Congrats, here’s your space movie
That vast expanse. The glorious wonders of the universe. And Brad Pitt or Natalie Portman to take us there. If you work in Hollywood long enough, eventually your star may rise high enough to reach, like, actual stars. For decades, the industry has relied on famous names to send space movies (and hopefully their box office) into the stratosphere. This fall, Disney (by way of its recent acquisitions 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight) is bringing us the star-driven space movies Ad Astra and Lucy in the Sky. Here is a look at the tradition of big names in big space movies, and how it worked out for them.
Ad Astra
Brad Pitt. The actor has played almost every kind of big-screen role over more than three decades. And yet his roles have gotten quieter and more contemplative of late. Now seems like the best moment in his onscreen life to have him contemplate space.
Pitt’s character’s father went out for a mission and didn’t come back. The son’s been searching for him ever since. An action sequence involving a fight with moon pirates is breathtaking. Looks like he was born to wear it.
Lucy in the Sky
Natalie Portman. In a 25year career that includes an Oscar-winning performance in Black Swan and nominated turns in Jackie and Closer, the actress has been hired to bring quality and dramatic weight to a movie.
Portman plays Lucy Cola, an astronaut who is having trouble coping back on planet Earth after a life-changing spacewalk.
A visually haunting moment early on shows the character hovering above the earth beatifically. She nearly gets lost in it, but ultimately takes command.
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High Life
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Robert Pattinson. Since Twilight made him a superstar, Pattinson has opted for smaller films with respected directors. His presence in this artful space oddity from the French director Claire Denis is probably why this movie got financing. In the future, Pattinson is part of a crew of criminals sent on a space mission as an alternative to the death penalty. Things get weird. Shots inside the spacecraft, shaded in deep blues and reds and yellows, are more mysterious and stunning than the shots of black holes. It has a handcrafted, vintage quality that suggests 1940s flight expeditions, not something from the future. First Man
Ryan Gosling. The actor seems like the most Everyman fit for the Everyman astronaut Neil Armstrong.
How to get to the moon in one piece.
The film’s breathtaking recreation of the moon landing makes it seem as if we’re experiencing it for the first time. Majestic and fits like a glove.
The Martian
Matt Damon. He’d conquered Earth as a superstar. Why not go to Mars and do the same? In the near future, a crew is exploring Mars when a storm threatens the mission and strands one member. He can’t be rescued for years, so he has to figure out how to grow food on a planet where nothing grows. Luckily, he’s a botanist.
Damon’s character uses smarts, a Mars Pathfinder and some gaffer tape to communicate with Earth. Orange and tan neoprene. It resembles a cool combination of wet suit and racing uniform.
Gravity
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Sandra Bullock. She had been one of Hollywood’s most bankable actresses. Her space movie was long overdue.
An astronaut stranded on a mission contemplates the, ahem, gravity of her situation.
A single-shot sequence in which an accident leaves Bullock mercilessly rotating in space. In shades of gunmetal that bring out the most triumphant in Bullock.
Solaris
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(2002) The Star: The Space The Reason:
George Clooney. The actor, working again with Steven Soderbergh, had just finished Ocean’s 11 and was exhibiting the kind of contemplative cool then that Pitt inhabits now.
A psychologist goes to a space station and ends up in his own head trip.
The ways Soderbergh uses light and the lack thereof. A mix of modern and retro, but great-looking when bathed in a warm glow. Apollo 13
Tom Hanks. back Oscars, who else?
They had a problem. A nine-second sequence in which the camera follows the wiring through the craft all the way to its exploding oxygen tank. Lovingly patriotic.
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