It’s movie time again, folks. In this case, it’s a tiny tribute to George
Clooney. Let’s get started.
Gravity
(2013). This film won a few Oscars this
time around. Although George Clooney
plays an important role, the main character is played by Sandra Bullock.
Bullock
plays Ryan Stone, a medical engineer on a Space Shuttle mission. Her comrade is veteran astronaut Matt
Kowalsky (Clooney). While the pair of
them – plus red-shirt space walker #3 (hereinafter, RSSW3) – are out
spacewalking, disaster strikes in the form of a sudden impulse by the Russians
to destroy some satellites. Not
good. The resulting debris comes by and
kills RSSW3, blows open the space shuttle, and thereby kills the astronauts
inside who weren’t wearing space suits, also rendering the shuttle useless as a
vehicle.
So now
it’s down to Stone & Kowalsky. Err,
make that Stone. AND she loses contact
with Houston, so now she’s really completely on her own, unlike the heroes in “Apollo 13”.
“Gravity”, though, seems less of an enemy than “space” – cold, quiet, airless,
pressureless, with no food or shelter, no friends, no assistance, and a
shortage of suitable re-entry vehicles. Space is liable to kill you long before
gravity pulls you to the ground. You
share Stone’s fear and anxiety: how do I
un-f**k this situation? How do I
survive? How can I get home to
Earth? Does she do it? Stay tuned.
Solaris
(2002). Note, this is actually a remake
of a Russian 1972 film which I haven’t seen, which itself was based on a 1961
Polish novel which I haven’t read. I
bring it up because the main character, Chris Kelvin, is played by George
Clooney, again in an astronaut/space context.
A space
station orbiting a distant planet calls in a discreet distress signal. They ask for Kelvin to come, but are vague on
what happened or why they need him, presumably they’ll tell him when he gets
there. Sure enough, he does, and finds
that half the crew is missing, and with a few exceptions the rest are
dead. Those still alive refuse to return
to Earth, for reasons which we’ll learn later.
Once on
the station, Clooney dreams of his dead wife.
Then he wakes up, and there she is: in the flesh.
WOW. Jeremy Davies, who studied
Charles Manson for a prior role, seems to enjoy Mansonizing all his subsequent
roles as well – including this one, as crew member Snow.
The
film has a glacial pace and intensity almost indistinguishable from “2001: A
Space Odyssey”. While it’s not nearly as
impenetrable, it is just as boring.
Burn
After Reading (2008).
While I’m on the topic of George Clooney, without getting drawn into an
exhaustive review of all of his movies, I would like to mention this one. It’s a screwball comedy. And it’s very good.
The
movie starts with Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich), an extremely foul-mouthed and
bad-tempered CIA field agent who is abruptly demoted to desk duty in
Langley. Obviously unhappy with this
change, he goes Miles Kendig and starts writing unauthorized memoirs – which he
promptly loses. David “Sledgehammer”
Rasche and J.K. Simmons (Travelers insurance commercial dude) are some of his
hapless colleagues at the Company.
The
CD-R is found by a pair of clueless gym employees, Linda Litzke (Frances
McDormand) and Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt), who conspire to extort Cox and/or
release the disc to the Russian Embassy (did I mention, the film takes place in
the DC area? Sorry). At some point,
Litzke, who was angling to somehow procure cash for various elective surgeries
her health insurance refused to cover, winds up dating Harry Pfarrer (George
Clooney), a buffoonish but endearing US Marshal. It turns out Pfarrer had been cheating on his
own wife with Cox’s wife (Tilda Swinton), oblivious that Mrs. Pfarrer
(Elizabeth Marvel) was also pursuing extramarital excitement. Are you confused yet? Don’t worry, the confusion is part of the humor.
I bring
this up because – not only is it a great film – Clooney jumps into the comedy
like a natural. Is he the best actor,
ever? Maybe not. But his case is certainly helped by this film. Enjoy.
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