A Pinoy @ The Movies: LIFE

The movie trailer of Life seemed like an alien experiment gone bad. Interesting, I thought. And since I love these outer space movies, I had to watch it.

Life is about a group of scientists, doctors and engineers living inside the International Space Station (ISS). They're supposed to be a very smart bunch. 

Smart...until they were outsmarted.

Fresh from the planet Mars, a pack of soil samples was delivered to the ISS and was tested by the resident doctor. And all the while I thought Matt Damon had already done this in The Martian, where he even grew some potatoes! 

And that's when the trouble started - when the doctor started experimenting on the soil samples and you just have to watch it how.

And that's also the time when I realized this doctor wasn't smart at all. First, this was an alien organism, and he wanted to immediately touch it? Didn't he watch Sigourney Weaver's Alien series?  Second, he could have just closed the valves for oxygen to deprive the organism of air and kill it!  Well, if he did, there wouldn't have been any movie, would it? Ha-ha-ha!

Ryan Reynolds, as the ISS engineer, was just his comic self compared to another astronaut, George Clooney, who was sarcastically witty in Gravity. They both died in space. Oops!

It was Gravity that probably gave us the idea that a lot of action could still happen in these space vehicles in outer space, where everything's in slow motion.

With these very expensive space ships made up of millions of pieces, it only would need one loose bolt to screw up the whole thing. And in this case, it only needed one Martian cell to make the movie. 

This wasn't a heavy drama movie, so we need not expect stellar performances. But in the end, with Jake Gyllenhaal and Rebecca Ferguson left to share the screen with 'Calvin', the Martian, both reminded me of Sandra Bullock's last minutes in Gravity inside the Shenzhou capsule.

And did Jake and Rebecca's plan work? 

Unfortunately, I figured out the ending even before the landing. Ha-ha-ha! So, I wasn't that surprised, unlike the Vietnamese fishermen. 

As to how it ended, you have to watch it, and I'm sure you'll enjoy the voyage as well! 

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I have no idea how large the ISS is when it's on land, but this movie gave me an idea to look for it in the skies when it passes over the Philippines. 

If you want, too, here's the ISS website to track its passage over your city:

http://iss.astroviewer.net/

A Pinoy at the Movies: Woman In Gold

I saw its movie poster a month ago, and I thought, if this was a Helen Mirren movie, it should be good. Then I forgot all about it.

Luckily, there are art cinemas in Seoul that still carried it when I finally remembered to watch it. And on the night when Tom Cruise was in Seoul, I went to watch his ex, Katie Holmes, playing a supportive wife to Ryan Reynolds. And although Dame Helen Mirren has the lead role, she, too, plays second fiddle to...the Woman In Gold.

Woman in Gold is the description of the Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer painted by an Austrian painter, Gustav Klimt. And if you saw the painting, Klimt literally covered the lady in the portrait in gold.

Before the Nazis occupied Austria, the painting was known by its original name, Portrait of Adele Block-Bauer. But when it was hung at the Belvedere Palace in Vienna during the Nazi occupation, the gallery's director changed its name to Woman in Gold to conceal the fact the Adele Block-Bauer was a Jew.  

This priceless portrait, which was now part of the Austrian psyche, was the subject of a lawsuit filed by Maria Altmann (Helen Mirren) who now lived in California, and wanted to be reunited with the painting of her aunt, Adele Block-Bauer, played by a stunningly beautiful Antje Traue, a German actress.

As always, Helen Mirren gives an outstanding portrayal of someone real, her lines sprinkled with Austrian-German accent. Ryan Reynolds, without his Green Lantern superhero powers, is Mirren's young lawyer married to Katie Holmes, his very supportive housewife, who was de-glamorized you wouldn't even remember she was once married to Tom Cruise.

This film reminds me of Monuments Men, a film about the recovery and retrieval of works of art looted by the Nazis all over Europe during World War II. 

As to whether Maria Altmann was eventually reunited with her aunt, you have to watch the movie. And if this film's no longer available at the theater near you, you can still catch it at Cinecube in Gwanghwamun and CGV Arthaus in Myeongdong.  

  (The CGV Arthaus has a cinema library                        open to moviegoers)