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“Conventional Wisdom Is That The Marketplace Could Never Support More Than One Female-Driven Film”

December 2, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Urban Studies | Permalink

Strong female leads have long been limited in Hollywood because the unwritten rule said that too many movies featuring them wouldn’t sell. But hearts and minds can change generationally, and it looks like the film business is catching up to that shift. From Mike Fleming Jr. at Deadline Hollywood:

“The performance of Catching Fire and Frozen are all the more remarkable if you consider that both of these films are squarely driven by female heroines. Conventional wisdom is that the marketplace could never support more than one female-driven film, because while gals will see guy movies, it doesn’t work the other way. Well, it worked big time — both films crushed the 5-day Thanksgiving domestic gross record – and it happened shortly after another female driven film, Gravity, crossed the $500 million mark in global gross.”

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“If You Can See I Felt A Bit Stupid Here”

November 22, 2013 in Film, Videos | Permalink

This movie is the one I want to see this weekend. Michel Gondry, who’s most comfortable in a dream state, walks into one with Noam Chomsky. The score in the trailer sounds too much like Philip Glass’ work for Errol Morris, but I’ll let that slide.

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“I Discovered This Immense, Amazing World”

November 19, 2013 in Film, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

In 2010, the last year of Benoit Mandelbrot’s life, Errol Morris pointed his Interrotron at the mathematician who recognized patterns in nature that nobody else did and gave us fractals. Morris himself often deals in fractals, chipping away pieces of his subject’s minds that perfectly represent the greater self. (Thanks Browser.)

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“They’ll Never Be Another You”

November 15, 2013 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Robert Evans, the kid who really stayed in the picture his whole life, was featured on the CBS morning show. He has so many amazing stories, and some of them are even true.

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“Does This Number Sound Outrageously Low?”

November 15, 2013 in Excerpts, Film | Permalink

One thing I missed in the fallout of Charlie Hunnam dropping out of Fifty Shades of Grey was the salary he was purported to have been getting for the lead role. I know he’s more of a writer-actor than a movie star, but does this number sound outrageously low for someone headlining what’s planned to be a huge franchise that will be released in every market on the planet? After taxes, fees to agents and managers and other expenses, he was essentially being asked to do a global blockbuster for free. If these are the salaries for the first installment of a series, what exactly is the budget being spent on? From the Hollywood Reporter:

“According to another source, Hunnam, who was to be paid about $125,000 for the film, began butting heads with the creative team, including Taylor-Johnson.”

 

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“Do We Make Too Much Of The PEDs?”

November 15, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Sports, Videos | Permalink

There are reasons to dislike Lance Armstrong. For instance, he’s a bully and a liar. That’s enough. But while he broke the rules of his sport with PEDs, labeling him a cheat is problematic. It’s even hypocritical. From students to classical musicians to truck drivers, people are using drugs to aid them in their endeavors. But for some reason, athletes are held to a higher standard. In fact, in sometimes they’re denied legitimate medical treatments because the rules of their games are so arbitrary. We’ll all be relying on enhanced performance more and more in the future, so perhaps we should have an honest discussion about what “cheating” means. I think we avoid that conversation in the name of maintaining some sense of “purity” that never existed. Athletes have always cheated and so have the rest of us. For some reason, some of it is considered permissible and some isn’t. We need to sort that out.

From an excellent interview that Grantland’s Bill Simmons conducted with Alex Gibney, The Armstrong Lie director:

“Bill Simmons:

What about the part when people talk about what is cheating and what isn’t cheating and what is performance enhancement and what isn’t? So, I’m a pitcher, I blow out my arm, they pull a ligament out of some dead guy, they sew it into my arm and I can pitch again. That’s legal. I can’t write anything in the morning unless I have 20 ounces of coffee. Caffeine. That’s legal. That’s fine. We like coffee, all of us like coffee. Let’s say Lance takes HGH which is given from patients aged 60 and older to help them recover faster from surgeries or just feel better, whatever.

Alex Gibney:

Well, they use to give EPO to cancer patients to regenerate blood cells.

Bill Simmons:

Right, these are things given to people to make them feel better, but with athletes we draw the line. No, they can’t do that. That’s bad, they can’t do that. If Lance blew out his knee, he could put a dead guy’s ligament in his knee and that’s fine. Think about it. We’ve never really made sense of what makes sense and we doesn’t make sense.

