Fall Movie Season: Crimson Peak

            Some would argue that it’s easier to get noticed for your art nowadays. There’s a chance that something you do will go “viral” which isn’t as bad today as it was in the 1800’s. Have a song, or a short film? Put it up on YouTube! There are YouTube “Stars” now that make a living pulling horrible pranks that would be crimes if they didn’t get views (and therefor, advertisers.) Even the groups we love, like the folks over at Wisecrack (I like saying that like I have some kind of connection with them, but they don’t know who I am. Hi, Spark Sweets and Garax!) probably couldn’t exist even 10 years ago.

            But in some ways it’s made art a little more difficult to synthesize as people become more savvy. Twists to movies get crowdsourced. Put up a trailer? The folks over at Sinema Sins will tell you everything that’s “wrong” with it in two days without the hassle of having to create art. (One of my scrapped posts during the dark time was trying to tackle what they did, but I really couldn’t bring myself to watch any of their “nitpicks” which were just mean spirited at some point.)

            What’s all this build up to? I want to discuss Guillermo del Toro’s fantastically underrated masterpiece, Crimson Peak. It’s a wonderful throwback movie that could have done well in a different age, or if audiences were willing to accept it for something different.

            Ghostly spoilers to follow. But since most of you haven’t seen the movie, I’m assuming that it’s probably cool I spoil some of it for you.

            Mia Wasikowska stars as Edith Cushing, a young woman growing up with her father (Jim Beaver, proving that once again he’s a national treasure) in America. We’re not five minutes into the movie before she’s confronted by a ghost who warns her, “beware of Crimson Peak.” Which is also the name of the movie, which means she’s probably not going to heed that warning.

            After the ghost incident, Edith is trying to get her book published, which is about ghosts, but not a ghost story. Enter the dashing Sir Thomas Sharpe (Played by the dreamy Tom Hiddleston), who’s a baronet trying to get his latest invention off the ground. He’s looking for investors, some mostly in the form of Mr. Cushing. Naturally, Mr. Cushing doesn’t trust this dashing young Englishman on the grounds that he’s “creepy” and “unprepared” and but Edith sees through his out dated but still fashionable attire (today we’d call it “vintage.”) and of course they fall in love.

            Shenanigans ensure. Mr. Cushing dies a natural death of “having his head smashed repeatedly into a sink” and Edith moves to England with Sir Thomas and his creepy sister Lucille Sharpe. (Jessica Chastain, in one of the many movies starring Jessica Chastain that came out this fall)  The house is called Allerdale Hall, but more commonly known by it’s other name. “Crimson Peak.”

            I actually enjoyed this movie, even though I walked in like everyone else, expecting a tense horror movie. There are a few minutes of jump scares, but overall it’s a great gothic movie, not necessarily a horror movie. I think that’s where a lot of the marketing for this movie went wrong, by playing up the ghost angle despite the fact that the ghosts represented a mystery and the past, but not actual ghosts.

            Hey, like that thing she was writing!

           What I like most is that this is interested in the past. It starts with a young Edith not just being haunted by the ghost of her mother, but recalling the story that she is not allowed to see her mother because of the way she died. As a result, the first appearance of the ghost is broken down and frightening. An idea that will come back later when we first see Allerdale Hall, which is broken down as Thomas and Lucille have been focusing on the future, and neglecting that past. There is a clear thread that by ignoring the past, we destroy part of ourselves, whether it be part of the house, or to invoke ghosts that are far worse than anything in our imaginations.

            This movie is a lot smarter than I think the original press for it gave it credit, a film that is rooted firmly in the past, made in an older style of directing. While the ghosts are very clearly special effects, and used to great effect but sparingly, so when one pops up it's not the seventh time we've seen a ghost in the past four minutes, the film itself seems older using irises to close out certain scenes, and even going so far as to have older fabric sewn into the costumes. So, in essence it’s a movie about exploring the past, about people rooted in the past, that was made very much for an audience in the past. It is almost as if Del Toro had secret plans to stick a flux capacitor on it and shove it back in time. I wouldn’t put it past the man; he’s quite crafty. 

