So High You Go

Conditions: Decidedly Unsettled.

Rocket, Man

So after a week of unfortunate and now tragic spaceship disasters it seems inevitable that we will start wondering if we really need to be sending rich celebrities into space. I mean, really? And frankly I’m pretty sure most of the celebrities who’ve paid up for their trip are thinking the exact same thing, privately at least. Anyway Richard Branson has had to do a lot of fast talking about what he’s going to do now his spaceship has blown up.

"We owe it to him to continue and that we will do," he told the Today Show host, Matt Lauer.

Lauer himself homed in on a question many have discussed since the accident. Test flight and space travel has always been dangerous, are the risks worth it when the object is an expensive thrill ride rather than the advancement of science?

"Absolutely it is worth the risks," said Branson without hesitation, adding though that his program was about more than the $200,000 space flight that is being marketed to rich adventurers.

Oho. More than just a joyride for people with too much money? How so?

He said it was not just about giving the "millions of people who would like to" a chance to see space, but about launching "massive arrays" of satellites and mastering sub-orbital flight for passengers here on Earth. "It is a grand program," he said.

- www.smh.com.au

Yeah but see the ship that’s been designed isn’t actually able to do that. And frankly we already have a way of putting satellites into space. As far as having a new Concord for rich people to whizz about on, frankly I really just don’t care - and certainly not enough to accept people getting killed for. Space is hard, the meme is true.  So ultimately I don't get why we need this SpaceshipTwo thing.  Watching the celebrities get out of it should be fun though.




Film Review: Gone Girl

David Fincher’s last movie was a crime thriller based on a bestselling novel, and it sucked. Odd, disinterested, unengaged and offensive, it felt like a waste of time before it had barely started. So it was with some trepidation that I sat down to watch his latest film, also a crime thriller based on a bestselling novel. But it is with great relief I can report that this time Fincher has picked the right material, and directed the hell out of it, because Gone Girl is just terrific. It tells the tale of a married couple, Ben Affleck and Rosamund Pike, who started off rich and in love, and gradually got ground down by a combination of bad luck, bad choices and circumstance. It all gets kicked off with the apparent murder and disappearance of Pike on an otherwise normal sunny day. Affleck eventually becomes the prime suspect, and the cops and media gradually circle in closer and closer, picking him apart, as the back-story of these two gets sprinkled in amongst the aftermath of what would be anyone’s worst nightmare.

There’s a couple of big twists in this thing, and I won’t spoil them because the film is that damned good. They are the kinds of cinematic moments where you literally hear everyone in the audience draw in a sharp breath of shock. Time freezes for a moment, and everything we thought we knew pivots around what just happened. It’s terrific stuff. Affleck is great as the preppy husband under pressure in the middle of a darkening mystery, but Pike ends up delivering a performance that frankly I didn’t think she had in her. She is absolutely brilliant, delivering a layered and complicated character throughout the film and you end up just not knowing what she is going to do next. She totally convinces you, but what’s really impressive is she keeps totally convincing you each time her character changes, shedding behind her one skin and revealing the next one underneath. It’s the kind of performance that’s a game-changer. Good for her.

Fincher here I think is fairly restrained. It’s like he knows how good the characters and story beats are all by themselves, so he doesn’t need to delve into cool camera tricks or angles that he might have indulged in in the past. Or perhaps he realises all that stuff might detract from the sheer drama of what’s going on. Whatever, he’s delivered something here that makes up for his previous lacklustre and unfocused efforts. Someone on the radio recently said that Fincher is the new Stanley Kubrick. At first I rejected that, but now I’m starting to wonder. I can see where the idea would come from anyway. Gone Girl is the kind of film that makes you want to go out and buy the book, immediately (update: done!). It’s the kind of film that feels a lot shorter than it actually is. It’s the kind of film where the audience just sits, very quietly, and watches, with not one phone to be seen anywhere. It’s the kind of film the audience wants to talk to each other about afterwards, rather than just charge off back to the car. That is a rare and great thing in this age. Five blood stains out of five.



- Peace out