Alex Gibney:

That’s what led somebody like [Armstrong’s coach Michele] Ferrari to be totally cynical. They keep making up these rules. You can sleep in an altitude tent, but you can’t take EPO. What’s sense does that make? But on the other hand, I think we can say that cheating is breaking the rules.”

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“That’s The Lovely One Himself–Steve Martin”

November 13, 2013 in Film, Videos | Permalink

In 1979, Steve Martin, nearing the pinnacle of his fame, visits Merv Griffin. The comic was already winding down his stand-up career.

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“It Gave Them Both The Sense Of Righteousness They Needed To Lie”

November 11, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Sports, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

With Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Alex Gibney made one of the most heartbreaking films ever about the American Dream. In the most essential ways, it’s reminiscent of the Coen brothers’ film, Fargo, which lamented that streak of American competitiveness that says that doing well isn’t good enough–you have to dominate. As if we can somehow grow enough ego to shroud our unhappiness and fear. There are parallels in Gibney’s new film about Lance Armstrong, the cyclist who just had to be the best. From a new Economist interview with Gibney:

“Question:

The final film has a lot in common with Enron, in that it dispels a myth that people really wanted to believe in. Do you find it tough shaking people’s belief systems?

Alex Gibney:

Yes, that’s why I originally wanted to do a redemption story. He comes back clean in 2009 and wins? How awesome would that be? The problem with both Enron and Lance was that the myth they created became too big. Both Jeff Skilling [Enron’s CEO] and Lance were motivated by this strange purity of vision; Enron couldn’t just be a successful company, it had to be the future of capitalism. Lance wasn’t just a cyclist, he was campaigning for cancer survivors. It’s noble-cause corruption. It gave them both the sense of righteousness they needed to lie.

Question:

In your interviews with Lance after the Oprah show, he admits to doping and using blood transfusions up until 2005, but not during the 2009 tour, when you were filming. Was it disappointing not to get a further confession?

Alex Gibney:

Yes, very disappointing but also revealing. I find his body language in that interview interesting. Slumped in a chair, he’s not a towering figure anymore.

Question:

You don’t think that’s theatre?

Alex Gibney:

I think it was defeat mainly.•

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“They’ve Invented This Thing–It’s Going To Change Everything”

November 11, 2013 in Film, Science/Tech | Permalink

On Marc Maron’s latest WTF podcast, his guest, Illeana Douglas, recalls how her grandfather, the legendary actor Melvyn Douglas, revealed to her that the future of technology would be personal:

“I remember the day my grandfather said to me, ‘They’ve invented this thing–it’s going to change everything. It’s called the Walkman.’ It was gigantic. It was the first–and I still have it to this day. They’d given it to him as a present on Being There.”

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“I Don’t Know If I Can Pull This Off. I’m Exhausted.”

November 10, 2013 in Excerpts, Film | Permalink

My 4 favorite Robert Altman films:

  • 3 Women
  • California Split
  • Nashville
  • McCabe and Mrs. Miller

My least favorite Altman film:

  • Quintet

Somewhere in between these extremes is Short Cuts, which is certainly an accomplished work but bothered me because I thought it used Raymond Carver’s deeply humane stories in a cruel way. But I have almost infinite love and forgiveness for Altman, who risked all in the name of art, willing to take the bruises when he fell flat. He’s recognized as one of the greatest directors ever, yet he oddly feels underrated. I have no interest in comic-book movies and I miss his work dearly–films made by an adult for other adults.

It’s the twentieth anniversary of Short Cuts and Mike Kaplan, who was an Associate Producer on that film, has made a documentary about the experience, Luck,Trust and Ketchup. From an article Kaplan wrote about the movie for the Hollywood Reporter:

“Bob and I began walking down what seemed to be a mile of maroon corridors in the Red Lion Inn, heading towards his room. ‘How are the portraits coming?’ he asked. 

Don had already completed Andie McDowell, Bruce Davison, Lily Tomlin, Frances McDormand, Peter Gallagher, Julianne Moore, Matthew Modine and Lyle Lovett and we’d have images to show him in a few days.

We talked in shorthand.