I also enjoyed the fact that the movie was gothic and spooky without resorting to a lot of needless jump scares. Jump scares are overused in today’s horror films, when creating a mood is secondary to how many times we can make the music go up sharply and have a cat leap out at the protagonist is substitute for any real horror. But this film is rooted in the gothic tradition, and not one that is fascinated with scares for the sake of scares.

The mystery of this film is also enjoyable, including the twist that it turns out that Lucille and Thomas are in fact, lovers (but still brother and sister) who are murdering Thomas’s wives to bring back their riches in some way. They represent the past/future dynamic with Lucille wishing to fix up the hall and Thomas really wanting to get his machine working, even if he has to murder a few wives in order to do it.

There's really not much to nitpick on this film. del Toro does his homework, getting shots right, and even uses color to a proper effect to heighten the mood. There's a tense feeling over the proceedings, one that makes things feel like at any moment you might get that jump scare, but since it's actually a movie concerned with telling a story they manage to forgo the cheap scares.

Overall a spooky film, one you should check out. Not just for the Tom Hiddleston Eye Candy.

Fall Movie Season: The Martian

   

         In space, no one can hear you grow potatoes. That’s your only warning that there’s going to be spoilers for the Martian in this post. 

            When I first saw the trailer for the most recent entry into the genre “Hey, Let’s Save Matt Damon From Somewhere Expensive” called The Martian, I had many different emotions. One of them was hungry, because I had just gotten popcorn and I wanted to start eating it but I also wanted to save it for the movie. The other was, “haven’t I seen this somewhere before?”

            No, I don’t mean the whole “Let’s Save Matt Damon From Somewhere Expensive” Genre. That’ s an entire genre, like people getting stuck in buildings and needing to save it from terrorists or burglars. The “Die Hard in a… “Genre. No, I’m talking about the Sandra Bullock scream fest Gravity.

            The situations are similar: one person, stranded alone against the elements. The focus is the same, will this person get rescued, or will they end up in space, with on one hearing them scream. Both are beautifully filmed. And both star people that have more Oscars than Leonardo DiCaprio. (One day… one day he’s going to win one, and these jokes won’t be as funny. Just kidding. They always will be. Nicolas Cage has more than him.)

            I’ve got to say, the Martian handles it a lot better. By “it” I mean an astronaut that’s been trained for terrible things to happen being stranded in the middle of nowhere.

            The Martian, far from being a sequel to John Carter of Mars, is about a group of scientists who are exploring the red planet, having set up a temporary habitat called a “Hab” on the planet. One day, towards the end of the planned 30 day mission, disaster strikes, because somehow a mission exploring another planet isn’t exciting enough, and Commander Melissa Lewis (Jessica Chastain, in one of the many movies starring Jessica Chastain this Fall) must decide whether to leave the planet or stay. While the crew is working their way to the escape ship, Mark Watney  (Matt Damon) is hit by a piece of debris, and the crew thinks he’s dead.

            Since this is called The Martian and it’s about Matt Damon surviving on a planet by himself, you can guess he’s probably not dead.

            It turns out, yes, spoilers everyone, he wasn’t killed, just hurt really badly. He awakens to find that he has no way to communicate, diminishing food and resources, and even if someone knew he was alive they wouldn’t be able to get any supplies to him for about 400 days. He then spends the next hour and a half slowly giving up while screaming and dealing with all the problems he left back on Earth.

            No. I said it was different than Gravity. (Some might call it… Anti-Gravity if they were just making cheap jokes. I’m here to make cheap jokes. You’re welcome.) Mark actually, because he’s a scientist trained for situations like these, “Sciences the shit out this”. Because throwing in casual profanity when you’re on a planet by yourself is allowed. Mark sets up a livable habitat, grows vegetables, and tries to survive long enough to get off the planet successfully.

            Over the summer I gave a positive review to Tomorrowland with the disclaimer that I was fully aware that it wasn’t a good movie, it was just really hopeful and I liked it. The truth is, as much as people complain about things like “Dark Superman” in the Man of Steel or “PTSD Iron Man” in Iron Man 3, we keep going to see those movies. What separates out The Martian from all of that is how upbeat it is.

