Ad Astra

Ad Astra, a 2019 science fiction drama movie directed by James Grey and starring Brad Pitt, Tommy Lee Jones, Liv Tylor, Donald Sutherland among others. It is more of a psychological drama movie rather than pure technology although there is a lot of science frontiers being broken down as shown in the movie, for eg. colonies in moon, Mars and space travel to Saturn, Jupiter & Neptune. Brad Pitt (Roy McBride) is the son of Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones) who has gone away to space for 30 years in search of intelligent life on the universe, in the process he has travelled to Saturn, Jupiter and now stationed near Neptune. His space station has created some cosmic ray disturbances which has affected Earth also, so the son sets out to locate his dad in the vast universe, which takes 79 days from Mars itself. Lot of emotional tug of war between father and the son later, earth is safe from the cosmic disturbances and the power surges. The movie drags a bit in the middle especially when Brad is about to reach Neptune to find his dad after 3 decades. There is no emotional re-union sort of, the Dad has more or less lost his contact and interest in Earth. The movie was nominated to the Oscars in the sound mixing category. The special effects in the movie is quite extraordinary, it is in the human connect that the movie finds its weak spot. 
 

Babel

Babel is  a 2006 film starring Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett among others. It is set in four different countries Morocco Mexico, United States and Japan and the movie moves from one setting to another. Brad Pitt and his wife Cate are on a holiday to Morocco, leaving their two kids behind with their Mexican nanny in the US. They are emotionally distraught from having lost their third kid and so their marriage is on a strain. While in the bus, Cate is accidentally shot by a stray shot from one goatherd up in the mountains. The goatherd and his brother were given the gun by their uncle who gave it to them for protecting the herd from wolves. So Brad struggles with his bleeding wife and some emotionally disturbed co-passengers who think it is a terrorist attack and want to leave as soon as possible. Cate is taken to the village of the bus tour guide where there is no hospital but a local veterinary doctor sews up her wound. Meanwhile the nanny in the US has to go to Mexico for her son's wedding but the parents are not back, so she decides to take the kids with her to Mexico, a risky job but they manage to cross the border safely. Out in Japan, a deaf girl Rinko Kakuchi is shown as a rebellious kid and has unnatural sexual drive. She is recovering from the suicide of her mother so uses sexuality as a balm to calm her. She does not succeed any time. Her father Koji Yakusho is equally emotional disturbed and he has given away the gun as a memento to the goatherd's uncle. When the Japanese detective asks him about his wife's death, he says that he shot herself with a rifle, not jumping from the balcony. The connection between these stories slowly comes to the fore. There is one strand which connects all these stories. Absolutely powerful movie directed by Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. The music by Gustavo Santaolalla is simply breath taking. I watched this movie on Amazon Prime Video, unfortunately the movie did not have any sub-titles, which is a major drawback. The acting by the cast is absolutely good. There are so many languages used in the movie - Moroccan, Spanish, English, Japanese, Sign language but there were no sub-titles. The movie is mostly shot on actual locations which is breath taking. Adriana Barazza as the nanny has done a superb role. The Moroccan part of the actors were also extremely good and lifelike.