gravity treats 3-D as essential to the information it wants to share…in a little more than 90 minutes rewrites the rules of cinema as we have known them.”
– A.O. Scott, The New York Times
“This isn’t just the best-looking film of the year, it’s one of the most awe-inspiring achievements in the history of special-effects cinema.”
– Time Out (London)
“Gravity presents an artificial world that could only have been made today, and provides a fantastic showcase of new possibilities…a uniquely contemporary work that merges the traditions of a conventional survival narrative with modern sights and sounds. Cuarón succeeds to a stunning degree at conveying the physicality of an otherworldly scenario rather than departing from it as so many over-processed blockbusters do. […] A cinematic rollercoaster that’s both visceral and dreamlike in its capacity pull viewers into a queasy encounter with the realistic perils of space. Gravity lets you visit space without sugarcoating its dangers. It’s a brilliant portrait of technology gone wrong that uses it just right.”
– Indiewire
“VIRTUALLY EVERY SHOT IN ALFONSO CUARÓN’S TECHNOTHRILLER IS A STUNNER.”
– Time Out
“Jonathan Rosenbaum once wrote that F.W. Murnau’s Faust ‘integrates its dazzling special effects so seamlessly that they’re indistinguishable from the film’s narrative, poetry, and, above all, metaphysics.’ The same could be said of this awesome sci-fi spectacle by Alfonso Cuarón, which took several years to make but still feels spontaneous in its action and character development. […] Cuarón uses 3-D to render the enormity of outer space terrifyingly palpable—when the characters recede, they really seem to be falling into a void. As they struggle to define their humanity in the face of death, that void assumes a philosophical dimension, making the movie that rarest of breeds: the intellectual blockbuster.”
– Chicago Reader
“A REMARKABLE TECHNICAL ACCOMPLISHMENT…If nothing else, Gravity makes the case for throwing immense resources at true visionaries; the blockbuster craftsman as adventurer, Cuarón expertly blends the epic with the intimate. For every stunning 3-D setpiece involving a dangerous hailstorm of metallic debris, there’s a moment of small tenderness, like Clooney framing Bullock in a mirror on his wrist as they bob their way toward salvation.”
– A.V. Club