Gravity [DVD] [2014] [2013]

We have gravity to thank for our existence. The solar system was born roughly 4.6 billion years ago following the gravitational collapse of a small part of a giant interstellar molecular cloud, a part that eventually became the Milky Way. We inhabit a planet in the Orion arm of our galaxy, 26,000 light years from the centre. If the bright lights of Broadway form the downtown centre of our galactic home, we are hicks living out in the sticks. So much for pride and vanity.But it’s life that matters, not vanity, even a life led off kilter. Our Earth does not sit upright. It tilts 23.5º from the plane of the ecliptic, the invisible 90-degree vertical axis that runs between the poles. Why so?Violence.Early on (approximately 4.5 billion years ago) Earth was involved in a massive collision with an Earth trojan, a planetary-mass object that orbits the sun in the vicinity of Earth’s own orbit. Theia is the name given to that object because of our moon. In Greek mythology Theia is the mother of Helios (the sun) and Selene (the moon).In his book The Story of Earth: The First 4.5 Billion Years from Stardust to Living Planet (Penguin, 2013) Robert M. Hazen, a professor of Earth Science, writes of the impact quite clearly:“About 4.5 billion years ago, when the solar system was about 50 million years old, the black proto-Earth and a slightly smaller planet-size competitor [about two-thirds the size of Mars] were jockeying for the same narrow band of solar system real estate…A rule of astrophysics is that no two planets can share the same orbit. Eventually they will collide, and the larger planet always wins. So it was with Earth and Theia.”The impact was so severe that three key things happened. First, much of Theia and the damaged portion of the earth vaporised. Second, the surviving material bits of Theia drove deep into the earth, reaching its core (Earth has the highest density of all planets in the solar system). And third, the material parts of Earth that did not vaporise on impact were flung far from the surface. Over millions of years these bits coalesced to form our moon.So in a way we have two Earths: we live on one, the other we look up to at night, perhaps kissing our loved ones as we do.These comments are relevant to the film. In fact, celestial collisions form the basis of the film — its thrilling drama.During the 4.6 billion-year history of Earth, all space debris in orbit around the planet was natural, man having had no hand in it. But this began to change in 1957 when the first man-made satellite was launched into space, the Russian craft called Sputnik 1. That was exactly 60 years ago, a blink of the eye in Earth’s history. Since then more than 4,500 man-made rockets, satellites and other craft have been launched into space, including the ISS and Hubble telescope. At present only 5% of space vehicles launched are fully functional. The other 95% constitutes scrap metal, space debris in orbit around the planet. Lots of junk, in other words, high-speed junk. How fast? One hundred times faster than a bullet fired from a gun. Space collisions are therefore extremely violent, so in a way man is now replicating the violent collisions that happened early on in the formation of the solar system.On Earth we hardly notice the situation. The internet is intact and our GPS systems work. So does satellite television. At least for now they still do. But the more stuff we put into orbit around the earth, the more we increase the probability of collisions in space, as space around the planet within its gravitational field is not infinite. So yes, Houston, we have a problem. A mounting one that’s getting worse through time. What to do with all this cosmic junk? Good question. It isn’t enough that man pollutes his planet, the only home we have. Now we’re polluting the band of space above the stratosphere with our garbage. It reminds me of the situation on Mount Everest, the world’s tallest peak. It’s popular because of that — its height. People with enough money pay to climb it. But there are no recycling bins along the way, especially higher up. Everything no longer useable just gets tossed and left behind on the mountain. Why isn’t it cleaned up? Three reasons: too difficult, dangerous, expensive. The same three reasons apply to space debris.Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is a female medical engineer and mission specialist. Why is she called Ryan? Because her parents wanted a boy. I can relate: my middle name is Lynn. My parents wanted a girl. Dr. Stone is tentative in several ways. It’s her first space mission and she’s doing a man’s job, so to speak. But there are personal things involved. Even on Earth she is distant, a loner. A husband is never mentioned in the narrative, so perhaps she hasn’t married. But she had a little girl, a daughter named Sarah. The past tense is deliberate because Sarah is dead now. She died, aged 4, on the playground at school. She just slipped and fell during a game of tag one day and hit her head. How banal and stupid life can be. They called Dr. Stone with the terrible news while she was driving home from work. Imagine that: receiving such news on a cell phone while you’re driving. In a way Dr. Stone has never stopped driving since: driving herself with ambition and driving her car on lonely highways at night, roads as blank as the blankness of outer space. Her isolation is complete in her space suit, sealed off airtight from the rest of reality. She’s a sad figure but not a self-pitying one. We feel for her because we know her pain is real.Lieutenant Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) lightens the film and the spirits of Dr. Stone with his cheerful, upbeat, humorous personality. The eternal optimist, he laughs in the face of danger and death. He loves the ride called life. On Earth he loves to party. He tells long-winded tales of his escapades in Tijuana and at Mardi Gras in New Orleans. He’s one who’s heard the music, who hasn’t let life pass him by. That music is largely Country & Western, a genre Dr. Stone can’t stand. Kowalski has it piped into his