James Gray's "inward-looking" sci-fi film AD ASTRA starring Brad Pitt

I'm there for whatever Gray makes.

https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/6567-james-gray-s-ad-astra

yeah I am excited about this

Gray is one of my favorite journeyman directors. Didn't this get delayed a lot? From what little they give away in the trailers it seems to have some Interstellar vibes.

how do you define "journeyman"?

I have my screening next week.

I mean that every one of his films is very different from the one before it, like a classic studio system director.

Like here, which I just found:

http://collider.com/journeyman-directors-explained/

he's not a 'journeyman' to me; not even in the auteurist Allan Dwan sense

I read "journeyman" and think, I dunno, Henry Hathaway or something

more like Jack Smight

p sure the guy who wrote the Collider thing has not seen any pre-Jaws movies

every one of his films is very different from the one before it, like a classic studio system director.

the difference is I believe Gray originates all his projects. Also a lot of commonalities in the ones before (or even through) The Immigrant.

Yeah, I guess that's a distinction. No one is bringing him projects.

Like, Curtis Hanson, that's the type of director I'm thinking of.

ughhh

I like Hanson.

It’s very interesting, because they have found that it’s a very different thing for the astronauts that go up 200 miles up in the ISS, where the Earth is still most of your vision when you look out the window.... And it’s a very different psychological effect, apparently. They don’t know for sure what would happen the further you go out, but they’re anticipating that it has potentially serious consequences. When the Earth is just a blue dot, what does that mean?

So, this certainly went into the kind of thought process that Brad and I had discussed about the character. It became very important to us, this idea that the Earth all of a sudden gets smaller and smaller, and the sun gets smaller and smaller. All the things that we know—all the things that are tangible and beautiful—seem further and further away. We thought this was an excellent context for something....

You know, I have huge admiration for Alfonso Cuarón, because I don’t know how he made that movie Gravity, knowing now what it is. What we tried to do, as much as we could, was go old school. We built two sets; a horizontal set, and then a vertical one. On the horizontal set, you would put the actor on a moving rig. And then the vertical, you’re shooting from the bottom looking up, and you hang the actor on wires. Usually, they’re blocking the wires. When they’re not, you paint them out. It’s a very effective effect when you combine the two sets, and the wides and the close-ups....

It’s basically like making a kind of semi 3D painting. You have pre- and post-vis, but it doesn’t really approximate what the thing is going to look like, and you have to get it right. If you make a mistake in judging the animation, they turn to you and they say, “What are you talking about? That’s rendered. You did that with the animation you chose.” So, I realize I really have to be so specific about the animation on a very basic level. And that was painstaking. That took forever.

https://deadline.com/2019/08/ad-astra-james-gray-interview-sci-fi-future-fox-venice-1202705879/

also

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/09/16/james-grays-journey-from-the-outer-boroughs-to-outer-space

“There’s a level of bullshit that the culture is now embracing,” Gray said. “The other day, the doctor is poking around my pancreas, and he’s, like, ‘You see “The Avengers 2”?’ I’m, like, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Why not?’ I’m, like, ‘I’m not nine!’ ” Gray thought that public reporting of movies’ gross profits, a practice that took off in the eighties, changed the popular conception of what a successful film looked like. (“My dad will say, ‘That was a very big hit!’ I’ll be, like, ‘I don’t think you’re a stockholder in Time Warner!’ ”)

uh oh he's flirting with getting an old man gif ILX'd at him

I’m, like, ‘I’m not nine!’

lol these movies aren't for 9yos, they're for manbabies

“They rate everything according to Francis Ford Coppola movies,” Ali Gray explained. A superb meal on Gross’s scale is a “Godfather.” A meal better than superb is a “Godfather II.” One that’s rewarding but an acquired taste (such as Gray’s lemon fettuccine with jalapeños) is an “Apocalypse Now.” Once, there was a “Jack” meal, but they don’t talk about it.

Fuck this dude; he can fall under a bus.

I'm seeing this on thursday :) Quite excited, and I'm not really the biggest Gray-fan anyway.

I'm a fan (less so of Brad Pitt), and I'll be there Thursday.

I've seen two, maybe three of his movies (Little Odessa, We Own The Night, and I might have seen The Immigrant, I don't remember). Zero interest in the others, this one included.

Two Lovers and Lost City of Z flirt with greatness often.

haven't seen his other films but I liked The Lost City of Z

We Own the Night is such a weird clunky obvious movie that I feel it's almost a commentary on something. I thought it looked great but felt very stupid.

