Space Flights, Acts of Self-Sacrifice, and Strange Sonics

October 2, 2013 | By admin | Add a Comment

Although Europa Report [M] (Magnolia) doesn’t hit shelves until next Tuesday, here’s an early review of this fairly ambitious sci-fi found footage ‘documentary’ which retraces through onboard and external surveillance cameras the fate of the first privately funded mission to find microbial life on Jupiter’s frozen moon Europa.

I’ve been a space & sci-fi fan for years, and getting a chance to see Europa’s epidermis of glacier-like ice, even as imaginative CGI, is fun. Sebastian Cordero’s film has some flaws, but the film is still worth a peek for genre fans wanting a sci-fi tale with a little more scientific substance.

Also uploaded is Steven Price’s experimental-styled impression of deep space as ‘heard’ by Sandra Bullock in Gravity [M] when she’s expunged from the safety of the Space Station. I’m avoiding specific details of the film because I want to see Alfonso Cuaron’s ambitious film without an preconceived ideas.

Whether I’ll catch it IMAX 3D is up in the air, since I’m one of those wusses who can’t handle an IMAX camera strapped to the from of a plane, skidoo, or rollercoaster.

Price’s score is available from Water Tower Music, and for those interested in hearing actual space sounds, Don Gurnett, a professor at the University of Iowa’s Department of Physics and Astronomy has archives some ‘favourites’ in a gallery that features the sounds with spectrographic video.