Tag Archives: #profound

The Little Prince

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'The Little Prince' movie poster

Release: Friday, August 5, 2016 (Netflix)

[Netflix]

Written by: Irena Brignull; Bob Persichetti

Directed by: Mark Osborne

The Little Prince is a gem. It’s a crime it never received a theatrical release. It’s a heartwarming journey rivaling anything Pixar has created on an emotional and intellectual level, and perhaps it’s the complex, multi-layered animation that truly sets the film apart, interweaving crude stop-motion with crisp, computer-generated imagery to produce an aesthetic you’ll struggle to find elsewhere.

Kung Fu Panda director Mark Osborne’s enchanting tale is a reimagining of the 1943 French novella of the same name, penned by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a successful commercial pilot (and novelist, poet, aristocrat and journalist) prior to World War II. The man once traveled to American shores in an attempt to convince the government to bring the fight to Nazi Germany following his disenfranchisement from the French Air Force in the early 1940s. He spent a little over two years in the States writing what would later become three of his most popular works. He later would re-join the Force only to disappear mysteriously soon thereafter à la Amelia Earhart.

Saint-Exupéry’s experiences as an aviator factor into this modern interpretation of The Little Prince in curious ways. (It should be noted, however, that his original story was published before he enlisted.) Fantastical elements are of course front-and-center and the story is entrenched in the stresses of modern living, but under the surface lie untold mysteries and tales of bravery, heroism and self-discovery. Strong emotional hooks are drawn from an impressive, inspired voice cast and Osborne’s touch, though ultimately nothing unique, is just confident enough to steer the story in a direction that, come the end, very well may have you in tears. The good kind, of course.

We’re introduced to The Little Girl (Mackenzie Foy, who thus far has Interstellar, The Conjuring and Ernest & Celestine on her résumé, and at the time of writing she’s yet to turn 16) who lives in a very grown-up world driven by rules, schedules and obedience. Her Mother (Rachel McAdams) wants her to attend the prestigious Academy so she can grow up and become an essential, contributing member of society. The initial interview does not go well as the panel, led by Paul Giamatti‘s intimidating and overly harsh instructor, springs an unexpected question upon her that causes her to panic. Mother has a Plan B: make her daughter cram so much studying into each and every day of her summer vacation she’ll be sure not to have any distractions (i.e. friends).

Mother draws up an impossibly elaborate Life Plan and constructs it so that each minute of every hour of every day of every week of every month of every year is accounted for. Soon enough, The Little Girl rebels. She befriends their eccentric, hoarding and elderly neighbor, The Aviator (Jeff Bridges), who is introduced as the scourge of this SimCity-esque neighborhood — one comprised of identical blocky houses and roads filled with cars driving identical speeds and in organized right-angled patterns. Mother looks at the situation like so: “Just think about [his] house being the reason [ours] is available. This is the place where you’ll learn to grow up and become Essential.” (I paraphrase.)

The Aviator is a wonderful creation, and Bridges brings the character to life in ways that are difficult to fathom. Practically speaking, his performance is little more than a voice laid over/synced up with a cartoon character. It’s not the genuine article, and yet, he is mesmeric as he regales The Little Girl about his past experiences with an enigma he calls The Little Prince, whom he met after crashing his plane in the Sahara Desert many years ago. The Little Prince (voiced by the director’s son Riley) shows him a world where everything is possible, a reality that The Aviator has been trying for years to communicate to anyone willing to listen. Finally he has found someone who will, even if her intelligence means she’s skeptical about certain details.

The Little Prince is a space-traveling young lad who once lived on a tiny planetoid, a celestial object so small you could traverse on foot in a matter of minutes and whose existence is constantly being threatened by hungry tree roots eager to take over the entire planet. He left this world and a Rose he fell in love with (voiced by Marion Cotillard for some reason) in search of greater truths amongst the cosmos. In the present day, The Little Girl decides it is her responsibility to track down The Little Prince and prove to The Aviator that he still does exist, and that even though he has grown into a jaded, passive adult, he never abandoned the child within.

The Little Prince astounds on a visual level. It is an exercise in contrasts, the real world from which The Little Girl temporarily escapes suffocating with its seriousness and sterility, while the universe expands into this wondrous, strange space in which individual worlds are populated by simplistic, insulated communities comprised of childless, passionless adult drones. Scale is quirkily reduced to something almost tangible. We’re not talking interstellar travel here, more like a weekend road trip amongst the stars. You’ll find the stop-motion animation reserved for backstories concerning The Aviator’s relationship with The Little Prince while the rest operates in a pristine, colorful world that gives Disney a run for its money.

