Love (2011)

A man spends years alone on a space station orbiting Earth after losing communication with Houston/Earth. Time is spent on maintenance, exercise, watching old messages and reading a journal by a soldier in the American civil war 1864.

Director:

William Eubank

Writer:

William Eubank

Stars:

Gunner Wright, Corey Richardson, Bradley Horne

2 wins & 1 nomination.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Gunner Wright	...	Captain Lee Miller
Corey Richardson	...	General McClain
Bradley Horne	...	Captain Lee Briggs
Nancy Stelle	...	Russian Astronaut Woman (as Nancy Stelmaszczyk)
Roger E. Fanter	...	The Storyteller
Jesse Hotchkiss	...	Skateboarder
Troy Mittleider	...	Marine
Brid Caveney	...	Retired Motorcycle Racer
Ambyr Childers	...	American Astronaut Woman
B. Anthony Cohen	...	Mission Control Chief (as Tony Cohen)
James C. Burns	...	Late Night Host
Lee Bettencourt	...	General McClain's Gaurd
Mark Eaton	...	Marine #1 / Crater Soldier
Brian Vanik	...	Marine #2
Dan Figur	...	Marine #3

Storyline

After losing contact with Earth, Astronaut Lee Miller becomes stranded in orbit alone aboard the abandoned International Space Station. As the life support systems dwindle, Lee battles to maintain his sanity whilst he alternates between performing repairs and reading the 1864 journal of an American Civil War soldier Captain Briggs. He faces a slow, claustrophobic and lonely death, until he discovers the mysterious object found by Briggs aboard the ship.

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Plot Keywords:

stranded | international space station | astronaut | mankind | alien object | 

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Taglines:

Have you ever felt alone?...What if you truly were?

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Genres:

Drama | Music | Sci-Fi

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

In the first ISS scene where Captain Lee is communicating with Houston, there is a box above his knees marked KayPro II. This is a computer termed a "luggable" and is from the mid-80's. They weigh about 30 pounds and have no battery.

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Goofs

Jet contrails are visible in some of the Civil War-era landscape shots.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Captain Lee Briggs: They say, when you hear sounds of devils, all else is quiet. My general question to that is: how do you know that what you are hearing is the work of such devious beings? I would venture to say that most devilish noises occur when large numbers of men decide to force the hand of mortality upon one another. And I'd say further that on such occasions, there is not just one sound, but many. It is a quiet orchestra of death. It is also possible that the man who wrote that saying
[...]

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Soundtracks

Sandbox
Written by Gunner Wright
Performed by Gunner Wright

User Reviews

For a budget so small, they did so much...

Usually, I think a work of art should stand on it's own without the viewer every having to hear a single word from those behind the project. Because in the end, the real art is what we see, not what they see. But in the case of Love, I feel like the filmmakers' feedback turned me from just being okay with the movie, to loving the work they came up with.

Love is a film that was made, not to tell us a story, but to get us thinking about what it means to connect with another human being and how essential that connection is to survival. Our Space captain returns to a new International Space Station and after a few days of communication, he is cut off. Unbeknownst to him, the world below him has completely destroyed themselves.

As I said before, Love is about inspiring thought within the viewer more than it's about telling a linear story. Their story of connection and how little we mean to the rest of the universe is quite clear. The sparse writing involved isn't too preachy and doesn't give away all meaning, giving the audience a bit of work to do. Gunner Wright does a decent job of playing the lonely astronaut, although I wish we could have gotten a bit more emotion out of him at times.

The visuals of the film were fantastic. The ultra slow motion of the Civil War battle scene up to the spectacular visuals at the end of the film, these guys did an amazing job. Also, there is an intense sense of isolation and desperation going on. Routine becomes the only way our captain stays together, but it's obvious there is a thin string holding him.

There were just two problems I had with Love...one of which I immediately wrote off after the talk back. Certain portions of the film looked professional and absolutely amazing for an budgeted film. But there were aspects, such as the astronaut's joke of a space suit and the obvious wall of box fans oddly added to the space station. The space station itself was supposed to supersede our current one, but the interior still looked like it was from the 1970. There was also unexplained gravity. After the film, we learned it was made for $500,000. What a phenomenal job. The director talk about how he filmed the battle scene in his parent's backyard and built every aspect of the film himself just by going to Home Depot was ridiculously awesome. The Space Station was built in the driveway by him and his little bother. Still, a lot of those very distracting things could have been taken care of in the script. Instead of a new Space Station, make it the one we've used for years. Mention we discovered artificial gravity. But those were left out.

My other (and really only) problem was Love was full of thought, but no love. We have this guy in space that is completely alone for years and the only thing we see him do is lose track of his sanity at times. But we never see moments where he breaks down There are moments of him missing his family, but the filmmakers spend too much time with the mundane tasks of life in Space rather than the emotional journey he is going through.

Love was well worth the wait and I almost wish they could do the film again with more money and small changes in the script. But I would say if you can excuse a few budget problems, you're going to have a glorious time watching the movie.

I'd also recommend reading that Carl Sagan quote on Pale Blue Dot before hand. You'll see the film closer to the filmmakers if you do...

I encourage people to read the quote from Carl Sagan about the photo "Pale Blue Dot" before going to see the film.

Details

Official Sites:

Official site

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

7 September 2012 (UK)

Also Known As:

Angels & Airwaves Love

Filming Locations:

San Diego, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$4,500,000 (estimated)

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

84 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1