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Friday, March 11, 2016

Everest



This week's movie rental was Everest ...

a 2015 biographical adventure drama film directed by Baltasar Kormákur ... starring an ensemble cast which features Jason Clarke, Josh Brolin, John Hawkes, Robin Wright, Michael Kelly, Sam Worthington, Keira Knightley, Emily Watson, and Jake Gyllenhaal .... It is based on the real events of the 1996 Mount Everest disaster, and focuses on the survival attempts of two expedition groups, one led by Rob Hall (Jason Clarke) and the other by Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal)

I wanted to see the movie because I had tried but failed to read the book on which the movie is (or is not?) based, and also because I like a lot of the actors in the film. It was also visually beautiful, scenery-wise. But it was incredibly depressing ... almost everyone dies, and not in glorious and dramatic ways, but in often silent, unremarked, pointless ways .... the meaninglessness of their deaths and the indifference of nature was devastating, at least to me. I don't mean to say by this that the movie wasn't good - I think it's a testament to the great acting and well-told story that it affected me.

Richard Roeper liked it very much. Here's his video review of the film ...


4 Comments:

Blogger Susan said...

I decided to pass on it when I had the chance to see it in the theater, scenery or no scenery. :-)

8:00 AM  
Blogger crystal said...

Hi Susan. Yeah, it was pretty grim :)

12:27 PM  
Anonymous Richard said...

I really enjoyed (if that's the right word) Krakauer's book, but for some reason the movie told a different story especially with regard to Krakauer's role in the end. Not sure why.

5:16 PM  
Blogger crystal said...

According to the Wikipedia page, Krakauer was unhappy with the movie and it's said that they didn't really use the book as inspiration for it, so maybe that's why it seems different? ... http://www.ew.com/article/2015/09/25/thin-air-author-jon-krakauer-not-fan-everest

6:18 PM  

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