sunshine "a hit"

March 25, 2010

The Movie Dude over at MarcoNews.com just posted an excellent review on Sunshine. Here is a portion of the article:

I've always had a tepid relationship with science fiction. Setting phasers to stun and robots named HAL just never really interested me.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the Star Trek movies (some of them) and no one is a bigger fan of the Alien series than I am. It's just that I was never really sold on the final frontier.

That said, I'm big enough to admit when a science-fiction film comes along that is absolutely amazing, I'll have no problem watching it and singing its praises a dozen times over.

That's why I'm writing about Sunshine this week, an incredible psychological thriller that just happens to take place aboard a spaceship.

It's the year 2057 and the sun is sick. In a nutshell, it's experiencing an internal anomaly that's basically causing it to fade at a rapid rate. If it fades completely, then Earth will fade with it. In other words, we all die.

To prevent that, a team of eight people are sent aboard the Icarus II, a space station headed towards the sun with hopes of re-igniting it via a colossal nuclear weapon. We're talking so big that it'd be impossible to gather enough materials in time to make another one before the sun dies.

Essentially, the team has only one shot.

Part of my issue with the sci-fi genre is the jargon and far-fetchedness that goes along with it. So I understand that using a word like "re-ignite" sounds hokie, but believe me when I tell you that a lot of research went into making Sunshine and most of it is scientifically accurate.

Back to the plot, obviously, delivering a bomb to the sun isn't as easy as it sounds (and I say that facetiously). The sun is roughly 93 million miles away. Not exactly a hop, skip and a jump.

Needless to say it'll take awhile to get there. Years, in fact, which leaves a lot of time to kill.

With such a giant ship and only eight people aboard it, you'd think there'd be enough room to give everyone a little space (no pun intended).

Through the use of advanced simulators, the astronauts are able to get a little taste of the outdoors, which relaxes them. But I don't care how good a simulator you have, a walk in the park is a walk in the park. Hard to do that out in the Milky Way.

The problem with being in closed quarters is that they're just that—closed quarters. And that starts getting to them.

They say to err is human and that's precisely the problem when you're in a situation like that. Human error can cause damage, turn Plan As into Plan Bs and can even be enough to make someone commit murder. And in closed quarters, there aren't a lot of places to run.

What started out as eight people setting out to save humanity quickly turns into them having to save themselves from lunacy. This sometimes can take the form of a man.

Head over to The Movie Dude to read the article in its entirety.


sunshine on syfy march 11th

March 10, 2010

Sunshine will be showing on the Syfy channel Thursday, March 11th. Check out Syfy's website for local times!


sunshine a "cerebral" sci-fi movie

January 14, 2010

The Gainsville Sun included a quick Sunshine mention in their entertainment column today. Check out "Moon and other sci-fis that don't talk down to you"!


top 100 movies of the decade

January 6, 2010

One of the members of The Donnybrook Writing Academy has estimated that there were 7,130 films made between 2000 and 2009, so naturally it is very exciting that Mountain Xpress Movies has named Sunshine as one of their top 100 movies of the decade!

View the entire list here and see if you agree with the rest!


more sunshine in the U.K.


December 16, 2009

According to IMDb.com, U.K. fans can catch a repeat of Sunshine on Sunday 20th December, on S4C.


sunshine in the U.K.


November 29, 2009

Our friends in the U.K. can catch Sunshine tonight on Channel 4. Be sure to check your local listings for showtimes!


hidden gem


October 3, 2009

On October 1, FemaleFirst announced that our beloved Sunshine is this week's hidden gem. They have rated it 4 out of 5 stars, referred to it as "breathtaking", and wrote a lengthy review which you can read here.

Sunshine Poster


ET flick & trailer


September 23, 2009

Express Night Out has included Sunshine in it's Future Space: Pandorum & Five More ET Flicks article. Here is what they had to say.