Oh, I'm seeing this thing! But had to bail on that New Yorker profile 1/3 of the way in. Excruciating, and not because Gray himself is a ludicrous human being.

I even liked large bits of We Own the Night. He has a gravity that never turns to camp.

the weirdness of WOtN is in its total sincerity in presenting absurd material, which isn't necessarily a demerit...

now u know how I feel about u, unp

Tommy Lee Jones is plying Pitt's father here... he is a mere 17 years younger than Brad

Wow how does that work

lol

relativity.

Love all this guy's movies and I'm really excited about this.

otm

i'm starting to really hate every fucking thread in this fucking middle-aged asylum

Saw it this afternoon and I was sadly unimpressed. Brad Pitt's ok and there's some decent space spectacle and a few dark laughs, but it's portentous in the extreme (thankfully dialogue is relatively scant, but I thought both it and Pitt's voiceover border on cringe- and/or laugh-worthy at times) and the whole thing is so utterly unsurprising/unadventurous, in terms of ideas, plot or the emotional side of things. I liked both Gravity and Sunshine, and thought this bears a lot of similarities to and/or took cues from both, without really doing anything different enough for me. Not terrible, but not great either.

Press reviews I've read have been incredibly positive though (Peter Bradshaw in the Guardian and the Skinny and List here in Scotland), so I was surprised and disappointed. Anyone else caught it yet?

I watched it, loved it. Loved the way it just dives headfirst into banality.

TLJ has some beautiful line readings.

I enjoyed it more than the average metaphysical space film, but this is not my genre.

Ah, I wish I had loved it! I'm generally a fan of this kind of film and could have done with a couple of hours proper escape.

How do you mean you loved the dive into banality?

reported reshoots by another director

https://www.worldofreel.com/blog/2019/9/ad-astra-had-reshoots-without-james-grays-approval

yikes

i would imagine Gray would not mesh perfectly with big-budget expectations

I liked this a lot and look forward to seeing it again, but a lot like Z it felt relatively muted to me on first watch. Just like Z I found myself wanting it to go just a bit further *out there* (funny thing to think during a movie that ends literally at Neptune). The music was good but nothing quite as effective as the Ravel in Z.

Perhaps unfair to compare them since I feel so strongly about the prior film, but I think I actually enjoyed this more than Z after the first watch. I will see this again with my aging father (lol) who is a sci fi nut and hopefully untangle my feelings a bit more.

It’s always upsetting to me when movies like this—ambitiously flawed thoughtful and personal, lyrical, adult—are handled poorly and then bomb—which this will. Every great movie is a miracle but it feels like we could have movies like this pretty regularly.

Also: no idea why 2001 is being metioned with this...the real comparison is Soderbergh’s Solaris.

I enjoyed this, wasn't totally blown away by it. It's too facile to say "Terence Malick's Apocalypse Now," but I can't shake the phrase. The moon chase and space critters were weird side roads to take, and Natasha Lyonne's cameo was a lol.

There was a shitload of Movie Science in this picture.

it sounds interesting, hearing about it makes me think of High Life, but I guess this has more action

Just saw. Really enjoyed this, need to think about it. Kinda wanna see it again.

It's interesting to reflect on the fact that the reserved emotional nature of these last two films is both text and subtext...both are about men with an inability to have intimacy, inhabiting movies that keep us at arm's length (Ad Astra *talks about* feelings, but only in the negative)...but what's particularly intriguing to me is that they see masculinity itself as a kind of woundedness, or a way to cope with being wounded, a survival strategy or search for security that's enormously empathetic and not really interested in scoring cheap shots against "toxic masculinity" so much as it is concerned about charting a way through masculinity towards something...more yielding.

The story of how Natasha Lyonne ended up in this movie is so very... Natasha Lyonne: https://slate.com/culture/2019/09/natasha-lyonne-ad-astra-cameo-explained-james-gray.html

I love her.

This was impeccably crafted but I get very annoyed when science fiction that is touted as “adult” or “thoughtful” ends up just being more warmed-over Oedipal dreariness.

Space travel: it’s just an elaborate form of therapy where you learn how to process your feelings about dad

“Just open up a little, dude. Enjoy some coffee, talk to your wife.” Ok, great. Why did we have to go to fucking space to learn this?

What a bunch of bourgeois horse manure. Urgh.

Very pretty movie though

I think this would have been more interesting if was from the perspective of TLJ’s character. If we’re gonna dive into the emptiness of the cosmos and the need for humans to appreciate our precious, fleeting existence and learn to live with one another (or whatever this movie thinks it’s saying), then make the story about a character who would actually care about this one way or another. Brad Pitt’s character doesn’t care about anything except doing his mission and reconnecting with daddy. (Yeah, he learns to lighten up a bit at the end, but so what).

