'Ad Astra': Film Review | Venice 2019

tumbling from a burning tower, the lonely gleam of a spacecraft against a fathomless field of stars. Yet of all the film's eloquent visuals, cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema lights nothing with more care than Brad Pitt's eyes. Zero-gravity fistfights notwithstanding, those baby blues are where the action is. They're the movie's highest-impact special effect.

But while less is more for the actor, that's not necessarily the case for the movie, which tends toward the obvious and often feels adrift in a suspense-free void. Writer-director Gray's handsomely crafted planet-hopping drama is by turns vividly eventful and deliberate in its uneventfulness, and it feels caught, somewhat awkwardly, between stark simplicity and violent leaps into hyperdrive.

He's become an esteemed astronaut in his own right, but he feels like a hired hand. The honchos at SpaceCom, a government agency with a somewhat privatized sheen, value him for his unflappable cool. Why wouldn't they? His pulse has never topped 80, and they can't hear that angry voiceover. Though Roy has a number of encounters on his travels from Earth to the Moon to Mars and beyond, his is essentially a solitary journey, a fact that's underscored in Van Hoytema's fluent layering of reflection and shadow, in the outstanding sound design by Gary Rydstrom, and throughout Kevin Thompson's production design, which has a lived-in, unshowy emphasis on practical, rather than digital, artistry.

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Venice Film Review: Brad Pitt in ‘Ad Astra’In the opening sequence of “Ad Astra,” Roy McBride (Brad Pitt), a veteran U.S. astronaut, is doing what he does at the top of a space antenna, an elaborate piece of technological scaffo… If a film's theme isn't gender politics, race relations, or class inequality, it'll be promptly dismissed. The utter state of film criticism nowadays.
Source: Variety - 🏆 108. / 63 Read more »

Brad Pitt Says ‘Ad Astra’ Is a Personal Film About MasculinityBrad Pitt, the star and producer of James Gray’s sci-fi drama which world premieres at Venice on Thursday, said during the press conference that the film was a personal one and to some extent… What does masculinity have to do with Brad Pitt? 👌🏻🥜🐿☺️ His contributions to film will hopefully one day be rewarded. Hopefully soon. Remarkable man.
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Is James Gray’s ‘Ad Astra’ The Last Hope For Original, Grown-Up Sci-Fi In The Franchise Era? – Venice Q&AWhen James Gray set out on the path that would lead him to Ad Astra, he couldn’t have foreseen the importance his film would take on, with Fox’s first releases under new ownership at Di… What the hell do you call “Interstellar” then? What? No? Just b/c studio heads criterion is highly biased towards profit vs storytelling, does not mean that the storytellers are not ready with stories to tell. The talent shortage we have actually resides at the executive level, not the creative level. Only until the next one you decide to put too much pressure on for the sake of manufacturing drama
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