Then his voice changed — without skipping a beat in his gait. 

‘I have no idea what I’m going to shoot tomorrow,’ he announced. 

We were at his room.

He opened the door and began undressing. 

‘I don’t know if I can pull this off. I’m exhausted.’

He climbed into bed in his undershorts. 

I said something innocuous like I’m certain it will work out — worried at never hearing this tone before, Bob always the master of assurance when it came to filming.

He pulled up the covers, deep in a maze of thought, then closed his eyes.

‘Turn off the lights as you leave,’ he said.”•

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“Mourning Them Is Like Mourning Some Big, Dumb Robot That Has Succumbed To Rust”

November 8, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Retail outlets have always vanished, but they were usually pushed out by others like them that were simply run better. Now they disappear into a computer screen, into a smartphone. It’s progress and it’s better, but there’s still something vertiginous about the speed of it all. From “Blockbuster Video: 1985-2013,” Alex Pappademas’ smart Grantland postmortem about a chain store we all hated and maybe secretly loved to hate:

“Even now, it’s hard to feel warm feelings for a Blockbuster. The company was a Borg-cube dedicated to pushing big-time Hollywood product. They frowned on NC-17 movies and foreign films and employees with long hair. If you wanted those things, you could go somewhere else, until you couldn’t, because Blockbuster also frowned on sharing any marketplace with a ‘somewhere else.’ They transformed the home-video business by plowing under the competition, then failed to adapt fast enough as that business continued to change. Mourning them is like mourning some big, dumb robot that has succumbed to rust after standing all night in the rain.

By the end of this year, 2,800 Blockbuster employees will lose their jobs. There is no other aspect of Blockbuster’s passing you could really call ‘sad,’ unless you’re like me and you feel a weird chill each time you live through the disappearance of that which was once ubiquitous, especially in the physical-media-retail sector.

Time only moves in one direction, and my daughter will never set foot in a Tower Records. Or a Waldenbooks, or a Coconuts, or even a Borders. All those chains were gone by 2011, victims of Amazon and Netflix and iTunes and our hunger for convenience, which is almost always the force that makes technology’s wrecking ball swing.”

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The World Premiere Of Revenge Of The Mekons

November 8, 2013 in Film | Permalink

I’ve told you many times about Joe Angio’s new documentary, Revenge of the Mekons, an exciting look at one of the most iconic bands in history of rock. The filmmaker just announced that the movie will premiere on November 15 in NYC. Get ticket info here. Learn more about the project on The Facebook.

From Angio:

I’m excited to tell you that Revenge of the Mekons, the documentary I’ve been working on for the past six years, will make its world premiere at the DOC NYC film festival on Friday, November 15. 

The film—which Spin magazine touted as one of the “next big rock docs”—chronicles the uncharted course of the Mekons, “the band that took punk ideology most seriously,” as writer Greil Marcus described them, and reveals how, four decades into an unpredictable and still-evolving career, the group continues to make original, genre-defying music. 

Please join me, co-producer Jessica Wolfson and editor Jane Rizzo, along with special guests Jon Langford, Sally Timms, Steve Goulding and Rico Bell of the Mekons, at the screening. 

Friday, Nov. 15. at 9:45pm

SVA Theatre

333 W. 23rd St, between 8th & 9th Aves

For ticket information, go to: http://www.docnyc.net/film/revenge-of-the-mekons

I hope to see you at the premiere!

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“Southeast Asia Is Booming”

November 6, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

From Pamela McClintock’s Hollywood Reporter interview with IMAX Chairman Greg Foster, a passage about the emerging international film markets after China:

“Hollywood Reporter:

How much does Imax’s future growth depend on international?

Greg Foster:

About 60 percent of our business comes from overseas, including 20 percent from China. Of the 300 theaters we operate overseas, 125 are in China. We just made a deal to build 125 theaters with Chinese exhibitor Wanda. Rich Gelfond had a strong vision about China and is responsible for our business there. In China this year so far, Imax carried four of the five top-grossing movies: Iron Man 3, Pacific Rim and two Chinese movies, Young Detective Dee and Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons.

Hollywood Reporter:

What’s next after China?