We should be able to feel the horror of someone finding out that this search has been pointless. That’s the real story here, but the movie is too chickenshit to deal with it directly.

I just feel like every James Gray film until now has been from Tommy Lee Jones' characters point of view, so I appreciated he tried something new this time.

We should be able to feel the horror of someone finding out that this search has been pointless. That’s the real story here, but the movie is too chickenshit to deal with it directly.

that actually is the story of Pitt's character! His entire encounter with his father is disappointing and pointless for him.

think this would have been more interesting if was from the perspective of TLJ’s character. If we’re gonna dive into the emptiness of the cosmos and the need for humans to appreciate our precious, fleeting existence and learn to live with one another (or whatever this movie thinks it’s saying), then make the story about a character who would actually care about this one way or another.

You missed the point of the movie

No, I understood what the movie itself was doing. It’s not exactly rocket science*

It’s just that I found Pitt’s character’s journey less interesting than the implied backstory of his father. In other words I freely admit I just wish it was a different kind of movie entirely.

I’ll give Ad Asta this though: it made me care enough to be mad at it. These days that’s gotta count for something.

*i make no apologies for this :D

but I disagree with your point about Pitt learning to live with stranded Liv Tyler. If anything, Gray's editing and framing decisions are more devastating: he returns to her because "eh fuck it."

I'm not crazy about the film because Sad Space movies are so not my genre.

I also want to praise the effects work in this. Other than the baboon (which looked fine but was obviously CGI) the visuals were nearly seamless.

From what I've read, I'd watch the James Grey version.

I loved this and found it very exciting. The fall from the space antenna opening is soooo good. It was weird though that Ruth Negga is all dressed up like some Pheobe Philo era Céline model on Mars.

The Lost Space Station Z

As someone who love love loved Gravity and The Martian, I found this underwhelming.

Pacing-wise it felt disjointed, like they'd wanted to go the noble route of creating a scientifically-sound, brooding take on the modern space opera genre but later got told to liven it up with some pointless action sequences which got punched-in at 20-30 minute intervals.

Everything to do with Sutherland and the space pirates felt very pointless. The space baboons sequence was from some other movie. Both those sequences were far-fetched and thrillery.

The film spent a long time taking me down detours and dead-ends, all the while alluding to some great reveal that never really happened. The entire denouement and final sequence was anticlimactic, predictable and ultimately no different to what we've seen on other recent 'lost in space' flicks.

A big part of the problem for me was not being able to connect with Pitt's character, nor bringing myself to care all that much about his relationship with his father, which seemed to be the emotional crux the film was trying to ply on me.

Meanwhile the rather major plotpoint of the power surges was reduced to a MacGuffin, brought up in only the most offhand way by TLJ's character at the end. How the hell was a relatively small spacecraft generating enough power to cause such catastrophic damage on Earth? And why was this happening? And (forgive me, maybe I had a lapse) was this something TLJ was doing on purpose? He seemed to be trying to stop it, but who knows, the film seemed more interested in getting me to care about Liv Tyler's 10 seconds of screentime than the actual science or motive of the mission.

On the other hand, everyone should stop discussing this film and go see Aniara, another space epic with lots of 'A's in the title, and which really did give me that true sense of space vertigo-madness this was hinting at.

I admired the Transformers/G.I. Joe-level science insisting that an explosion would "power" the journey back to Earth.

There's a plotline in Cixin Liu's (very 'hard' sci-fi) Death's End that proposes you could power a very small craft big enough to hold a housecat (or in the book, a human brain) by daisy chaining a series of nuclear bombs along its path and setting them off behind it at regular intervals. So this is a gross simplification of the same method, although clearly it would never work.

I realise this is Hollywood, but when the makers said they set-out to do a proper science-based space film and you end up with this kind of transparently Deus Ex ending, it stops being sci-fi and starts operating purely on a metaphorical level, the whole 'lost-in-space' device becoming a clothes horse to drape a lightweight sheet of human-interest onto it. But when the main character is a stoic mumbler, the lost father and the work-widowed wife barely present in the story, it's very hard to make the emotional investment the film so dearly beggars.

I didn't mind the stoic mumbling because middle aged Brad Pitt is a pretty stoic mumbler.

