- Actors: Debrah Farentino, Clancy Brown, Jessica Steen, Antonio Sabato.
- Format: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Full Screen, NTSC.
- Language: English. Subtitles: English, Spanish.
- Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only).
- Not Rated. Run Time: 1025 minutes.
Another Earth is an unusual hybrid of existential rumination on life choices, mind-bending sci-fi supposition, and challenging indie art film that moves at a pace that is often maddeningly oblique. Based on the marketing campaign, which plays up the science-fiction angle and special effects (of which there are very few, consisting mainly of offhand composite shots), the movie seems to be trawling for an audience that may be sorely disappointed by all the roundabout and often repetitive philosophically conceptual ideas that are hard to follow. That's not to say that
Another Earth isn't rich! in ideas or absorbing in its own right as a meditation on how specific moments play out and affect the cascade of alternatives that follow in their wake. Using broadly impressionistic and experimental strokes, the story follows the disjointed meanderings of 17-year-old Rhoda, who causes a tragic accident while driving drunk after celebrating her acceptance into college. The collision happens when she becomes distracted by the mesmerizing planetary image glowing above her car's moon roof, which has just been identified as an exact duplicate of Earth. After four years of incarceration, she continues to suffer terrible remorse and tries to find a way to make peace with herself and the older man whose life and family she all but destroyed, and who is now crippled by depression. Her initial self-imposed penance is to adopt the role of an anonymous maid who comes to clean his decrepit house every week. As precious few details are added to their individual and mutual evolution an! d motivation, the constant of the alternate Earth, which has b! een stea dily moving closer (along with its mirror-image Moon), hovers in the day and night sky, gazed upon with wonder and a growing idea that maybe it represents the redemption Rhoda can't find on her own. A corporate contest that will allow an ordinary citizen to make a shuttle trip to Earth 2 (or is it Earth 1?) becomes the catalyst for her belief that she can fundamentally alter both their lives for the better, but the movie never shows its hand in how or if this might work.
Another Earth is another of those high-minded indie dramas that relies a little too heavily on rambling structure, shaky handheld digital camera, and arty shots of things like the play of light, clouds, and swirling dust motes to convey the corners of its characters' sometimes fascinating, sometimes inscrutable souls. Much has been made of the film's final shot, which is truly stunning in its unexpectedness and implications. But what those implications are will be cause for unending debate among viewe! rs, many of who may never be able to come up with a satisfying answer.
--Ted FryTHE STORY CENTERS AROUND A FAMILY WITH THREE BOYS IN THE 1950S. THE ELDEST SON WITNESSES THE LOSS OF INNOCENCE.The long front lawns of summer afternoons, the flicker of sunlight as it sprays through tree branches, the volcanic surge of the Earth's interior as the planet heaves itself into being--you certainly can't say Terrence Malick lacks for visual expressiveness.
The Tree of Life is Malick's long-cherished project, a film that centers on a family in 1950s Waco, Texas, yet also reaches for cosmic significance in the creation of the universe itself. The Texas memories belong to Jack (Sean Penn), a modern man seemingly ground down by the soulless glass-and-metal corporate world that surrounds him. We learn early in the film of a family loss that happened at a later time, but the flashbacks concern only the dark Eden of Jack's childhood: his games with his two younger brothers, his! frustrated, bullying father (Brad Pitt), his one-dimensionall! y radian t mother (Jessica Chastain). None of which unfolds in anything like a conventional narrative, but in a series of disconnected scenes that conjure, with poetry and specificity, a particular childhood realm. The contributions of cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and production designer Jack Fisk cannot be underestimated in that regard, and it should be noted that Brad Pitt contributes his best performance: strong yet haunted.
