The Guv'ner Recommends...

The other day I bought some chocolate covered pretzels (two food groups in one - 'yum' and 'yummier') and dragged my lazy carcass to Times Square to see a movie. Usually I am anti-Times Square movie viewing since the time I went to see the 'Sixth Sense' there and spent more time listening to the traffic honking by outside and smashing over metal grids in the road to concentrate on the actual dialogue and creepy silences. Seriously, who thinks putting a movie theater next to the melting pot of humanity is a good idea? A MORON that's who and when I find out his name, his ass is toast. I see dead people. I'll show YOU dead people, pal.

Anyway, the movie was showing barely anywhere else so choice was not on my side.

This was a different theater and the movie was "Sunshine" a film I'd been chomping at the bit to see since I first heard the basic outline (and the fact it was directed by Danny Boyle and written by Alex Garland who brought us the fab "28 Days Later" of which I'm a huge fan). Plus I'm a sucker for anything suspenseful, doomlike and sci-fi so long as it's good sci-fi. Some say I'm a sucker, PERIOD, but to those people I say "Bite it, hater!"

This was good sci-fi. The basic plot premise involved 8 astronauts flying on a mission to the Sun, which is dying, knowing that if it dies, so does Earth which is currently in the midst of a solar winter. The astronauts are carrying a nuclear bomb the size of Manhattan which has to be jettisoned into the Sun and detonated in the hopes it will kick start the star and reignite life on Earth. See? How awesome does that sound? Tell me you didn't just pee in your pants a little with the awesomeness of that. Things are compounded when in the "dead zone" - an area beyond Mercury where all contact with Earth is lost - they receive a distress signal from the previous spacecraft who disappeared seven years ago while attempting the same mission. They have a dilemma of whether to continue on to the Sun and deliver their payload, which has no guarantee of success, or to divert to the lost ship in the hope of recovering the second bomb therefore having two chances of success, but at the possible compromise of their oxygen supply. Then a small human error causes a domino effect (nothing to do with pizza) of catastrophe that leaves them fighting to survive long enough to deliver the payload.

So those chocolate pretzels. I had eaten maybe three of those before forgetting they existed for the duration of the movie. I was balanced on the edge of my seat with a look on my face that said, "What. The. Fuck." for the whole movie. In fact, I can't remember a time I was last so slack-jawed with awe at a movie. It was terrifying, magnificent, awesomely beautiful to look at, menacing, heart-breaking and included one of those moments where your stomach falls through your rectum and hits the floor with a thud when a little plot twist kicks in towards the end.

Naturally I have one question. What is it about sci-fi movies (and scary ones in particular) that bring out geek boys and practically no one else? The theater had about sixteen people in it. All alone. Fifteen men of different ages and varying degrees of hygiene, and then me (I just showered, honest).

I guess what I'm saying here is, if you get a chance to see "Sunshine" and suspense is up your alley (maybe with a touch of horror action toward the end) then GO DAMMIT. Honestly, I am still a little freaked out.