            The NASA officials attempting to spin Mark’s Death is viewed as evil. And they make it very clear in every scene that Mark knows that his crew had to leave him, there was no way in that world they could have thought he was alive. Yes, the commander has a few moments of being sad, but ultimately there’s not a lot of angst where Mark sulks around the planet, deciding that it’s just his time to die.

            The upbeat message is what really gets to me about this film. Here we have a man who’s literally in the worst case scenario.  He is by himself, and no one is coming for him. They don’t even want to aim their satellites at the location of the Hab for fear of broadcasting a dead astronaut to the world. But what wins out every single time is this idea that things are going to be ok if they just keep working toward the goal of being saved.

            And here’s the thing, Mark doesn’t always think that things are going to be ok. That’s abundantly clear. He thinks that if he just keeps working, maybe it will take his mind off his impending death. Maybe if he keeps working, eventually things will be ok, because why not: they should be ok. Even as he runs out of food, he still manages to work towards his ultimate goal of being rescued or at least leaving a corpse that was working hard while trying to be rescued. That’s what I really like about the film. It’s essentially a long piece of work dedicated to the idea that if things suck, keep moving forward. Even if you die alone on a barren planet, you’ll at least leave a corpse that looked like they were trying to do something.

            I could go on about the special effects, but at this point, special effects are just background noise. I could go on about scientific accuracy but Neil de Grasse Tyson is smarter than me and will probably do a better job. (They got there with rockets, right? We’re no longer using giant balloons leftover from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade? I didn’t see Garfield up there so I’m assuming it’s pretty accurate.) My point is, that I could go on, but this movie was actually pretty cool.  

            My rating: Four out of Five potatoes.

Fall Movie Season: The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 (Analysis)

Let’s be honest. The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 was never going to be an easy movie to make.

Oh, yeah. Spoilers for The Hunger Games, the book, the movie, and the most recent time we sent our kids into a stadium to fight for our amusement. (Tuesday’s fights. Go, District 7!)

I’m not going to go much into details about the stories if you’re not familiar with them, you may want to read them and watch the movies. But basically… post apocalypse, things suck, and for some reason the best solution to everything is to have a bunch of kids try to murder each other for sport. Part 2 is all about somehow the best solution for getting Katniss and her inspirational story out of everyone’s mind by putting her back in front of everyone. And the first part of Part 3 tells the story of how she became a symbol for the rebellion, while Peeta becomes the symbol for the Capitol. 

The Hunger Games, the Book was a very unique experience. It was a look into the mind of a young woman as she goes from an unknown… whatever she did in District 12 to unlikely face of a revolution by simply attempting to be nice to people. I say that because for as much as these were novels, they were very much told in the first person perspective, taking us out of the minds of people who would tell a bunch of teenagers that they need to fight to the death because reasons, and into the mind of a young woman who is being told to fight to the death because reasons. 

The movies were always going to change that. Short of strapping a go-pro on the top of Jennifer Lawrence’s head, thus probably killing her top billing in most of the movies, we were never going to get a story directly from Katniss’ perspective. There was always going to be the addition of other perspectives, like President Snow, President Harrison impressionist Interim President Coin, and… Gale, I guess. The movies didn’t bounce around that much, but still added another perspective: We were no longer directly privy to Katniss’ thoughts.

Mockingjay Part 2 picks up right where Part 1 leaves off, Peeta rescued and brainwashed into thinking Katniss is a bad guy, while Katniss deals with the fact that she can’t speak. Its a good place to pick up, it gives a natural arc to part 1 (rescuing Peeta) and it starts part 2 with an interesting image: the woman who’s been giving a “voice” to the rebellion now unable to speak. It also leads us into the most Hunger-Gamey part of the third novel, (now fourth movie) where Katniss now has to face off against the Capitol that has been turned into a basically a giant Hunger Games like arena. 

Ignoring the fact that the Capitol has the time, energy, and resources to turn the Capitol into a giant Hunger Games type arena, Katniss that she has to go in and stop the war by killing of Snow. The problem is that this is one of the darkest and most personal parts of the book, and one that leads to the growth we see in the main character, and it has to be ignored for big special effects and… well, Hunger Games type action. (It’s in the title of the movie, after all.)