Natasha Lyonne was weird... Like, 'hey let's have a full minute where Russian Doll lady does some dull admin work and asks people to sign stuff while dressed in a red boiler suit'

The unintended downside of having a recognizable actor play a bit role is the projection of prior work on to the present character.

also that she was doing nothing especially entertaining or plot-driven save for getting people to sign-in

Regarding Alfred's questioning of the explosion: a rocket is really a controlled, directly explosion while a bomb is an uncontrolled, undirected one. As long as you're lined up perpendicular to it, and your craft not overly damaged, a bomb is an effective source of thrust. Obviously it's not very efficient, but in the case of a nuclear explosion, you're talking about quite a bit of undirected thrust.

So it's "powered" not in the way you're charging the craft's store of energy, but in the way that a large explosive hand is shoving you off toward the beyond.

Had the film been shot after Lyonne's profile increased due to the Netflix show the role might have been cast differently. As far as I can gather, Ad Astra was shot about six months before Russian Doll

for me, it's 'why have it in at all?'. her character ads so little and yet the camera spends a long time shouting 'LOOK, LOOK WHO IT IS!'. A lot could have been cut from this film and it would have been a generally better sustained and more impactful experience.

I don't know if it would work, but I'd be interested in what this film would be like with drastically reduced (or even completely without) voiceover exposition.

The character I related to the most when it comes to the idea of being trapped in space was the baboon tbh

I feel like the facial hair signifying time elapsed is all wrong in this movie.

there was a lot of facial hair close-ups in this

This was impeccably crafted but I get very annoyed when science fiction that is touted as “adult” or “thoughtful” ends up just being more warmed-over Oedipal dreariness.

― Conceptualize Wyverns (latebloomer), Saturday, September 21, 2019 10:38 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Amen. Moon chase was rad, though. Then I snoozed in and out.

god, this movie was a beautiful incoherent mess.

I did appreciate it though for confirming that I will never be as terrified by any horror movie as much as I am by films about all the things that can go wrong in space. The opening sequence + moon chase + baboon attack = A++. But the rest of it... yikes.

And I too wondered whether I would've liked it more without Brad Pitt's mumbly voiceover. So many beautiful images utterly ruined by his constant droning.

Also, poor Liv Tyler, constantly being left behind on Earth by emotionally-stunted astronauts. Can I get a Liv Tyler in space movie next?

Space is too damn big

Even if you could send a video message from Earth direct to Uranus when they're closest, it'd take over two hours to arrive.

Gray goes over his mistakes. He's such a good subject.

Spoilers (?) for Ad Astra but we watched it lol pic.twitter.com/v7ispODXZ6

— Kate Beaton (@beatonna) September 23, 2019

My bad on the above Uranus calculation -- for some reason, even watching the film, I kept thinking TLJ's character was stuck there and not Neptune. There's probably something insidiously Freudian going on with my memory.

Gray goes over his mistakes. He's such a good subject.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, September 25, 2019 4:26 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

That’s a great interview! I think this really hammers home why I have such a problem with what the movie is trying to do:

I think the tragedy of Tommy Lee’s character is that he never found a pleasure in the beauties that he discovered. He never found beauty in the idea that human beings are what matter. The idea of striving is what matters.

But what is there to strive for? New balls of rocks to build houses on? What we see of humanity in this movie isn’t exactly inspiring. Humans have colonized space, but we only see a continuation of the same social structures and conflicts that currently plague us.

Can you blame someone for seeking transcendence in the possibility of contact with some other form of intelligence?

Who wouldn’t go mad after dedicating their life to that search and discovering it was all for naught? And picture just how horrifying being stuck in space with a person undergoing that process of disillusionment would be.

To me, *that’s* the story. The movie borrows so much from Apocalypse Now but ignores Kurtz’s final words:

“The horror...the horror”

The character I related to the most when it comes to the idea of being trapped in space was the baboon tbh

― mh, Monday, September 23, 2019 3:10 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

OTM. The most rational being in the entire film

latebloomer did you see 'high life'?

god, this movie was a beautiful incoherent mess.

As much as I’ve criticized it, I don’t think this an incoherent film at all. It’s not difficult to follow and thematically I think it’s pretty much saying what Gray intended it to. It’s just that what he’s saying with this is mostly just kind of...bland humanist garbage?

latebloomer did you see 'high life'?