Greg Foster:

Southeast Asia is booming, and we want to be a part of that boom. We recently struck a deal to build more than 20 new theaters in Indonesia, further boosting our presence there. Our South Korean presence is also growing, and Gravity recently scored the highest opening average theater gross of any movie in Imax’s history, or $107,900. That’s insane.”

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“People Are Going To Haunted Houses To Be In The Movie”

October 29, 2013 in Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

Movies want to escape the theaters and everyone, in one way or another, is a star now. Watching films on iPhones might seem to make Nora Desmond an even greater prophet, but if the pictures have gotten even smaller, they’re everywhere today, being captured by cameras you can barely see–some that you can’t see at all. We still like to watch, but it’s not enough–we want to be seen, we want to be in the movie. We’ve finally stormed the gates. Now what?

From an Economist article about the new wave of big-budget haunted houses in the U.S.:

“In order to get the most boo for their buck, haunters use the latest technology. Where there is competition—there are at least half a dozen haunts in New York City alone—the standards are high. Hollywood special effects and animatronic ghouls are common. But warm-blooded labour, mostly in the form of actors, is often the biggest cost.

A web of regulations, fire- and crowd-related, can make life hellish for potential fearmongers. The (enormous) haunt of Frau Mueller was given a boost when regulators laid a competitor to rest. The frau herself was nearly sent to an early grave—the haunt was approved a day before opening, and only after a path was cut down the middle for safety.

Even if they are not all grim reapers of profit, haunters have a passion for their work. Steve Kopelman, who produces haunts across the country, wanted to make movies when he was younger. Now, he says, people are going to haunted houses to be in the movie. Indeed, Hollywood is getting in on the act. Mr Kopelman is co-producing a haunt near Los Angeles with Rob Zombie, a director of scary films.”

“Why Not Follow The Consumers’ Desire To Watch Things When They Want?”

October 28, 2013 in Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies | Permalink

About a dozen years ago, I wrote a piece online in which I predicted that eventually all films would have a “pan release,” that they would be available the day they open on all screens–theaters, TV, computers. It didn’t make sense to me to limit it. Why not reach for every distribution channel? I can tell you every person I spoke to who read that article told me that I was wrong and that it would never, ever happen, that the economics would not allow it. But Netflix is trying to disrupt Hollywood in just that way right now. From Peter Kafka at All Things D:

“During the company’s earnings call last week, content boss Ted Sarandos said the company was interested in breaking into movies, and that investors should ‘keep [their] mind wide open to what those films would be and what they would look like.’

This weekend, Sarandos got more explicit. In a speech hosted by Film Independent, the nonprofit behind the indie film Spirit Awards, Sarandos said Netflix could start delivering new movies to its subscribers by doing the same thing it has done with its original TV shows, and becoming a first-run distributor.

‘What we’re trying to do for TV, the model should extend pretty nicely to movies. Meaning, why not premiere movies on Netflix, the same day they’re opening in theaters? And not little movies — there’s a lot of ways, and lot of people to do that [already]. Why not big movies? Why not follow the consumers’ desire to watch things when they want?’

Good logic. And hard to imagine how that will work.

But presumably that’s Sarandos’s point — Netflix wants to show that it can do it, at least once, and put pressure on the rest of Hollywood to change.”

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“To Tell The Water Story In A Way That I Thought Was Interesting Meant That I Had To Get Up In The Air”

October 23, 2013 in Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

Photographer Edward Burtynsky, whose amazing work I’m familiar with from Jennifer Baichwal’s documentary Manufactured Landscapes, is interviewed by the Economist about his new book, Water, and the volume’s accompanying film, which he co-directed with Baichwal. Watch interview here.

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“A Person Who Dies Alone In Space Dies A Cheerful Death”

October 23, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech | Permalink

Olaf Stampf of Spiegel has an interview with German astronaut Ulrich Walter about Gravity, which was also reviewed by Buzz Aldrin. An excerpt:

“Spiegel:

In Gravity, Sandra Bullock plays an astronaut who gets separated from her shuttle and ends up floating in space, completely untethered. Would it be possible to save an astronaut in such a situation?

Ulrich Walter:

Yes, in principle. These days, every spacesuit is outfitted with a small jetpack. The pack’s range, though, is only about a kilometer, so it wouldn’t be possible to fly tens of thousands of kilometers to the ISS, as the characters do in the film. In real life, everyone involved in that disaster would have died. 

