Why I'll be Picking up Sunshine

(This post is mainly for people who have seen the movie so... basically Albert, StephO, Peter, and Billy. There are spoilers so be warned.)
So, I Decided I really Liked Sunshine. Yet another thing Albert and I agree on: Sunshine was a really good movie. I most certainly was not a perfect movie, but I think I'm too hard on movies. Especially after I took that Intro to Film Studies class at DeAnza four summers ago. I think after you're able to see the act breaks in the movie and the purpose of each scene, it's difficult to appreciate movies as a whole. But Sunshine was different, there was an organic feeling to its story and the immediacy to the pull it had.

The goal of any film is to make you feel things, and this film made me damn depressed. In a year where I have to look at Yahoo!Movies release date list to remind myself that I waited in line to watch Pirates3, Shrek3, and even Spiderman a movie that leaves any kind of impression is a welcome change. This film did such a good job of putting you in the same bleak situation as the characters. While there was a lot of emphasis on Icarus II being the last hope for mankind, what spoke to me most was that these characters were faced with death but in exchange achieving their destiny. I think Cassie and Cillian Murphy's characters both brought out the most empathy in terms of crying and the tone in Cillian Murphy's voice that shows from the very beginning that he's accepted his fate but is still working towards completing the mission because its just what he has to do.

Yea... that third act. Obviously the film's one big, grotesque, random, out of place mistake was Pinbacker. Yea the movie turned into a slasher for about 5 minutes, but that really isn't what I had a problem with. Obviously Pinbacker was a physical manifestation of the thoughts and the challenges of severe isolation in deep space, but my problem was that he was so damn strong. I think Pinbacker in philosophy was a good and necessary part of the story, and an actual physical presence that works against the crew. While the plot of the film was far fetched, I didn't struggle to much with it since it was only important in so far as that it was an end goal of the crew and not the immediate cause of their conflicts, Pinbacker was a bit much. I would have much preferred him to be a normal or weak human, who ruins the computer systems at the last minute. I don't think its necessary that he be as menacing and overpowering as he was. It would even fit better with the idea that Pinbacker is this weak voice inside everyone nagging slowly that the completion of their goal goes against the natural order of things. I think it was my realization that my problem wasn't with Pinbacker's role in the story (causing the climactic conflict for the crew) but rather just in his physical representation, that made me really like this movie. In the end, it was a miss-step that neither disrupted the emotional investment in the movie nor did it deny the film a logical and dramatic climax. And that's why I'll be picking up Sunshine on Blu-ray.

Sunshine will be released by Fox Searchlight and be Blu-ray exclusive