Gravity

April 16, 2017 - Blame the Russians. It's their fault that a nice, quiet spacewalk turns into a fight for survival for Sandra Bullock and George Clooney. This PG-13 film from 2013 won seven Oscars, including Best Director. Bullock was nominated for Best Actress but lost out to Cate Blanchett in Blue Jasmine.

Bullock plays Dr. Ryan Stone. She's new to space, on her first shuttle mission to do medical research. Leading the crew is veteran astronaut Matt Kowalski (Clooney), whose main mission seems to be setting a new spacewalk record. The two are on a spacewalk with a third astronaut, when suddenly, space junk starts flying at them from every direction. It seems the Russians blew up a satellite.

One bad thing leads to another. Soon, one of the astronauts is dead, the space shuttle is out of commission, and communications with ground control are cut off. Stone and Kowalski find themselves utterly alone with very little hope of ever getting back to Earth.

Overall review: *** Liked it. Bullock is in pretty much every scene and capably carries the movie. Many of her scenes are just her. She must convey the desperation of the situation, and she does so very well. Having said that, Gravity is basically an action movie. A well-made one, but an action movie nonetheless. That's not a bad thing, but trying to read more into it will only lead to disappointment.