― cheese canopy (map), Wednesday, September 25, 2019 8:41 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Not yet! Definitely going to though.

it's not great imo but it's definitely a different kind of space movie

It's a much better space movie for starters!

kind of sad that James Gray and Brad Pitt weren’t present for (admittedly not great) audience questions after my viewing of this one, because I had that for High Life

the most boring SPACE MADNESS movie ever

I don't for a minute think there was a space madness aspect. I've tried to create a narrative, but I'm going to go with disconnected thoughts here:

the entire mindset/personality that is needed or desired for space exploration is very emotionally flat, but the movie explores whether we can really have that. the pilot who falters, the characters who are sublimating their emotional needs for the mission, all are revealed. maybe there are people who can remain very calm and complete missions, but our experience is still relatively limited in that we've had months in general, at most around a year of occupation in space

also the element of fixation on a goal, finding extraterrestrial life, adhering to a mission, when it means ignoring base humanity or burying past failures to relate under a veil of purity and purpose

the baboon scene is a callback to space horror, but also a question because we never see what became of the human crew. rotting in the corridor around the corner, or jettisoned out into the vacuum. it's the baser animal metaphor, just anger at being trapped in this tube going nowhere

the father, having decided his crew is at fault for what he views as mutiny, never buries them after so many years. I understand the idea, like latebloomer says, that it's all for naught -- but that's the thing, it's not that life isn't out there, it's that he has removed the possibility of finding it. it's the inability to recognize that they looked into space to the best of their abilities and found great beauty but nothing indicating other intelligent life. likely all the tools at their disposal.. nothing else is going to come of it. maybe a greater expedition with better tools, but TLJ's character has inadvertently broken then best tools they have by removing his crew, and in his arrogance has possibly doomed earth by not letting go

there's also a possibly unintended indictment of the mindset that deems "logic" over emotion as a positive aspect

the death of the crew over neptune framed as their inability to stick to a mission could be seen as a question of command and mission, but it's completely illogical -- the mission ended, they did what they could with the tools, but that premise is rejected on what are really emotional grounds. but it's stated to us as a panic, a need to go home, which is in reality the obvious conclusion. good rejoinder for anyone who makes a "logical" argument without noticing that they're absolutely destroying their natural peers by their actions

It's a much better space movie for starters!

― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee)

As one of several ILXors who consider Claire Denis to be the absolute best there is.... I don't think it's much better. High Life is kind of a bad mess as well although it's a more singular mess.

highly trained emotionally distant astronaut vs. a bunch of convicts with a fuck box

Highly trained emotionally distant astronaut character that never really comes across as such due to poor directorial choices, cliched flashback moments galore (example ottomh: sad wife stopping to look at him *one last time* before she walks out door) and exciting yet incongruous action sequences vs. arid and unique "space jail" story - that, yes, includes a wondrous fuck box - that's carried by intense performances and direction from a masterful filmmaker who is obviously not in her element, genre-wise, but revels in it. I'll go with the fuck box one!

I liked both

This really did feel like a Lost City of Z sequel in many ways

As much as I’ve criticized it, I don’t think this an incoherent film at all. It’s not difficult to follow and thematically I think it’s pretty much saying what Gray intended it to. It’s just that what he’s saying with this is mostly just kind of...bland humanist garbage?

I mostly meant incoherent in the sense of strands being introduced that had little to no follow through e.g. Donald Sutherland's character or Ruth Negga saying that she'll likely be punished for letting him board the shuttle (but McBride himself was spared any kind of blowback??). Or just things that took me out of the movie completely (that bit where he's floating through the rings of Neptune was major lols).

And while I understand what Gray was trying to do with the action sequences (i.e. Brad Pitt mirroring his father's journey by causing the deaths of everyone unlucky enough to be part of his futile quest), it was kind of clumsily done and made those sequences seem like parts of a totally different movie.

I need to watch High Life, I think.

I quite liked liked the scene with Brad Pitt swiftly, accidentally dispatching of the crew taking off from Mars, as a bit of (accidental?) slapstick.

I'm inclined to agree with latebloomer, tho mb my view isn't quite as strong. What you say about the 'same social structures and conflicts that currently plague us' struck me too - maybe it's my issue rather than an issue with the film as such, but it felt like with some small narrative changes it could have abandoned the 'near future' space exploration theme entirely. It didn't seem to take advantage of anything that could be interesting about that specific setting.

This movie sucked because Brad Pitt wasn't nude in it.

they at least gave us some shirtless-and-pierced-with-a-feeding-tube action.

I kept being reminded of Apocalypse Now by Brad Pitt's quest and the Steven Soderbergh version of Solaris cos of the use of convenient location real stairs and basements and things.
Is Pitt a little old to be a major astronaut?

Wasn't overly impressed but it did look pretty good in places.

Rotten Tomatoes appears to have the critics really liking it and the viewing public not.