Danny Boyle became a household name this year with Slumdog Millionaire, but it's been his previous works—such as Trainspotting, 28 Days Later... and Sunshine—that have made us reevaluate the crazy choices humans make when thrust into the crappiest of life's situations. Heroin addiction, killer zombies—it's all the same.

With Sunshine—which came out in 2007 to critical praise, but little commercial attention—Boyle presented us with a crew of scientists who are traveling to the sun (whose light to Earth is fading because of some super-complicated process we don't understand) in order to drop off a humongous nuclear bomb. If all goes well, the bomb blows up, the crew dies, the Sun reignites and humanity keeps on living—but complications arise when the people on the Icarus II mission learn that the supposedly doomed group that came before them, Icarus I, didn't really disappear at all. What follows is a struggle that throws together fundamentalist religious beliefs with cutting-edge (albeit somewhat inaccurate) science to send one robust message about the philosophy of survivalism.

It's all weighty stuff, but with Cillian Murphy in a starring role, it's also pretty (and that's a big deal, when so many sci-fi flicks are full of super fug aliens).

Watch the Sunshine trailer here!



icarus II mention & viewing schedule


September 2, 2009

Back in July, Den of Geek posted a list of the Top 75 Spaceships in Movies and TV, listing the Icarus II at #66. Check out the article here. You will also find quotes from Sunshine's production designer, Mark Tildesley, as well as links to other Sunshine mentions.


icarus II


You can watch Sunshine starting Sept 4th through the end of October! Here is a list of showtimes for Sunshine on Cinemax.

  • Mon 10/5 12:30 AM @MAX - EAST@MAX - EAST
  • Wed 10/7 05:10 AM THRILLER MAX - EASTTHRILLER MAX - EAST
  • Wed 10/7 08:10 AM THRILLER MAX - WESTTHRILLER MAX - WEST
  • Sat 10/10 12:00 AM OUTERMAX - EASTOUTERMAX - EAST
  • Sat 10/10 03:00 PM @MAX - EAST@MAX - EAST
  • Sun 10/11 03:05 PM THRILLER MAX - EASTTHRILLER MAX - EAST
  • Sun 10/11 06:05 PM THRILLER MAX - WESTTHRILLER MAX - WEST
  • Tue 10/13 08:40 PM OUTERMAX - EASTOUTERMAX - EAST
  • Wed 10/14 07:20 AM THRILLER MAX - EASTTHRILLER MAX - EAST
  • Wed 10/14 10:20 AM THRILLER MAX - WESTTHRILLER MAX - WEST
  • Fri 10/16 07:20 PM @MAX - EAST@MAX - EAST
  • Sun 10/18 01:40 AM THRILLER MAX - EASTTHRILLER MAX - EAST
  • Sun 10/18 04:40 AM THRILLER MAX - WESTTHRILLER MAX - WEST
  • Sun 10/18 11:45 AM OUTERMAX - EASTOUTERMAX - EAST
  • Wed 10/21 04:55 AM MORE MAX - EASTMORE MAX - EAST
  • Wed 10/21 07:55 AM MORE MAX - WESTMORE MAX - WEST
  • Thu 10/22 12:00 AM OUTERMAX - EASTOUTERMAX - EAST
  • Thu 10/22 12:10 PM @MAX - EAST@MAX - EAST
  • Sat 10/24 05:50 PM OUTERMAX - EASTOUTERMAX - EAST
  • Mon 10/26 08:10 PM THRILLER MAX - EASTTHRILLER MAX - EAST
  • Mon 10/26 11:10 PM THRILLER MAX - WESTTHRILLER MAX - WEST
  • Wed 10/28 10:30 AM @MAX - EAST@MAX - EAST
  • Thu 10/29 09:00 AM OUTERMAX - EASTOUTERMAX - EAST
  • Thu 10/29 06:20 PM OUTERMAX - EASTOUTERMAX - EAST
  • Fri 10/30 07:40 AM THRILLER MAX - EASTTHRILLER MAX - EAST
  • Fri 10/30 10:40 AM THRILLER MAX - WESTTHRILLER MAX - WEST