The Hunger Games isn’t about necessarily a bunch of kids murder-killing each other for sport. It’s about the personal grown of a young woman. She’s not a the chosen one. In fact, she’s the very opposite of the Chosen One. Her sister is Chosen, and Katniss takes her place. Peeta is the closest thing we get to a Chosen One, and he basically gets told that he has to do what he can to make sure that Katniss makes it back home to safety. But slowly, she learns to play the game. She learns who to trust and who to save, and the thing is… she never really stops playing that game at any point. She spends the first story learning to play it, appealing to people and sponsors to make them like her. She spends the second story (movie and book) again, playing off to people but more on her terms… then part of that point is that everything gets negated by the so-called saviors of District 13. She still has to play the game, get the people to like her, send her stuff. All the while she does this to survive. Help her sister survive, help Peeta survive, even help her survive. One could argue that she doesn’t really take agency for herself until her one selfless act, the one act not based on her surviving: the killing of Coin and the accepting that Snow, for all his manipulations, really believed in trying to keep the peace and everyone happy. 

One could also argue here that Snow is just as much a victim as Katniss. But that’s another post. We’re here to talk movies!

The problem is that the books allow us to see this all through Katniss’ eyes. We get to hear the voice in her head as she makes these decisions, and a movie… a movie ignores that. I threw out at the beginning that the third book was going to be the hardest to adapt, and that’s true. Most of the third book is torture, Katniss gets real war wounds (She’s not the chosen one, remember. That’s still Peeta.) The most heroic act of the movie (saving Peeta) doesn’t include the hero and is largely off the book page. Even after she’s wounded, she still suffering from PTSD, and most of the “happy” ending that the movie gloms onto glosses over the fact that Katniss and Peeta emerge from the Games and the War extremely damaged, and they end up together because they’re able to save themselves from each other.

There are two big moments about the movie I do want to discuss. One really good. One really bad. 

Let’s start with the bad because this is my blog post and I can really do what I want. When I say the ending of the story, there’s really two endings. One is when Peeta and Katniss are able to express their love for each other through their PTSD, which again, is largely ignored by the movie. The books take us on a little trip into the future, where Peeta and Katniss have two kids and are roaming around the remains of District 12. The movie follows this and I get why they want to put this in: for an idea of hope for the future and stuff like that. After all… look! Kids! That probably won’t have to fight in any Hunger Games, because they’re way past stuff like that again. (More on that in a minute.) 

The book makes this very clear that this is a conflicted moment from Katniss. Will she have kids? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t want them. She can’t bring them into the world for fear of again: Another Hunger Games. (Again…. hold tight true believers.) It’s just a big leap that we don’t see in the movies. A stronger ending would have been the first one, the one with Katniss deciding that it was time to heal with Peeta. The decision for kids is an interesting one, but a little more meaningless without that voice from Katniss expressing her fear.

Ok, let’s end this on a good note. There was always one part of the book that never sat well with me, and that was the “symbolic vote” held by Interim “You’re Welcome I Took the Burden” President Coin and the Hunger Games Victors about holding… another Hunger Games with the Capitols kids. You know, most of whom were bombed by probably District 13 but is left ambiguous? Nothing says “let’s get the masses on our sides by killing kids.” Seriously, where did these people learn propaganda? 

Moving on.

In the book, and maybe it was just my reading of it, but it was never 100% clear what Katniss was up to when she was voting to do it it “for Prim.” Part of it was her anger and her burning skin and her PTSD that the movie didn’t want to acknowledge. I don’t know. But the subtle change in this was wonderful. Jennifer Lawrence and Woody Harrelson played off the moment perfectly, and there was more of a secret conspiracy here. There was more of a plan in Katniss’ eyes. Even non-book readers could acknowledge that Katniss was about to stir something up. And this is really the most important scene. It’s the one where Katniss steps out of being just a puppet. It’s one where she starts to take agency for herself, one where she makes her first real decision of the series. It was extremely important, and I do like how it played out.