Much like a Roald Dahl creation, The Little Prince refuses to condescend to its pint-sized viewers. It strikes a delicate balance between entertaining youngsters while providing the more jaded a few different ways to look at the lives they’ve shaped for themselves. Occasionally the chronicle trips into the realm of the pretentious with a few overly-poetic spits of dialogue that attempt to spice up an already fairly advanced narrative. It doesn’t have to try so hard. The exploration of just what it was that caused the kid in us to go away is profound enough on its own.

The Little Prince

Recommendation: The Little Prince offers adventurous viewers something a little different. Generally speaking the story arc isn’t something you’ll be experiencing for the first time, but it’s the incredible nuance and the textures and the layers to the animation that make it one of the most original works this former animated-film-skeptic has seen all year. Stellar performances abound. There’s even a cute fox voiced by James Franco, a Benicio del Toro-sounding snake and Albert Brooks is along for the ride so the cast is reason enough to check it out. Also, stop-motion. Have I mentioned how awesome the technique is? Yeah, it’s pretty awesome. Available on Netflix.

Rated: PG

Running Time: 106 mins.

Quoted: “It is only with heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com

Particle Fever

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particle-fever-poster

Release: Wednesday, March 5, 2014 (limited)

[Theater]

Time to bust out those nerdy glasses, kids, because today we’re going back to school to talk a lot about the Large Hadron Collider, henceforth referred to as the LHC! (YAY!) Some of you may be looking for a quick exit already. That’s okay, I’m pretty sure there’s a support group for people who don’t mind living in ignorance, right down the hall. Should be on your left, you can’t miss it.

For everyone else with an open mind, let’s jump right into a quick analysis of this highly intriguing documentary, Particle Fever.

Everyone recalls the construction (or at least the completion thereof) of the world’s largest particle accelerator, located near Geneva, Switzerland. Harbored deep within a subterranean, concrete-reinforced tunnel at the Franco-Swiss border, the LHC today looms among the world’s largest and most complex machines ever built by human hands. One lap around this puppy is a 17-mile jog. ‘Ambitious’ is a term that doesn’t even begin to describe the size of both the device itself and the project requiring its use. Design, construction and operation of the LHC involved the decade-long (1998-2008) efforts of approximately 10,000 scientists and engineers, and due to it’s immense implications, far more eyes than those of the scientific community were turning towards this little corner of the globe.

When it comes to explaining just what the LHC is supposed to do, it might be easier to start explaining exactly what the thing isn’t supposed to do. Understandably, with an event of this magnitude, great speculation surrounded the whole enterprise. . .almost to the point where the LHC became a mythological construct. The ultimate plaything.

At the time of the machine’s first day of operation — in the scientific world, September 10, 2008 was known as the day of ‘First Beam’ — newspaper headlines the world over announced that we were officially one step closer to better understanding conditions present at the time of the supposed ‘Big Bang,’ a singular event that is thought to have spawned everything that has ever been. While the sensational claim isn’t entirely false, it is misleading, if only because general interest news articles tend not to delve particularly deep into the details of the genius of this machine and of the people who designed it.

Avoiding going into excessive detail is a tactic that Mark Levinson uses to great effect in his behind-the-scenes peek at some of the individuals involved in this massive project. Levinson likes to keep things simple, and though the documentary’s subject matter is anything but, he succeeds in creating a film that doesn’t require a deep understanding of particle physics for viewers to keep up with the discussion. Rather, interviews with a variety of scientists from all over the world offer up a kind of collage of dialogue that viewers can sift through and try to identify from their own point of view. None of these scientists condescend, nor do they ever break from stereotype, either. Sure, a dance party themed out as a tribute to the collider is a bit dorky, but what else should we have expected here?