And I too wondered whether I would've liked it more without Brad Pitt's mumbly voiceover. So many beautiful images utterly ruined by his constant droning.

^^ this. Thought this was OK but would have liked it a lot more without abt 95% of Pitts narration, just totally breaking the spell and redundantly telling us what we're being shown. Like on the moon when the space pirates are abt to attack and his v/o is like "here we are again, fighting amongst ourselves for resources, to what end" and its like yeah no shit dude, i get what space pirates are.

You guys react as if Pitt were doing an audiobook.

lol my viewing companion actually used that term exactly, i wouldnt go quite that far. gray was obviously working under the spell of apocalypse now, but particularly for a film that already has a device where the main character regularly delivers confessional monologues onscreen, the v/o just seemed like a step too far most of the time imo.

this was fine enough, not blown away by it, not really disappointed by it.

i liked the little psych evaluations that brad pitt got. i can totally see something that monitors your vital signs and sort of talks to you and makes a judgement as to your fitness to carry out your duties as an extension of current a.i.

the moon bandits bit was so hokey. they know it's dangerous, but nasa or whatever can't be bothered to have closed vehicles or monitor for moon buggies driving across blank terrain to shoot at their people? there was too much action and violence overall for what the movie was trying to be.

I haven't yet seen the film bcz i keep missing the discount matinees.

Innnteresting related screening in NYC:

http://movingimage.us/visit/calendar/2019/10/12/detail/to-the-stars-experimental-inspirations-for-ad-astra

dreadful film, bemused by the profundity some seem to be finding

Tommy Lee Jones specializes in bemusement.

i saw that The Ringer had a roundtable on it by "space movie" nerds I'm quite sure have never seen a Gray film before.

I liked the beginning, where if Brad Pitt's mission succeeds then it means he'll need to reevaluate his past. then it all turns stupid around when the space pirates show up.

odd that gray watched so many experimental films and then didn't use any of it. he should have watched pandorum and lockout instead.

otm, embrace the schlock

i'll wait to rent this. it looked great but I've heard entirely too many people say it blows.

always a reason to go

ppl are eejits

This was ... no Two Lovers.

But, hey, probably the best movie with VFX in it I saw all year so far.

Quite liked this... similar to the Oedipal westerns of the '50s in an attempt to engage mythology with a middle-aged sensibility, through genre. Not shocked that innumerable Jedi/replicants didn't get it.

Sound design was stunning in this, really felt like being in a space pod seeing it in a decent sized theater. Voiceover was overwrought and some clunky lines but w/e, awesome score and it looks magnificent and there's maybe half a dozen stunning shots. not as good as First Man or BR2049 but still very solid.

I like that Natassha Lyonne is the greeter on the moon (or Mars? idfk)

thought it was funny when they get to the moon and the inside is every airport/strip mall, complete with Sbux and Subway

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is better than BR2049

this is not a fuckin' space movie

idc about space movies but la flor's most tedious hour was more engaging than this

ohhhhhhhh god no

Brad Pitt did the VO beautifully.

"what am i doing here?" - both me and brad pitt during ad astra

yeah he was great, it was the script that was on the nose

I did like one of his final lines about galaxies and nebula being beautiful "with nothing underneath"

also there's a pirate chase on the moon, this is a space movie

I haven't read the reshoot story I posted a couple weeks ago (spoilers). What scenes did they add?

The story didn’t give specifics abt scenes, just that supposedly there were reshoots done against Grays wishes

Santa Claus Conquers the Martians is better than BR2049

Otm

I bet it was those stupid space wolves xp

If even that can't make it through the studio system without Disney demanding cuts and reshoots and voiceovers and extra ending scenes (and in one really dubious instance, removing a character's entire sexuality), what chance does anyone else have anymore?

— M.K. Rhodes (@mkrultra) September 21, 2019

I'd have lost at least a third of the voiceover... but it was ALL the studio's idea?

(I was confused by "Disney" until I remembered the Fox merger)

flappy, they wuz baboons

The scenes between pitt and the commander of the mars base give me a reshoot vibe, I wouldn't be surprised if those had been at tinkered with in some way. Her character seemed oddly truncated, and the way she moved the plot along seemed v perfunctory to me (I didnt totally buy that the government decided to tell the best-kept secret in the galaxy to her but not pitt, and she has the video evidence of it on her ipad ready to call up at a moments notice. unless I missed something, my memory's not clear on why exactly she had that video.)

gray said the space baboons were in his orig script iirc

yes, M K Rhodes' further tweets say that Negga's part was truncated.

obv the previous Pitt film this is most relevantly paired with is The Tree of Life

hadn't considered evaluating it along the Pitt axis. insightful!

