Star stuff

I recently saw two excellent movies. One is a serious sci-fi flick, and one is pretty much pure fantasy. The first is Sunshine, which is set in the near future and is about the crew of a massive space ship (rather ironically named the Icarus) sent to restart the sun. (This is the sci-fi film, BTW) It seems our sun has dimmed and plunged Earth into a new ice age. No real explanation why this has happened or how they actually plan to fix it is given, but I think that was a wise move. It allows the story to focus the characters and their struggles, without getting too lost in the whole "we're basically flying a giant bomb into the sun" bit. Yet it maintains a distinct sci-fi feel as there is plenty of science, and no desperate, last-minute WTF solutions to the "zOMG we're fux0r3d! Let's fly teh ship into the sun to save the humaz0rz!" Armageddon, this ain't. All in all, a very cool little indie film. Absolutely gorgeous imagery. Not a bad story either and very atmospheric. Think the visuals of The Fountain with the tone of Solaris, with a little Event Horizon deep-space horror and 2001: A Space Odyssey computer creepiness mixed in. Though neither Solaris or Event Horizon were all that good (though I did like Solaris), I think that they have certain qualities that make them noteworthy sci-fi films and if you have seen them, you'll definitely see what I mean when you see Sunshine. And if you can make it though The Fountain without your brain melting, I salute you soldier. Now it's not getting a lot of press, but I highly recommend it. It's playing at the Arizona Mills Harkins at least, maybe elsewhere. So go see it.

On Saturday I saw Stardust. This was the fantasy film, if you hadn't deduced that. And it was much better than I anticipated. I was really looking forward to it when I saw the previews, but I was a little skeptical about the quality since I've been let down many times by this same pattern. *cough* Spiderman 3/Aeon Flux/Ultraviolet/Fantastic Four/The Hulk *cough* It's almost a kid's movie, but it has some rather intense scenes involving animal disemboweling by some rather nasty witches (not graphic, just violent), and people seem to die a lot. But to give it some perspective, and since this post seems to be all about comparisions, I would say tt's somewhere in between Lewis and Tolkien: not quite as childish as The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, but less mature than The Lord of the Rings. I'd put it in the same league as the latest Harry Potter, but with a distinctively more fairy-tale feel to it. It would be hard to summarize, but it involves a magic kingdom, evil witches, a power-hungry prince, a lost princess, flying pirates, and a falling star (in this case, played by Claire Danes, who makes one sexy fallen star I might add). Now if you go into this expecting something as deep and rich as Middle Earth, you'll be quite disappointed. In fact, I'd say the closest thing would probably be The Princess Bride. It has a rich and detailed world, yet it maintains the fairy-tale aspect of wonder because what you see is not always explained or even given any real back story; it simply is.

So go see Sunshine and Stardust. I mean really, what else do you have to do?