headset and Dr. Stone can hear it when it’s playing. You get the feeling she’s travelled all this way to escape the earth and its consequences, but even here she can’t escape George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Perhaps this is called irony.Shariff Dasari is the flight engineer of Explorer, the home spacecraft of the three astronauts (and others onboard). He’s like a little kid in space. He bounces around and giggles. The other two think he’s a bit nuts and can’t believe he’s a Harvard graduate. He has made his Indian parents proud.Ed Harris is the steady, calm, reliable voice of Mission Control in Houston, just as he was in the film Apollo 13. We never see Ed or even learn what his character’s name is. He’s just a disembodied voice but an important one — the technical, logistical and emotional link to Earth that comforts the strangers high above Earth’s surface.Chaos theory says things are random and arbitrary. There is no set plan to the universe, no tinkerer toying with the works. All the world’s religions have tried and failed. The universe evolves as it will via chance and contingency. But it has laws, universal physical laws that govern probabilities. More debris in space, for instance, the greater the chance of collisions occurring between objects.The film opens with a splendid panorama of the curvature of the earth, a beautiful blue-and-white vision against the blackness of space beyond. We see the curve of our planet, realise for sure we live on a small marble suspended in space. But the small marble, the pale blue dot, looks large when we’re still so close to it above the stratosphere. The scene is wondrous.Then we see the three astronauts floating in space. They are tethered to a satellite under repair. Explorer, their mothership, is off in the distance, their mission to get the satellite up and running again. Dr. Stone is in charge, tweaking and replacing parts. She works hard, meticulously. She knows what she’s doing, but it will take time. Houston wants to know how long. About an hour longer, she says. Lieutenant Kowalski helps out as he can, though his main job seems to be steadying Dr. Stone’s nerves via his light banter and amusing stories. Mission Control has heard them all before because Kowalski is a space jockey who’s been up in space many times. But they tolerate the colourful tales because they’re aware of their psychological purpose. The lighter the tone in space, the more jocular, the better. Why? Because it’s extremely dangerous, or potentially so. In fact, the hazards and dangers of it are made clear from the outset of the film. We see these captions on the screen:At 600 kilometres above Planet Earth the temperature fluctuates between +258 and -148 degrees Fahrenheit.There is nothing to carry sound.No air pressure.No oxygen.Life in space is impossible.~ • ~ • ~First alert from Mission Control. The Russians have fired a missile to take down one of their satellites, probably a spy satellite. They want it eliminated. The missile finds its target. The satellite is destroyed with debris fanning out in orbit. This is just information to be aware of. There is no suspected danger, as the Russian satellite is or was in a lower orbit.Second alert, minutes later. Abort mission. Return to Explorer immediately. A chain reaction is occurring due to flying debris from the destroyed Russian craft. It has smashed into other satellites, sending debris into higher orbits. Explorer may be in the path of oncoming debris.They barely have time to react before the debris comes flying past them. They cannot make it back to Explorer in time, so there is no other option than to hang on tight to the satellite. They miraculously survive the debris storm, or two of them do. Lt. Kowalski and Dr. Stone ask permission to retrieve the body of Shariff Dasari and bring it back to Explorer. Permission granted. But they fail in this new mission, bombarded by another debris storm. The second one is just as bad as the first. In fact when Kowalski and Stone make it back to Explorer they radio Mission Control, describing the damage to the mothership as catastrophic, all the crew inside it dead.So now the film becomes a tale of survival. Kowalski and Stone are like two wanderers in the desert with little water and shelter. But on Earth, if they were there, they’d be able to breathe. The absence of earthly water in space is actually a lack of oxygen. They only have so much left in their tanks and suits before they will suffocate and die.Their mission now is to try to make it to the nearest spacecraft, a distant hike using propulsion jets in their suits. That craft is a Russian Soyuz, now abandoned. It’s their only hope of surviving.If you haven’t seen the film, I won’t narrate it any further now.The film was hugely successful. In particular, the immersive 3D experience in theatres was said to be — pardon the expression — out of this world. The film won major critical awards from many places for its cinematography, visual and special effects, music and editing. The film won seven Academy Awards in 2014, including one for best director (Alfonso Cuarón). Elsewhere Sandra Bullock was honoured for her intense, exhausting performance. Famously, her preparation for the role was just as intense and exhausting, as she spent hours on end being whipped around a sound stage with cameras focused on her face. When asked about her psychology during filming, she said she was in a “morose headspace”, this in reference to her loneliness and isolation. And this was just on a sound stage. I don’t know about you, but I plan to give outer space a miss.To my mind the only two sci-fi films greater than Gravity are 2001: A Space Odyssey and Avatar. A pity I missed it in 3D in the theatres, but even at home it’s powerful, harrowing and immersive, a film that will go on being honoured and praised for years to come.Space may be massive (it is), but the space for living in it is tiny unless you’re sheltered by a protective planet. That’s the paradox and terror of outer space, its immensity and tininess. I’m happy to be earthbound, loving the place where I was born.

