There is a saying that movies about the future tend to be about the
future of movies themselves. And that is generally true – the history of
cinema is studded with examples of how space or sci fi movies have expanded
the process and the possibilities of filmmaking itself.The latest is
Alfonso Cuaron’s awe-inducing Gravity, a movie that uses an ingenious
combination of live action, computer generated imagery,cutting edge
lighting techniques and, yes, 3-D to provide a tumbling, floating,
frighteningly unrooted representation of space as we’ve never seen it
before.
Gravity is in one sense an old fashioned shipwreck story in which two
astronauts are left stranded in space when their shuttle Explorer is
smashed by flying debris from an abandoned Russian spy satellite. And the
movie’s great lure is to make us believe that we are stranded out there
with them in probably the most credible way ever experienced in cinema.
From the first images of the Explorer and its astronauts floating close to
400 miles high- with a mammoth planet earth below them- the movie revels in
its ability to create images that convey the beauty, the enormity and the
terror of being in space.
The emphasis is on size, on the threatening vastness of the setting as
the characters move from one small, clean dramatic pivot to another in
their desperate attempts to stay alive. In these circumstances it was
crucial that the setting be convincing and Cuaron studied thousands of
hours of NASA space footage to get it just right. As writer, producer,
director and editor, he spent four-and-a half years on Gravity, preparing
it and sometimes inventing the technology to shoo it with breath- taking
dramatic power and conviction.
Many of our listeners won’t be able to see Gravity at the Image cinema
in Cineworld but I would certainly recommend seeing it on the big screen.
It is literally out of this world.
Casting Gravity : Director Alfonso Cuaron developed the film at
Universal Pictures where it was intended that Angelina Jolie would play the
lead. She turned it down twice and without her Universal decided that it
would be too expensive (it cost between $80-m and $100m- a relatively
modest budget) and put it into “turnaround.” Warner Bros. then took it up
and it was offered to Natalie Portman but she got pregnant and Scarlett
Johansson, Carey Mulligan, Naomi Watts, Sienna Miller, Rachel Weisz, Marion
Cotilard and Rebecca Hall were all tested before Sandra Bullock was cast
(she is excellent in the movie). Robert Downey Jnr. signed up to appear
opposite her in late 2010 but he had to drop out over scheduling
difficulties. Gravity is already a massive worldwide success having taken
over $400m so far at the box office.
The TV series which we get most queries about on this programme is,
I think, Sherlock. The third series of the show has been a long time coming
and some fans were presumably concerned that it wouldn’t arrive at all. But
the BBC has now confirmed that the third set of three feature-length
programmes will begin in the US on 19 Jan. and we are expected to get it
here in the first week in January.
The first episode, The Empty Hearse, will solve the mystery of Sherlock’s
apparent death at the end of Season 2 and will focus on a major terrorist
attack on London. That will be followed by the episodes The Sign Of Three
and The Last Vow.
The main reason for the delay in completing a third series has been the
availability of the two stars, Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman.
Cumberbatch has done a Parade’s End, Star Trek: Into Darkness, The Fifth
Estate, 12 Years A Slave and August: Osage County in the last two years .
He also did the voice of the dragon Smaug in the two remaining Hobbit
movies which star Freeman who is, of course Dr. Watson in Sherlock. The BBC
had to divide the production of Sherlock up into three separate time
periods to get Cumberbatch and Freeman back. By the way, it reliably
reported that they will be returning for a fourth season.
We had a query from a listener: When will The Amazing Spider-Man 2 be out
and will Andrew Garfield be doing more. Jason, Spider-Man is due out at the
beginning of May with Jamie Foxx and Paul Giamatti as the villains. Andrew
Garfield told us in an interview last year that he was contracted to do
three, so, presumably, he’ll be doing at least one more. He’s now in
pre-production on 99 Homes and then he will do the long-planned Silence
with Martin Scorsese (about two priests who face persecution when they
travel to 17th century Japan to find a missing mentor).
Opening of Cork Film Festival: This year’s Cork Film Festival is one
of the biggest in some time. They have 228 movies – including shorts-from
31 countries for a total of 248 hours of film. The festival will begin at
the Opera House on Saturday night with the Irish premiere of Alexander
Payne’s exquisite Nebraska ( we have a major interview with the star, Bruce
Dern on The Picture Show towards the end of the month). The festival will
run until 17 December. You can book at corkfilmfest.org, by phone at
021-4222803 or at the festival box office at Unit 8, Cornmarket St.
Shopping Centre.
