SIFF #3, Another Earth
Another Earth was a film I watched with two brains, one the science brain and one the story brain.
Are we supposed to take this a literally another Earth? Probably not. Because if it is, the writer have a whole lotta 'splainin' to do. Apart from the gravitational effects another Earth would have on our own, it's always shown in the sky as the same "phase" as the Moon. Well, there's only one way that can happen, and would be if the other Earth were orbiting our Earth just like the Moon. There's also the factor of tidal locking, and the fact that it would probably tidally lock us too... which would be a MUCH bigger story than what we see here.
So maybe it's some sort of quantum reality. I dunno. The slow, plodding, answer-craving part of me wishes they would have been clearer about that.
The story part of my brain liked this film a lot. It's certainly not what the general public thinks of as "Sci-Fi". It isn't even as close to that as Moon was. It was closer to the smaller, more intimate stories I sometimes hear on Escape Pod, Podcastle, and all the time on This American Life.
It could also be subtitled "The Increasingly Poor Choices of Rhoda Williams", as the lead character makes one bad decision after another. Note I do not say unbelievable - simply bad. Or at least, not a choice I would have made. But that's doesn't mean someone else couldn't have. In fact, the undercurrent in this entire story involves what choices we make and how they might have turned out differently.
My one real problem with the film (which kinda sorta gets back to my science problem) is that, like a lot of modern fiction, it ends too abruptly on something not really resolved. Just the hint of a possible resolution. Call me old fashioned, but I like more of my questions answered (both physics and character-wise).
SIFF Follies
This film so far has been the biggest entry in the SIFF Follies this year, which you get anytime something's run by volunteers. Sound problems, cursors on the screen during the digital intro, a late start, a crowd of somewhat clueless teenage high school students attending... attendees terrified they wouldn't be able to rush across town on Metro to make their next movie (that's why I'm only on one a day). Ahh, the SIFF Circus....
And I'm not completely sated, so I must go watch something Indonesian that's been sitting my Netflix queue forever....
Are we supposed to take this a literally another Earth? Probably not. Because if it is, the writer have a whole lotta 'splainin' to do. Apart from the gravitational effects another Earth would have on our own, it's always shown in the sky as the same "phase" as the Moon. Well, there's only one way that can happen, and would be if the other Earth were orbiting our Earth just like the Moon. There's also the factor of tidal locking, and the fact that it would probably tidally lock us too... which would be a MUCH bigger story than what we see here.
So maybe it's some sort of quantum reality. I dunno. The slow, plodding, answer-craving part of me wishes they would have been clearer about that.
The story part of my brain liked this film a lot. It's certainly not what the general public thinks of as "Sci-Fi". It isn't even as close to that as Moon was. It was closer to the smaller, more intimate stories I sometimes hear on Escape Pod, Podcastle, and all the time on This American Life.
It could also be subtitled "The Increasingly Poor Choices of Rhoda Williams", as the lead character makes one bad decision after another. Note I do not say unbelievable - simply bad. Or at least, not a choice I would have made. But that's doesn't mean someone else couldn't have. In fact, the undercurrent in this entire story involves what choices we make and how they might have turned out differently.
My one real problem with the film (which kinda sorta gets back to my science problem) is that, like a lot of modern fiction, it ends too abruptly on something not really resolved. Just the hint of a possible resolution. Call me old fashioned, but I like more of my questions answered (both physics and character-wise).
SIFF Follies
This film so far has been the biggest entry in the SIFF Follies this year, which you get anytime something's run by volunteers. Sound problems, cursors on the screen during the digital intro, a late start, a crowd of somewhat clueless teenage high school students attending... attendees terrified they wouldn't be able to rush across town on Metro to make their next movie (that's why I'm only on one a day). Ahh, the SIFF Circus....
And I'm not completely sated, so I must go watch something Indonesian that's been sitting my Netflix queue forever....