Yeah

gray said the space baboons were in his orig script iirc

― johnny crunch, Monday, October 7, 2019 2:07 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

That is a wonderful sentence.

Thought this was pretty good--my first Gray film, will catch up with the others at some point. I thought I was clever to pick up on the Apocalypse Now affinities...but I guess every person who's ever reviewed or commented upon the film got there first. I missed that that was Liv Tyler until the credits. One unintentional laugh: when Pitt sneaks onto the spacecraft headed for Neptune, and when he fought the guy in a slow-motion space-grapple, the film seemed to follow the rule that if it's now an action film for a minute or two, somebody has to say "son of a bitch."

"Ad Astra" is one of my favourite Deerhunter songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuSgpL3J1bw

this movie was pretty to look at but i couldn't get past the hokey plotting and cliched character conflicts

this was terrible. so glad I didn't see this in a theater.

it did give a lot of heft to the action/effects episodes tbh. and not sure I would have gotten through some of the other bits in one sitting otherwise.

https://letterboxd.com/labuzamovies/film/ad-astra-2019/1/

The moon car chase was perfect for a 7am flight from Charlotte to Jacksonville.

but pointless? who was attacking them? who are we at war with? I could just ignore this if that scene wasn't so long and didn't seem like it was supposed to be important.

the narration was brutal on this, and the final scenes when he reaches dad underwhelming. was there even any revelation there?

wouldn't blowing up the ship powered by anti-matter result in an even bigger electrical surge?

movie needed more natasha lyonne

just smdh

who was attacking them? who are we at war with?

this was set up & explained pretty clearly iirc?

I don't think the details were spelled out. But there's resources, so there's raiders. That's kinda all there is to it.

I'd like to see Grey's edit before the tentpole stupid was added. I'm 100% certain that only that edit will save the film in future estimation.

#ReleasetheGrayCut

supposedly the stupid action scenes were all in the original; the later cut added the narration and removed footage from non-brad pitt characters.

lol, this was stunningly dumb and i almost quit but then SPACE MONKEYS and that was the one hat tip too many to suggest that everyone's fully aware they're on their bullshit. the "plot" hit really really close to home with my own daddy issues but come the fuck on with these metaphors. As a weird take on 40's/50's sci-fi, okay but why?

Obvs the visuals and effects (including Pitt in full on Keanu uncarved block mode and TL Jones as old man skeletor who never loved you) were outrageously good, mostly enough to keep me engaged when I wasn't shaking my head at the nonsense in general.

my opinion lies somewhere between latebloomers "impeccably crafted bourgie horseshit" and Fred's "i love that it just dives headfirst into banality." I'd likely need to watch it again to clarify but you've got to be kidding me, there is no way i'm watching this madness twice in a world so filled with other things to do.

I genuinely started laughing at the mars recording studio... with red rock baffles!
http://www.indiewire.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/10418278a.jpg

i do wish i'd seen it in theaters if i was gonna see it.... that made gravity a fun watch and it likely woulda helped this. I woulda likely nodded off at the end regardless.

killer soundtrack tho! will listen again.

the space baboons were lab animals from Earth, no one else is saying anything different, right

"a world so filled with other things to do" is a strange concept in an era when ppl are watching last summer's Tarantella movie 5+ times

Those were space monkeys; I am willing to stake my reputation on it.

It’s very rare that I do an immediate rewatch of any film; I could see trying this again if it were in theaters in maybe, oh, five years.

last year's Tarantino movie is 10x better than this was, jesus.

akm otm

i'll assume youre wrong

I'll take a self-indulgent/butchered by the studios mess by a good director over anything fucking Tootsie Tarantino does 4eva!

Kinda got overlooked I like this movie quite a bit for what it was, Hollywood outer space pop psych... Sound design was fantastic.

Finally got around to this - a bit ponderous but ultimately solid. Of the nu-ratpack space movies was definitely the best or, at least, the one with the most ideas and best visual + sound design.

yeah i liked this a lot more than i expected to

seemed to draw from various New Wave sf deconstructions of the space program - Moorcock's Black Corridor, various Malzberg books (Beyond Apollo, etc.), but I think Morbz is also correct about the debt to Westerns

just saw this, it was phenomenally stupid. I liked the way it paid the smallest attention to some aspects of physics but completely fucked up almost everything else. Praise for being one of the rare vacuum-is-silent brigade, though.
Voiceover was terrible and ponderous. Pitt's line deliveries also often unintentionally funny.
Also like the way when they meet the space baboon they don't even bother looking for the people presumably also on the space station (unless baboon sent the SOS itself because it was bored).
What the fuck did Tommy Lee Jones eat all those years? His station was tiny.

yes, worst movie I saw last year by some distance.

nice to read wrongness

It looked nice and I think there’s a seed of a good movie there, but yeah, it is not great. B-rate Malick voiceovers maybe a big part of what dropped it.