So, after all of that, many of you are asking if you should see the movie. Honestly, I don’t know. Iv’e been away from movies for too long over the last few months, I’m getting back into them. I enjoyed it. If you’ve seen the other three, you’re probably going to go see this one. And since, as of this writing it’s made enough money to give Jennifer Lawrence one of those Scrooge-McDuck style money bins she can swim in every night, you’re going to see it. 

Rating: 3 out of 5. 

Prestige Movie Season: Bless Us, Oh Hanks

That chill in the air. I guess the chill in the air is an actual reason to sit inside a movie theatre instead of when it’s really nice out and the sun is shining, but there’s just more fun when it’s summer movie season, and the explosions seem louder, and the comedies seem funnier. Unless they’re Vacation. Then there’s nothing funny about it. 

Regardless, Joss Whedon has blessed us with a fruitful Summer Movie Season. And I enjoyed it. Now it’s time to turn down the explosions, make the comedies a little more thoughtful, and prepare for some movie about a war in the stars. It’s the seventh in the series, hopefully it will live up to the Seventh Fast and The Furious movie. Time will tell. Movies get more serious during this, Prestige Season. What do we think is going to get nominated for an Oscar? 

Anyway, bow your heads, and it’s time that we offer up our prayer to Tom Hanks, the Patron Saint of Prestige Season.

Our Tom Hanks

Who art very Prestigious,

Hallowed be thy name

We honor you today as you grant us

A noble Prestige Season.

How will Jennifer Lawrence lighten up a fourth Hunger Games So dark?

Will Jack Black give us Goosebumps?

On history will SPECTRE make it’s mark?

And will Tina Fey make us laugh, or having us sitting like a lump?

We can’t forget the sequels to movies long past

As once again we’ll see VHS’s and Rings

That creepy Girl will have us Aghast.

Is this the last Paranormal Activity we sing?

The fact that it’s the fifth is probably a no.

And let’s not forget Hotel Transylvania 2… Really? A second one? And still not sequel to Serenity? At this point Hollywood is just actively trying to mess with us. R

*Ahem*

It is with great pleasure that you bring us the Oscar Bait

Twice the Tom Hardy in Legends is a gift

And you don’t make us wait.

As The Walk will make our spirits just lift

We will get more Hanks in the Bridge of Spies

Eddie Redmayne is a Danish Girl

And By the Sea with Angelina Jolie with some sighs

Let’s not forget Sisters… Probably not Oscar Bait but let’s give it a whirl.

Rocky is back in Creed

Bill Murray Rocks the Kasbah

Pixar fills our November need

For some Good Dinosaur huspta. 

Of course oh Hanks, we can’t ignore the big tome

As Star Wars rises again

And Han and Chewie are once again home

This time without Hayden Christensen. 

The Maze Runner Scorches us with Trials Galore

Everest scales us to new heights 

The Peanuts return, with technology unlike before

And how many old Jokes will the Intern ignite?

Tis this and many others are before us

I didn’t even get to the Scouts Guide to the Zombie Apocalypse

But it is in you that we trust

That will grants us grant movies

So bless us oh Hanks

As we switch to a completely different kind of movie

And it is to you I give thanks

I managed to work in the word groovy. 

Thanks for joining us for Summer Movie Season, everyone. See you all next year for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, Ghostbusters, Captain America: Civil War, and many, many others. Until then, I’m probably going to do a limited Prestige Movie Season review, we’ll see. I know I still enjoy going to the movies. A lot more than I enjoy writing poems. 

An Ode to Prestige Season...

The few weeks after Labor Day are the hardest for us movie junkies… er… I mean, enthusiasts. Gone are the flashy big blockbusters of yestermonth, and now we have to sift through the remains of the Labor Day Dumping Ground… because I’m sure your horror movie released in August is going to be pretty good… and the quieter movies that are slowly starting to creak back into theaters after a loud, loud summer. I mean, the big releases this week include what’s essentially a “Jackie Jorm-Jorp”  Elvis Story. 

