Gravity [Blu-ray 3D + Blu-ray] [2013] [Region Free]

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All guests who present a ticket for a film screening, Tuesday through Saturday (and the first Sunday of every month), receive 10% off all food and non-alcoholic beverages at Fanny's. Finishing a film difficult enough—finishing a 3D film requires a level of synchronicity between all involved that mimics what’s required of rendering a beautiful, believable 3D shot in the first place.

The survival structure of the story pushes Bullock to her limits, evidencing both a mental and physical strain to the seemingly endless catastrophes that befall her character.

The scene where Clooney and Bullock are drifting apart is very similar to a moment in this earlier film. We were able to make narrative use of 3D because Alfonso had integrated 3D with cinematography, visual effects and every other craft department from the outset,” Parks says.

Ryan Stone, a bit of an everywoman on her first mission to install a prototype on the Hubble Telescope, and the ever-charming George Clooney as Matt Kowalski, a charming veteran astronaut on his final mission. Even at home on this stellar Blu-ray 3D edition, camera pans over the shuttle exhibit tremendous depth of field, with isolated elements in the foreground standing out convincingly against the ever-present Earth in the background. Applications like Big Screen and Skybox can play these as full 3D on huge virtual cinemas, and the Quest resolution and lack of SDE really does it justice.Gravity features two eye-popping, near-perfect, top tier video transfers -- a 1080p/MVC-encoded 3D presentation and its 1080p/AVC-encoded 2D counterpart -- both of which have already solidified their place as two of the best Blu-ray presentations of 2014.

From there, Stone grows and fights for her survival, seeking guidance under various faiths (we see Jesus in the Soyuz, Buddha in the Shenzhou capsule), and eventually crawls out of the water in a clear nod to Darwinism -- at first on all fours, and then rising to two feet, taking her first steps anew in the primordial ooze. Sometimes it's near impossible to talk about why you like a film without, you know, talking about the whole thing. Stone just happens to be on her first space flight and Kowalski just happens to be on his last is a bit contrived, as is Stone's relative inexperience. From the opening nail-biting collision sequence to Ryan's depleting oxygen levels, Cuaron's use of subjective point-of-view shots, frantic close-ups and eerily tranquil wides create a palpably visceral landscape.

While director Cuaron expertly conveys suspense in well choreographed sequences that are rife with realism, they serve as fleeting punctuation points between bland dialogue and character unravelling where effective drama between the protagonists would have added to the rising tension. Together, Stone and Kowalski must push past their fears to do the impossible, all before the oxygen in their space suits runs out.