And how does the Big Bang material (especially a long, trippy sequence in the film's first hour) tie into this material? Yes, well, the answer to that question will determine whether you find Malick's film a profound exploration of existence or crazy-ambitious failure full of beautiful things. Malick's sincerity is winning (and so is his exceptional touch with the child actors), yet many of the movie's touches are simultaneously gaseous (amongst the bits of whispered narration is the war between nature and grace, roles assigned to mother and father) an! d all-too-literal (a dinosaur retreats from nearly killing a fellow creature--the first moments of species kindness, or anthropomorphic poppycock?). The Tree of Life premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and won the Palme d'Or there after receiving boos at its press screening. The debate continues, unabated, from that point. --Robert HortonJJ Abrams and Steven Spielberg join forces in this extraordinary tale of youth, mystery, and adventure. Super 8 tells the story of six friends who witness a train wreck while making a Super 8 movie, only to learn that something unimaginable escaped during the crash. They soon discover that the only thing more mysterious than what it is, is what it wants. Experience the film that critics rave is, “filled with unstoppable imagination and visual effects to spare. It will put a spell on you.†â€" Peter Travers, Rolling StoneFew filmmakers have ever had a run at the tables like Steven Spielberg, whose output fro! m 1971's Sugarland Express to, say, 1982's E.T. ! displaye d an amazingly unforced melding of huge set pieces and small human gestures. Even at their most chaotic, they somehow felt organic. Super 8, writer-director J.J. Abrams's authorized tribute to classic Spielbergisms, hits all of the marks (Lived-in suburbia backdrop, check. Awestruck gazes upwards, check. Parental discord, check. Lens flares, amazingly huge check), but its adherence to the formula squelches much of its own potential. Appealing as it is to see a summer movie that retro-prioritizes character development over jittery quick-cut explosions, the viewer is always aware at how furiously it's working to seem effortless. Set in 1979, Abrams's script follows a group of movie-crazy kids attempting to make a zombie flick, only to have their plans cut short by a close encounter with a train derailment. As the military pours over the wreckage and neighbors start disappearing, the gang realizes that their footage contains a cameo appearance by an extremely grumpy gues! t star. For a film whose promotional campaign hinged so strongly on creating an air of mystery, Super 8 is a fairly straightforward melding of E.T. and Jurassic Park, albeit one featuring an oddly schizophrenic monster (he eats people… until he doesn't). Abrams makes his young cast shine (particularly when developing a hint of romance between leads Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning), while also providing a nice character arc for Kyle Chandler, as a widowed deputy who can see his relationship with his son slipping away. Aside from a few primo early jolts, however, the creature-feature aspects feel increasingly shoehorned in alongside the more assured coming-of-age elements. Abrams's film has more than enough bright spots to warrant a viewing, but its insistence on worshipfully following the master's playbook is a bit of a bummer. Imitation isn't always flattering. --Andrew WrightAnother Earth is an unusual hybrid of existential rumination on! life choices, mind-bending sci-fi supposition, and challengin! g indie art film that moves at a pace that is often maddeningly oblique. Based on the marketing campaign, which plays up the science-fiction angle and special effects (of which there are very few, consisting mainly of offhand composite shots), the movie seems to be trawling for an audience that may be sorely disappointed by all the roundabout and often repetitive philosophically conceptual ideas that are hard to follow. That's not to say that Another Earth isn't rich in ideas or absorbing in its own right as a meditation on how specific moments play out and affect the cascade of alternatives that follow in their wake. Using broadly impressionistic and experimental strokes, the story follows the disjointed meanderings of 17-year-old Rhoda, who causes a tragic accident while driving drunk after celebrating her acceptance into college. The collision happens when she becomes distracted by the mesmerizing planetary image glowing above her car's moon roof, which has just been ident! ified as an exact duplicate of Earth. After four years of incarceration, she continues to suffer terrible remorse and tries to find a way to make peace with herself and the older man whose life and family she all but destroyed, and who is now crippled by depression. Her initial self-imposed penance is to adopt the role of an anonymous maid who comes to clean his decrepit house every week. As precious few details are added to their individual and mutual evolution and motivation, the constant of the alternate Earth, which has been steadily moving closer (along with its mirror-image Moon), hovers in the day and night sky, gazed upon with wonder and a growing idea that maybe it represents the redemption Rhoda can't find on her own. A corporate contest that will allow an ordinary citizen to make a shuttle trip to Earth 2 (or is it Earth 1?) becomes the catalyst for her belief that she can fundamentally alter both their lives for the better, but the movie never shows its hand in ! how or if this might work. Another Earth is another of ! those hi gh-minded indie dramas that relies a little too heavily on rambling structure, shaky handheld digital camera, and arty shots of things like the play of light, clouds, and swirling dust motes to convey the corners of its characters' sometimes fascinating, sometimes inscrutable souls. Much has been made of the film's final shot, which is truly stunning in its unexpectedness and implications. But what those implications are will be cause for unending debate among viewers, many of who may never be able to come up with a satisfying answer. --Ted FryA science-fiction series with an ecological theme, EARTH 2 only ran for one season on NBC, and all 22 episodes of the program are collected here. In the distant future, the surface of the Earth has been largely destroyed, and mankind lives in space stations orbiting the planet. A group of space colonists, led by Devon Adair (Debrah Farentino) and John Danzinger (Clancy Brown), are sent to a far off planet to prepare it for colon! ization by the surviving population of Earth. But a mishap sends them careening off-course, crash landing thousands of miles from the proper camp site. EARTH 2 follows the band of colonists as they traverse the planet, encountering dangerous aliens and other humans who view them with distrust and suspicion. By tackling issues like ecology and colonization, EARTH 2 engages important ideas and themes in an entertaining fashion.