(Quick side note, Jackie Jorm-Jorp refers to the television show 30 Rock. One of the side plots involved an actress getting hire to play Janis Joplin, then the movie slowly losing the rights to her song, then her names, and the producers desperately trying to still pull off the movie. It’s hilarious, but it’s what I think of when I see a movie that’s about the twin brother of an Elvis sounding guy impersonating said Elvis sounding guy.) 

Anyway, we need to thank Joss Whedon, the patron filmmaker of the Summer, for a fantastic movie season. I’ve mentioned with my recap, we’ve had some great highs that involved dancing plants, fake cops, and love letters to music, and we’ve been assaulted by realistic origin reboots, unfunny comedies, and giant robots. We’ve seen teenagers die, we’ve seen dragons get trained, and we’ve seen apes take their rightful place as in charge of this world. (That last line was just in case they do take over. I want my bases covered.) And we have a lot to look forward to next year, already, roughly about 90 superhero movies in the works, including a directorial appearance from our own patron filmmaker, so I’ll be interested in seeing how that turns out.

Thank you Joss, for presiding over a fantastic Summer Movie Season. I look forward to your graces next year. 

However, as the seasons change… and with Bad Shakespeare there are three… Summer Movie Season, Prestige Season, and Good Bad Movie Season… It’s time we shift our focus to Tom Hanks, the Patron Filmmaker of Prestige Season, which runs from today until December 31st. 

Prestige Season is difficult to navigate. Rather than the giant blockbusters, we have smaller films, or films that are more focused on winning awards. And for a brief period in October, we have a bunch of horror movies that studios have not decided to just dump in August, randomly, figuring you could use a good scare before a trip to the beach. 

The other tough part is that these are the movies most likely to appear in the Annual Oscar Movie Showcase from AMC, which as loyal readers know (and disloyal readers can glean from my archives) Bad Shakespeare attends, blogs, and tries to go into as fresh as possible. So do I avoid those movies? Or do I risk it. Remember, I ran the risk of watching Gravity twice. 

Man, I hated Gravity. 

But Prestige Season and Tom Hanks are not about hatred. They’re about looking at a different type of movie. Tom Hanks, from what I can see, is all about the love. So, it is with that, we have to offer our prayer to Tom Hanks for a successful and enjoyable Prestige Season.

So… what do we have to look forward to for this very Tom Hanksian Prestige Season?

We will be running mazes with Young Adult Adapations anew

And once again, we visit Peter Jackson’s Middle Earth

With Hobbits, Elves, and Orcs of Blue. 

Christmas Brings us both sadness and mirth

As Robin Williams’ graces us final times

With a Merry Friggin’ Christmas and

Museums at Night, this time with London Chimes. 

Don’t take this time to bury your head in the sand

As Christian Bale releases his people with an Exodus

Kevin Smith returns to the big screen with a tale

About a man, turned into a walrus

And let us hope that he doesn’t fail

As Simon Pegg becomes Hector, in his search for Happiness. 

An all star cast decides This is Where I leave You

But I must confess

Interstellar is the movie that’s already in my queue. 

For the kids there are Boxtrolls and Big Heroes of Six

Although I’m not really sure what a Boxtroll is. 

And let’s not forget the big kids in the mix

With Equalizer, Gone Girl and A Walk Among the Tombstones…is….

Speaking of movie remakes being all the rage

Left Behind will rapture us again

This time with Nicolas Cage

That should drive Kirk Cameron insane. 

Brad Pitt Trades World War Z for World War 2

Batman Michael Keaton becomes Birdman

And Bill Murray teaches us all as St. Vincent, who

tells the story of a kid, and his best friend a man. 

Daniel Radcliff puts on some devilish Horns

Laggies has Kiera Knightly using her American speak

While Annie brings us musical horns

And Keanu plays a hitman past his peak. 

So we ask you look over these movies, Tom Hanks

As the Patron Filmmaker of Prestige Season

And bring the horror movies into your ranks

And the movies I didn’t name for some reason.

Amen.

There you have it. Our brief prayer to Tom Hanks, the Patron Filmmaker of Prestige Season. I won’t be covering it quite as much as I do Summer Movie Season (which has a better place in my heart for more nostalgic reasons.) But I hope you enjoyed this, and our look back on the Summer movie season that was. 