Spiegel:

It doesn’t sound like a very nice way to go, drifting through nothingness in a spacesuit, waiting to die. 

Ulrich Walter:

On the contrary! When you’re slowly running out of oxygen, the same thing happens as does when you’re in thin air at the top of a mountain: Everything seems funny. And as you’re laughing about it, you slowly nod off. I experienced this phenomenon in an altitude chamber during my training as an astronaut. At some point, someone in the group starts cracking bad jokes. Our brains are gentle with us. A person who dies alone in space dies a cheerful death.” (Thanks Browser.)

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“I Hope It’s Not Your Intention To Monopolize The Conversation”

October 21, 2013 in Books, Film, Videos | Permalink

Two videos of that wonderful Harpo Marx, the first comedian I adored. The initial one is a 1958 Person to Person “interview” a studio-bound Edward R. Murrow conducted via long distance with the mute comic and his talkative family in their Palm Springs home. The second is a 1961 appearance on the Today show to promote the release of his now-classic biography, Harpo Speaks!

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“I Said It Would Be A Disaster To Portray The Extraterrestrials”

October 20, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech | Permalink

Via the excellent Browser site comes this wonderful piece from 2001Italia which recalls how Stanley Kubrick struggled mightily with realizing alien life forms in his masterful sci-fi film. An excerpt:

“According to Arthur Clarke, it was the famous scientist Carl Sagan that, asked for a suggestion on the topic, proposed to hide the aliens altogether from the movie, during a meeting at Kubrick’s house in Manhattan, in 1965. Quoted from Clarke’s biography, here’s Sagan recounting the episode thirty years later:

They had no idea how to end the movie – that’s when they called me in to try to resolve a dispute. The key issue was how to portray extraterrestrials that would surely be encountered at the end when they go through the Star Gate. Kubrick was arguing that the extraterrestrials would look like humans with some slight differences, maybe à la Mr. Spock (Ed. note: like Clindar). And Arthur was arguing, quite properly on general evolutionary grounds, that they would look nothing like us. So I tried to adjudicate as they asked. I said it would be a disaster to portray the extraterrestrials. What ought to be done is to suggest them. I argued that the number of individually unlikely events in the evolutionary history of man was so great that nothing like us is ever likely to evolve anywhere else in the universe. I suggested that any explicit representation of an advanced extraterrestrial being was bound to have at least an element of falseness about it and that the best solution would be to suggest rather than explicitly to display the extraterrestrials. What struck me most is that they were in production (some of the special effects, at least) and still had no idea how the movie would end. Kubrick’s preference had one distinct advantage, an economic one: He could call up Central Casting and ask for twenty extraterrestrials. With a little makeup, he would have his problem solved. The alternative portrayal of extraterrestrials, whatever it was, was bound to be expensive.

… And that’s the quote from Arthur Clarke, commenting Sagan’s words:

A third of century later, I do not recall Stanley’s immediate reaction to this excellent advice, but after abortive efforts during the next couple of years to design convincing aliens, he accepted Carl’s solution.”

See also:

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“Joseph K Has His Fortune Told By A Computer”

October 17, 2013 in Film, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Orson Welles died in 1985, when the personal-computer revolution had begun in earnest but before the Internet had become accessible for all. I wonder what he would have thought of the Digital Age. Did he ever use a PC or a Mac? From a 1962 BBC interview about The Trial, in which he discusses marrying Kafka and computers–a seemingly perfect match–for a scene that never made the final cut:

“Huw Wheldon:

There exists a scene of a computer scientist, played by Katina Paxinou, that is no longer in the film. She tells K his most likely fate is that he will commit suicide.

Orson Welles:

Yes, that was a long scene that lasted ten minutes, which I cut on the eve of the Paris premiere. Joseph K has his fortune told by a computer–that’s what the scene amounted to. It was my invention. The computer tells him his fate. I only saw the film as a whole once. We were still in the process of doing the mixing, and then the premiere fell on us. At the last moment I abridged the scene. It should have been the best in the film and it wasn’t. Something went wrong, I don’t know why, but it didn’t succeed. The subject of that scene was free will. It was tinged with black humor; that was my main weapon. As you know, it is always directed against the machine and in favor of freedom.”•

______________________

In 1978, Welles traded a piece of his name for a paycheck selling unimpressive-looking Vivitar cameras:

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“I Think I Know What’s Going To Happen In Our World”

October 14, 2013 in Books, Film, Politics, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

In the end matter of a New York Times profile of Johnny Knoxville’s bruised, aging balls, I read this:

“Dave Itzkoff is a reporter at The Times. His book, Mad as Hell, about the making of the movie Network, will be published in February.”