Academy Award nominee Alfonso Cuaron teams up with Academy Award winners Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in this film about the darker side of space. Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone, a non-astronaut up there to help with work on the Hubble Telescope. Clooney plays Matt Kowalski, an astronaut captain who is presumably, the leader of the group. Really these are the only two faces you properly get to see as a voice of Ed Harris from mission control comes and goes every so often. Then, whilst they are trying to fix components of the telescope, they both get work to abort the mission due to shrapnel from a set of destroyed satellites and when Stone ends spiralling out of control.So, as I watched the trailer for Gravity a while back, a could not comprehend how I would like this film. Mainly because of Sandra Bullock's highly annoying voice in the trailer. In the film however, its not a problem. It seems that the reason why I found it particularly annoying was because I hadn't got to know her character well enough. I had always thought that Sandra Bullock was at her best as the nicest person ever. Probably a reason why she won for The Blind Side in 2009. A movie I really like. Especially for her performance. In this, she takes an incredible turn in what seems to be the role of a lifetime for her. Her performance in this is not just good, it's scarily good. I was just in awe of her performance throughout. Another Oscar nomination has to be, HAS TO BE on the cards for her, I have no doubt about it.........

Easy watching but not keeping in dvd collection

PICTURE - Firstly, I did not buy the 3D version, so I cannot comment on this aspect of it. Outside of that, the picture quality is absolutely outstanding! Crisp, clean, rich, vivid, perfection - a beautiful 'test disc' for any TV or Blu-ray player. As for the CG.... well the entire movie is CG with the exception of the actors' faces. It's so good that I didn't know that until I saw the extras!SOUND - Wow! Just, wow! I have spent a lot of money on my 5.1 and movies like this make it all worthwhile. The full range of my speakers were stretched and tested, with outstanding results. The big bangs to the stark 'silence' to the eerie orchestral arrangement are all perfect in pitch, power and pace.MOVIE - Great story with a lot of metaphorical motifs throughout. Pace was excellent and the overall running time was only 90 minutes so, epic is scope but you don't need half a day to enjoy it. You are immediately sucked into the world of our heroine and kept there - firmly perched on the edge of your seat!EXTRAS - I love watching additional content but when a movie wins a host of awards for picture and sound etc. you hope they really delve into every detail of how they achieved this. Well, nearly 3 hours later and I am gobsmacked. No stone left unturned and it's all good stuff, not the usual clatter of concept art stills and repetitive commentary.JUST BUY IT!!!!

As advertised. Arrived promptly. No damage. All good.

Super film, super quality

Image very Good, Sound very good, Price very good, good choice

intense! space is so mysterious

Roba da matti!!! La ordino e mi arriva dopo 10 giorni una copia del film in inglese.... almeno ditelo che in italiano non è disponibile!!!! Mai più comprerò un DVD da Amazon