Gray >> Malick this decade

indubitably

I want a panel show with Morbs and Alfred now

pay us!

He and I meet in Manhattan twice a year.

lol

I'm behind on 2019 films, but I've put this at the top of my cue

the Morbs-Lord Sotosyn doc?

I'd make all my film-loving (hating?) friends throw a pittance at a patreon

I've got a dozen or so

He and I meet in Manhattan twice a year.

― TikTok to the (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, January 29, 2020 8:21 PM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i'd buy tickets to this

I am going to choose to read that as a tryst

no, my hair isn't good enough for him

I mean, I know the fans here want this to be something with fucking, but I just want pure snark. Which is dirtier tbh

ad astra - visually stunning, some great scenes, some of the most heavy-handed "meaningfulness" i've ever seen in a movie (e.g. when brad and his dad are clinging to each other in space at the end and tommy lee jones says "you have to let me go" and a big blinking neon subtitle comes up that says HE DOESN'T JUST MEAN PHYSICALLY LET HIM GO HE ALSO MEANS EMOTIONALLY as tommy lee jones winks at the camera), overall pretty dumb and a step down from lost city of z

(e.g. when brad and his dad are clinging to each other in space at the end and tommy lee jones says "you have to let me go" and a big blinking neon subtitle comes up that says HE DOESN'T JUST MEAN PHYSICALLY LET HIM GO HE ALSO MEANS EMOTIONALLY as tommy lee jones winks at the camera)

lol yes, this gave me a severe pain

lol @ neon subtitle

I am not afraid to admit that I enjoy a movie where there is SPACEYELLING at SPACEDAD

also SPACE APES

and of course SPACE MADNESS

ad astra - visually stunning, some great scenes, some of the most heavy-handed "meaningfulness" i've ever seen in a movie (e.g. when brad and his dad are clinging to each other in space at the end and tommy lee jones says "you have to let me go" and a big blinking neon subtitle comes up that says HE DOESN'T JUST MEAN PHYSICALLY LET HIM GO HE ALSO MEANS EMOTIONALLY as tommy lee jones winks at the camera), overall pretty dumb and a step down from lost city of z

― na (NA), Thursday, January 30, 2020 8:52 AM (thirty minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is basically otm, even though i am generally pretty lenient when it comes to visually stunning space movies

maybe i should see lost city of z??

yes you should

yes!!

thirded

n/a's right, and Ad Astra is certainly his weakest film, but the visual and sound design and Pitt and the staging of the violence more than compensanted.

I didn’t hate it. It’s no Silent Running, though.

What is?

Could’ve also gone for scratching the AstroKurtz crap and just enjoying a lunar Mad Max movie.

more Pop-timist

for Doug Trumbull + Pitt ya got Tree of Life

cynical me is getting much better at watching stuff uncynically and I really liked this as a result

Beautiful but ponderous. The narration is at least as bad as the much-loathed Blade Runner voiceover.

It's not that this film was so monumentally dumb (and as a sci-fi it is staggeringly, relentlessly stupid), it's that it was ever touted as anything else. Looks great, though, and I'll watch any daft shit if it's set in space. I think it might become a camp classic.

I want a panel show with Morbs and Alfred now

― babu frik fan account (mh), Wednesday, January 29, 2020 10:20 PM (one year ago) bookmarkflaglink

pay us!

― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius),

I wish I had!

I remember literally nothing about this aside from the rover chase.

how did no one make the horrible Dad Astra pun

p sure i made it irl

The rover chase was cool but had me questioniong the viability of moon piracy as a business model. Also Donald Sutherland was there but also not there which was odd.

finally watched it, there are some great sequences but also several wtf moments some of which have been mentioned already:

- so he accidentally kills the crew that in theory could've done what he's done? "sorry guys but i really need to see my dad"

- the message had to be recorded in an anechoic chamber because why? ("well, neptune is very very far, we really want the sound quality to be the best, you know")

- natasha lyonne looked so out of place that i'm hoping she's intentionally planting herself in different movies and it will somehow come together in russian doll season 3

i don't remember one second of this film I was so looking forward to and found so disappointing