Particle Fever catalogs major events on a timeline that’s in its infancy. Beginning with the days leading up to the aforementioned ‘First Beam,’ a day where only a single particle was sent through the circuit as a way to test the very most basic functional aspects, the film moves on to cover many triumphs and setbacks, including the infamous breakdown that occurred a mere week-and-a-half after the first test — a day that gave the world media and the skeptics additional fuel in their arguments against the LHC’s being a tool for the betterment of mankind. When the LHC proved almost too powerful for its own good on that fateful day, those doubting whether science was really trying to push knowledge forward (as opposed to trying to kill everyone on earth by accidentally creating a black hole in the middle of the planet — remember that little laugh?) came flooding out of the woodwork. It was, for all intents and purposes, a day of science fiction for the brainiacs gathered in Geneva.

However, despite setbacks, the conversation constantly shifts to excitedly discussing more and increasingly greater successes. What really lies at the heart of this experiment, as you may or may not recall, is a little theoretical particle called the Higgs boson. So, if the truth is to be told to the public eventually, the question becomes “what are we missing from the big picture?” rather than merely “what is the big picture?” Fortunately, and thanks to the brilliant design of the LHC, the particle is no longer theoretical. The Higgs particle is viewed as the long-missing piece of a puzzle that the mainstream media were quick to label the ‘God particle,’ based on the almost miraculous nature of its discovery. Of course, scientists pooh-pooh the term, as its a little too sensational.

In July of 2012 a convention was held to officially announce that the Higgs particle indeed existed, thanks to the efforts of one seriously expensive piece of equipment. By way of this groundbreaking presentation, the global scientific community were also honoring and congratulating the two men who were credited for the Higgs’ initial discovery, Dr. Peter Higgs and Belgian physicist François Englert. The pair’s efforts would receive their ultimate affirmation with their sharing of the 2013 Nobel Prize.

The documentary is a strong testimony to the power of the human mind, as it almost exclusively revolves around the lives of a few scientists working at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (otherwise known as CERN) who dedicate themselves entirely to ensure the LHC not only works but helps provide new answers to age-old questions. The gamble is an absolutely crazy one, since the possibility of the LHC revealing no new information would be largely viewed as a catastrophic step backward for science. I would reveal more myself, but what’s left unaddressed here will only be more powerful when it’s revealed for you on the big screen. I guess what I am saying is. . .class dismissed boys and girls!

yay

3-5Recommendation: Insightful, Particle Fever may seem a pretty niched topic for a film but it holds information of a very general appeal. The discussion ongoing is very profound and important to consider at least on some level for everyone at some point. Hard to imagine most viewers walking around everyday with all of this information constantly crowding their thoughts, but if that’s the case, then this film should be even more fascinating.

Rated: NR

Running Time: 99 mins.

Quoted: “This could be nothing, other than understanding everything. . .”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited.

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.pbs.org 

Gravity

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Gravity-2013-Movie-Poster

Release: Friday, October 4, 2013

[Theater]

Whatever you do, don’t let go. . .

You know, when those first trailers hit theaters circa late July, and the last image is of Sandra Bullock in a space suit doing some somersaults against a void punctuated by dots of light, my reaction — along with those of several other moviegoers at the time — was to just start snickering. That one scene really set itself up for parody. Not to mention, the situation seemed just hopeless, ostensibly impossible to conclude. . . happily, anyway.

In short, my first impression of Alfonso Cuarón’s follow-up to Children of Men wasn’t likely the one he intended. However, my chuckling might be mostly blamed on what the trailers did. Make no mistake — the ones for this film are very, very good. But they do only show part of the real terror that you’re about to witness.

It would certainly seem that on the surface (I know, clever right?), Gravity is a very limited concept. A routine mission turns catastrophic from the unintended effects of a Russian-launched missile that destroys several satellites, and sets this particular crew on a collision course with a wall of space debris just above the Earth’s atmosphere. The crew must find a way to survive — however many of them that may be, and however ridiculous the odds are. That is simply the story we’re given. You could describe the film in one breath.

Good thing you’re only going to have that one breath for the endurance of this 90-minute stress test. The premise may be simplistic, but therein lies both the genius and the reward associated with Cuarón’s sci-fi thriller effort. The most basic of situations, flaws, or missteps that we take (and take for granted) here on earth, under the influence of gravity, instead have dramatic and devastating effects and consequences in space.

From the moment the opening shot is established, be prepared to feel weightless and for your stomach to be in knots from the dizzying heights you’re about to experience. Cuarón and his brilliant camera angles thrust you into the black emptiness surrounding our lonely planet, and similar to how J.J. Abrams managed to convince us that we were all floating in space with the Enterprise, he establishes time and place perfectly — which might sound silly considering that space is more or less stripped of any of the rules and regulations we like to govern our daily lives by on Earth.

