The_American_Dream Blog

Under discussion:

Sunshine  (2007)

Wow. A cool movie. There has not been a really cool movie since after the first “Matrix” came out. This was also a movie that I was looking forward to. One look at the teaser and I was hooked. I was gonna see that movie and I did. Loved it.

Admittedly the plot is simple and follows the formulaic plot of many disaster movies: implausible problem+a bunch of guys+a few girls+cool vehicles+expendable character of ethnic minority+big explosions=usual disaster movie. And yeah it does follow that formula almost to the word. But!!!! this is still an amazing movie. Amazing to watch, amazing characters, amazing effects, over all it was just amazing to go to the theater and see it.

If you have read the other reviews out there you will see that each one says something about it being “visually stunning” all that is true to the word, and then beyond. Every frame of this film is a visual masterpiece I swear to you to look at it is not in the least disappointing and that is indisputable. Through out we see eyes. As their ship puts a dark pupil in the sun, and the ship its self has an eye shape, and how the audience if ever reminded that looking at the sun will kill you (on the ship they can only look at the sun at 2% of it’s full brightness with the naked eye they can see 3.1% with sunglasses for 30 seconds and 4% would kill them). The light and dark, reds, greens, whites and blacks all work so beautifully together and make an amazing movie. And more over the cinematography is different then what we normally see in disaster movies of the same caliber.

The setting of the film is space, in the future where the sun is slowly fading out and earth is freezing more with everyday. Still the sun is dangerous to the 8 crew aboard the Icarus II as they go off on the last hope of man kind to re-start the sun with a thermonuclear bomb with the mass of Manhattan. Okay there is the premies of the movie. Now for the twist. SPOILER FOLLOWS: The Icarus I was lost 7 years before the mission that we are following. The Icarus II goes over to the Icarus I on their way to the Sun just to see if there is any thing that might aid them (by this point they have all ready lost most of their oxygen and at least one crew member. Well there is nothing over there that they can see but they un-knowingly bring over a boogie-man form Icarus I and for some relatively unexplained reason he wants to stop their mission there by killing all of man kind. END OF SPOILERS. So there is the plot for you. It is far more straightforward than other disaster movies.

The acting is not the major focus of this picture, none the less it is far above the standards of your usual disaster movie. And there is much more ensemble in the cast than other movies. Each character is able to do their role believably within the boundaries of the script and not over or under play at any time.

The effects are amazing. You really could not tell. There has not been that level of believability in effects since “The Matrix”. Although you know that it would have been impossible to have been there it looks like it could happen. 

Lastly, just go see this movie I swear you will not be disappointed. There really is something here for everyone. And it has a really hopeful and good ending that leaves the world a better place (as opposed to a frozen dump like in “The Day After Tomorrow” or bombed to kingdom come as in “Independence Day”). It is cool and interesting and does not really have any obvious bad points.

Under discussion:

Lords of Dogtown  (2005)

“Lords of Dogtown” is based on the true story of skateboarders Stacy Peralta, Tony Alva, and Jay Adams who (starting in 1975) revolutionized the skateboarding industry into what we associate with the sport today. Well that is a real short overview of the movie, which like most biographical or historical covered a very long stretch of time with allot of character development, even when the acting was not en-captivating as other movies it it served this movies purpose.

Since (as I said) the movie takes place over such a long stretch of time and captures so much of the people, one can safely say that the righting on this film is for the most part exceptional. I will however say this (to some extent the contrary of what I just said) that the time frame was not always clear. There were three intervals in the film where a date was given. And yet it seemed as though it could not have only happened in the space of only three years. That was really my only problem with it. It was still not the best ever. 

There was however, one absolutely, totally amazing, just flat out awesome aspect of this movie. The camera. Not like the camera moves or angles, most of which were interesting particularly when the point of view was under the boards. It was when they did that for the first time really rather early on in the movie that I just got blown away. I thought that was the coolest thing ever. I guess, thinking back on it now it was not that amazing but to see it was just cool and for that scene where the camera is under the boards I would say it was original and cool enough to make me want to watch through all the less cool footage.

But that was not the only cool thing about the look of the film, for allot of the films cinematography is also interesting. Blues when they are in the pools that often gives the look of such scenes an odd, dream like look to them. Often a limitless look as the pools curves make it so the blue is infinite, kinda like the way white is used throughout “THX 1138”. All summed up the film is quite interesting to look at.