In Space, No One Can Hear Me Curl Up Into A Ball and Sob

Tom Hanks be praised... we have had a fruitful Prestige Season thus far.  I just got back from Prisoners and I honestly believe that it will be quite the tossup for the High Movie Council to decide if they’re nominating Hugh Jackman for this or The Wolverine. (Het gets angry in both, but in one he has metal claws. I’d like to think the metal claws will push him over the edge a little...) And it only appears to be getting better and better as the weeks come towards us. 

Of course, with Prestige Season comes the movies you HAVE to see. By the movies you HAVE to see, I means these are the ones that people will go check out, then get in your face and QUESTION YOUR VERY EXISTENCE IF YOU DARE NOT SEE THEM. We recently had one of these pop up. No. Not Machete Kills, that hasn’t been unleashed on the populace, not quite yet. (But promises to be awesome) No, I’m speaking of the George Clooney-iest Space Epic since Solaris, Gravity. For those of you who don’t know, it’s about Sandra Bullock and George Clooney getting stranded in space. People call it Science Fiction, despite the fact that they don’t really have anything that advanced, there are no aliens, and it’s mostly them floating around space for a couple hours. I haven’t seen it. And I probably won’t.

Neil deGrasse Tyson has already made headlines by pointing out all of the scientific inaccuracies in it, thus making it the first movie ever to not be scientifically accurate. But since it makes him mad, you’d think I’d be all over it.

All joking aside, I really refuse to see this movie. I have an irrational fear of dying in space. 

Look, I realize that the chances are greater of me walking outside the house, being attacked by four sharks while being struck by lighting conjured up by Voldemort while a team of Scarlett Johansson clones do cheerleading routines while an audience watches than me dying in space. That’s why:

1. I called it an irrational fear. It makes no rational sense. I defined it right there.
2. I’m not an astronaut, and never had any desire to be one.

Now give me a moment to see if I can perfect my Scarlett Johansson cloning machine. Still no.

Anyway, back to the matter at hand. My philosophy has always been this: No matter how bad things get on Earth, I can at least make an attempt to escape whatever happens. House on fire? I can try to get out. On a sinking ship? I can try to swim to shore. Being attacked by a bearshark? I can punch it in the nose and run away. Cloverfield Monster Attack? I can build a giant robot and fight it. Scarlett Johansson clones coming after me? Actually I don’t know that I’d try to escape that one... Now keep in mind here I’m not saying “I will survive all of this”. I’m saying that I can try. Make the attempt. If something went wrong in space, what am I going to do? Head for the moon? Take my chances that if I head towards the earth and survive not burning up in re-entry that I’m headed towards the Acme Pillow and Marshmallow Factory?

Like I said, irrational.

Of course, you tell this to people and suddenly, they treat you as if you’ve done a terrible thing like steal Scarlett Johansson’s DNA and started cloning her for your own amusement. Or something similarly bad. Suddenly, this combined with your encyclopedic knowledge of all things Nicolas Cage makes you, “not a real movie fan, because this is the greatest movie ever and what is wrong with you?” Of course, anyone else can refuse a “bad” movie because it stars someone they disagree with, or because they’re not interested. I avoid a good movie, and suddenly it’s a case for my inclusion in the Movie Lovers Forever Club, I guess.

I’m sure that Gravity is a fantastic movie. I’ve heard the cinematography is amazing. I hear the acting is pretty good, but I’d expect no less from the man that destroyed a Batman franchise and the star of two Miss Congenialities. (I do like the actors, just throwing out bad movies out there... maybe ones movie snobs wouldn’t want to see...) I just have no desire to see it. It’s for a silly reason, I realize that. But how is that any less valid than not wanting to see Saw because it has a ton of blood, Machete because you don’t enjoy that type of humor, or Grown-Ups because of it has a ton of Adam Sandler? It’s just a movie I don’t wish to see. Because the thought of being in that situation terrifies me.

Besides, I hear from Neil deGrasse Tyson that it’s got some serious scientific inaccuracies.