Nevertheless, you’re there whether you like it or not, immediately drawn into the lives of these astronauts who are on a seemingly routine mission. We hear them going through procedures with the Command Center in Texas as they service the shuttle. George Clooney’s Matt Kowalski zips around in his spacewalk seat-thingy, ever eager to share the stories he’s acquired having spent many a year in the space program. Sandra Bullock’s medical engineer-turned-astronaut by contrast is a little more reserved and nervous on the job. She’s clearly not as accustomed to having the curvature of Earth as the view out her office/bedroom window. And it’s not like one can really blame her. The sheer scale of this film is more epic than any superhero film has pretended to be in recent years.

What does this film more favors than anything is the staggering attention to detail. From the lack of sound when the shuttle and space station get struck with the debris, to the lack of energy Bullock shows having run out of oxygen in her suit; from the way spits of flame react in zero gravity, to the way equipment rips apart like fine fabric — literally every possible consideration is accounted for here. (When you’re done picking up your jaw, try not to leave too much drool on the floor. Someone else is probably going to be sitting there later.)

Such precision applies to more than the tangibles, which, in a movie like this, are crucial in and of themselves. The acting on the part of Sandra Bullock is simply incredible. Her task in this movie is quite a difficult one. Shouldered with conveying the requisite terror and panic that our collective species is intended to feel in these extreme conditions, she also has a personal story to share, and her experience on this mission will entirely change her outlook on the rest of her life.

When fellow survivor Matt Kowalski asks her about her life on Earth — what she might be doing at this very moment otherwise — she explains she had a daughter. Her portrayal as Dr. Ryan Stone is an emotional tour de force for which Bullock should receive the highest of recognitions. (If there’s any justice in the world, she’ll earn Best Actress AND the film’s extraterrestrial elegance will earn Best Visual Effects.)

This is also not to say Clooney doesn’t get a word in edgeways, either. His ramblings are sources of relief when the tension in the air becomes almost unbearable; his timing is perfect. He’s not given the heavy lifting, that much is certain, but Clooney colors up a supporting character that might have fallen completely by the wayside considering what happens to our heroine here. Ed Harris also voices mission control for the very brief moments they are in contact with one another.  To me, that casting choice is a little funny since he has all of maybe five minutes of line-reading and is never seen. Still, its yet more evidence of the talent that gravitated towards this project. (Man, I really need to stop with the puns.)

Currently, this is the highest-scoring film I have seen this far in my young filmgoing career that wasn’t A) a documentary; B) an indie film with little-known actors in potential break-out roles; and C) not a historical film steeped in facts and statistics. All the same, it has received near-perfect ratings, and is likely to stand out as one of the most complete, immersive and thoroughly researched stories this year.

Oh, and it’s also not an animated film either. Those also tend to do extremely well considering the levels of creativity that are involved in their construction. Notable achievements such as Pixar’s Toy Story earn perfect marks because of their broad appeal (a G-rating helps) and the novelty of the world in which we are stolen away to. A world in which we do not want to leave. Well, here’s a film in which there’s a world we cannot wait to get back to.

Simply put, Gravity sets a new standard to which all coming sci-fi/space films will be and should be held. The director’s previous film, Children of Men, is widely regarded as a powerful and dystopian commentary on a not-too-distant future on Earth in which humans are no longer able to reproduce. But 2013 sees him offering up his magnum opus. Utilizing the most basic of plots and casting top-tier actors who may never have been better, Cuarón draws remarkable conclusions about the stubborn nature of human survival; the will to go on despite every adversity. It may sound a little hackneyed put that way, but with Cuarón’s vision, you can’t help but be grateful for his wanting us so invested in this new reality, this disconnect from humanity. This world that is at the same time without the world.

gravity-2

4-5Recommendation: If, like me, you chuckled at the previews for this, you need to go ahead and right your wrongs. I’m glad I did. Gravity might be the best film of the year.

Rated: PG-13

Running Time: 91 mins.  

Quoted: “How beautiful, the sun shining on the Ganges river. . .”

All content originally published and the reproduction elsewhere without the expressed written consent of the blog owner is prohibited. 

Photo credits: http://www.impawards.com; http://www.imdb.com