This news is exciting because of my feelings for that film, arguably America’s best film satire, and because Itzkoff is such a good reporter and graceful writer, one of the few journalists who can interest me in reading about popular culture. The following video is one I’ve previously posted in which Paddy Chayefsky appears on a talk show in the 1970s to discuss Network and the coming global, technocratic, interconnected culture.

____________________________

Paddy Chayefsky, that brilliant satirist, holding forth spectacularly on the Mike Douglas Show in 1969. It starts with polite chatter about the success of his script for Marty but quickly transitions into a much more serious and futuristic discussion. The writer is full of doom and gloom, of course, during the tumult of the Vietnam Era; his best-case scenario for humankind to live more peacefully is a computer-friendly “new society” that yields to globalization and technocracy, one in which citizens are merely producers and consumers, free of nationalism and disparate identity. Well, some of that came true. All the while, he wears a fun, red lei because one of his fellow guests is Hawaii Five-0 star Jack Lord. Gwen Verdon, Lionel Hampton and Cy Coleman share the panel.

Chayefsky joins the show at the 7:45 mark.

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“The Future World Belongs To People, Communities, Conscious And Subconscious Machines, Talking Animals, Thinking Cars, Roads And Cities”

October 13, 2013 in Film, Science/Tech, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

From Mika Taanila’s 2002 film about philosopher and electronic music composer Erkki Kurenniemi, The Future Is Not What It Used to Be, an explanation of what life was and what it increasingly is now.

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“They Took My Photograph And I Come Out Ugly. What Can I Do?”

October 10, 2013 in Film, Urban Studies, Videos | Permalink

I don’t follow celebrity news very closely, but I believe it was recently revealed that Woody Allen once impregnated Frank Sinatra. Mazel tov to the whole family! Here’s Allen in 1979, before all the eeeew!, being interviewed in his Manhattan apartment by a French journalist. The piece opens with a discussion of the filmmaker landing on the cover of Time, when that was still the most-coveted real estate in media.

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“People Fainted…There Were Reported Miscarriages”

October 4, 2013 in Film, Videos | Permalink

Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Jason Miller and writer William Peter Blatty, collaborators on the 1973 horror classic of The Exorcist, reunited for some unknown reason in 1984 for Good Morning America. According to legend, Blatty pretended to be an Arabian prince in the 1950s to get booked on the game show You Bet Your Life. He didn’t fool Groucho but did win $10,000, which helped him jump-start his writing career. I’ve never seen the footage online.

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“I Think It Reminds Us That There Really Are Hazards In The Space Business”

October 3, 2013 in Excerpts, Film, Science/Tech, Videos | Permalink

Buzz Aldrin, a great astronaut, sure, but more complex than just stoicism stuffed into a spacesuit, guest reviews Alfonso Cuarón’s Gravity for the Hollywood Reporter. An excerpt:

“I was so extravagantly impressed by the portrayal of the reality of zero gravity. Going through the space station was done just the way that I’ve seen people do it in reality. The spinning is going to happen — maybe not quite that vigorous — but certainly we’ve been fortunate that people haven’t been in those situations yet. I think it reminds us that there really are hazards in the space business, especially in activities outside the spacecraft.

I was happy to see someone moving around the spacecraft the way George Clooney was. It really points out the degree of confusion and bumping into people, and when the tether gets caught, you’re going to be pulled — I think the simulation of the dynamics was remarkable.

We were probably not as lighthearted as Clooney and Sandra Bullock. We didn’t tell too many jokes when people were in some position of jeopardy outside the spacecraft, but I think that’s the humanity coming through in the characters. This movie gave great clarity to looking down and seeing the features of Earth … but there weren’t enough clouds, and maybe there was too precise a delineation from space.”

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