Film Illiterate, wherein the proprietor records movies seen, and sporadic progress through assorted lists of the "best". Originally started after regretfully renting something forgettable for the third time. I've forgotten what, but never again! A tedious endeavour since 2005. Hello. 🙂
My favourite metaphor for the experience of the sublime -- for that combination of fascination, awe, a crushing sense of one's own insignificance -- is from J.G. Magee's High Flight, a poem about his experience grazing the upper atmosphere as a pilot:
This is Gravity. Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) is trapped, alone, on a satellite orbiting the Earth, and must somehow make it home. Space is vast, cold and deadly; space is beautiful. The sun rises from behind the Earth.
Stone floats in a flimsy bubble: never has technology felt so fragile. But through it all shines a sense of strength and hope: a flimsy bubble, yes, but also a triumph of humanity, a candle in the dark, a shield. It is the most humanist of movies.
Bullock is excellent, but space -- gloriously realized with some of the best special effects ever seen on film -- is the real attraction. Gravity is easily my movie of the decade and perhaps the best science fiction film ever made.